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I grew up in the Bronx, I lived in a housing project called Parkside Houses. It was located right along side the # 2 elevated subway running along White Plains Road, Right between Burke and Allerton Ave. stations. Back then projects were more middle class than low income, there were plenty of people to hang out with . Later on when the projects became more low income and with the building of CO-OP city where a lot of parkside residents went it became a much more “ HARD” type of place to live. My family moved to a private house around 1975. I started writing around 1972, There was no actual inspiration.. I was hanging out with my friend Mitch, who became Crachee…Graffiti was just becoming noticeable…On a whim we decided to go get paint cans.. Make up tags and start hitting. The first hitting we did was on the back walls of the supermarket Finest just off Burke Ave….. Vamm and Crachee were born.

You will hear many opinions on how I derived at the name Vamm… I have heard so many explanations it has become stupid….Although there are two rumors that I hear constantly….But because it seems to have become such a curious topic I do not say what the actual meaning is. Writing was not a big thing to co-op city..There was no subway that actually went there…The closest train was the 5 line to Dyre Ave…The most notable hitting in co-op city was to the buses that used to park in the back of section 5…I only did that maybe 2 times.. It was boring…..I wanted trains. The earliest names that I remember were …Taki 183… Spin…Super Kool 223..Groups were not an inspiration at the time ..Writing groups came along later on…Groups were a way writers thought they could protect there pieces. If you belonged to the same group you would respect each others pieces. That is why I formed The Crazy 5….The original 5 members..Vamm.. Crachee.. Blade.. Death.. Tull 13 was huge on the 2,4,5,6,and 7 lines. I allowed outsiders in for 2 reasons…1 to spread the name.. 2 so our pieces would not be HOT 110 ed.

In The beginning I only hung out with my partners…My first partner was Crachee ..Then later on it was Blade, When the Crazy 5 was formed we included Death ..and Tull 13 …..We were not only writing partners we were lifetime friends.

Gangs were big in the early 70”s..Of all the hitting we did we never went to the 2 yard at 241^st…The white gang The Golden Guineas hung out there.. They hated Graffiti and called it a black thing. They hated us because they accused us of trying to be like the niggers. I knew a guy named Vinny L. and asked for a meeting with him. I explained to him that we were not trying to be like the black graffiti artists…That we were going to kick there ass at their own game. Since the Golden Guineas hung out right at the 2 yard and did there drinking.. partying and girl banging there, We agreed that we would not go to the 2 yard in respect for them.. And they would not bother our hitting as long as we did it elsewhere.

Vamm and Crachee and Death took over the 2”s and 5”s quickly because we got into the graffiti flow…We got so wrapped up in it we went wild…Also it was easier for us to rack tons of paint because living in a more upscale neighborhood gave us almost un-limited ability to steal paint….We did 95% of our hitting between Burke and Gun Hill road on the elevated …lay-ups.. Once in awhile we would go in the day to the Esplanade lay up on the 5 line. The reason we had so much success was that we stayed out of the yards…Besides the above mentioned Golden Guineas it was to easy to get caught in the yards.. TA people there…We not only wanted to kick ass on the trains but we wanted to do it WITHOUT getting caught…Any asshole can get caught. And I never did. And that left a few TA cops un-happy.

We had heard about the writer’s bench at 149st for awhile, After we had taken over the 2,4,and 5 lines we rode by the bench twice one day in the last car of the 2 or 5 and just looked out at about 25 artists just hanging at the bench. The doors closed and we went back uptown. The next day we went back ,me.. Crachee and Death..We exited the train and just stood by the famous bench.. We spoke to only each other as train after train rode by, We listened to what the others were saying.. They were cheering their pieces and commenting on the unknowns. Finally after a long time and us not getting on many trains someone asked who are you guys Me and crachee looked at each other and said nothing.. Death who had balls of steel said we are the owners of this line…We introduced ourselves and spent at least the next 2 hours talking graffiti and meeting THE BENCH.

Graffiti groups were becoming popular.. We formed our group not only based on Graffiti but the fact that we were long time friends that grew up together.. The original 5 members were Vamm… Crachee 11... Blade… Death... Tull 13… As far as the friendship part went it was us 5 only… To get the group name famous we let in other writers we hung with such as… Comet… Ajax,... Z-73 & Kivu 1 ( Female writers )... Devil... Sabre 115… Roach… Fritz… Silver Tips… Gear .... Kram 5… Hippie 44 ... Sketo ... Shake… Shorty 5… Nitro.... We became so popular outside artists wanted to join. We had guys like Mr. Pug,... Stave 2, ... Kindo… Doc Cool… Kill 3... Staff… AJ 161... John 150 ... Cliff 159... LSD-om ... Pistol 1 ... Butch 2. and more.

the only thing I can say about racking is our success was based on going to places that others did not…We

used to take buses up into Westchester county to Yonkers, White Plains.. we even took the path trains to Newark twice to rack. We carried our dungaree jackets on out shoulders with the bottom of the sleeves closed off with safety pins and we just filled up the sleeves as much as we could. We would get hundreds of cans . Getting the equipment to become Kings took some brains…..Smarts helped us to become kings of the lines. Most of our hitting was done on the 2,4,5,and 6 lines.. For a short time

we were hitting the 7 line.. We would walk into the 7 yard and hit everywhere…Other places I actually hit are the 4 yard….Baychester …Union Turnpike for the E's…The D yard for the D’s, CC, A's K's…the Coney Island Yard…And what not many people know is that 4 levels below City Hall is a lay up station that you can do Top to Bottoms just standing on a station. I also ventured to 3 abandoned stations to hit. The only hitting area The Crazy 5 had under control were the Burke Ave. lay ups..

We controlled them and did not let outsiders make them HOT….We protected our space. The best chase story I have is a night Death and I were hitting the lay-ups between Burke and Allerton ave. We had finished all of our paint and decided to climb down the pillars at Arnow Ave which was right at our Park side hangout. I climbed down first…As I stood at the bottom of the pillar telling Death to come down a Police car pulled up in front of me. The cop on the passenger side lowered his window and said who are you talking to ? I said nobody and proceeded to walk across the street…Just as I got halfway across the cop yelled at me ( Hey is that your friend up there…Very angrily….Death was up at the perch of the pillar urinating on the hood of the police car…I started to tear out…After tearing about a block I glanced over my shoulder and this cop was in hot pursuit…I thought holly shit and took it up 3 notches and really tore ass…He chased me about 3 blocks when I dove head first over a 4 foot fence to one of the grass areas of Park side…. He did not get over the fence.. I gained distance and got away as I heard him yelling and cursing at me.

All writers were looking for stuff that would draw attention.. Unique ideas of drawings…I favored pieces that I did like…My name done in stars and stripes like the American flag…I did an upside down piece like you were looking in a mirror…The Burger King Man in a top to bottom.. I also drew a cartoonish paint can spraying my name who I named Melvin Von Spray can… He had an evil look.. I take pride that in all my pieces I somewhere wrote the Crazy 5…..I also many times wrote other members of The Crazy 5”s names with my pieces to help spread their name. Another unique thing we did was include our girlfriends’ names in some of our pieces. Pieces by others that I liked were the Reaper by Staff 161, And Yosemite Sam by Tracy 168. One particular TA cop that I knew and wanted my ass but just could not get

it was officer Rodriguez.. badge # 3567…We had run ins on many occasions but again I never got busted. Not to say that every time he saw me he busted my chops.. I think he could have gotten me but I really feel that Graffiti artists were not his # 1 priority.. There was a lot more serious crime going on that he was concerned with. I did really piss him off one time when I did a piece and at the end of it I put..Dig3567…I put his badge # up as an insult….The TA buffed it as soon as they could. He caught up to me and gave me a good kick in the ass for doing that.. And years later after graffiti was out of my life and I was riding the subways to get to work I ran into him occasionally and always we greeted each other with respect. I am sure that by now he is retired and I wish him the best. I cannot say exactly when I stopped.. It was more of I grew out of it… I got older and it just became something I used to do. We can say I retired. It was a great time and just for the fact that I am doing

_" VAMMTASTIC "............

- an interview like this it is something that will never be forgotten . It is a period in my life that has many, many memories. Blade continued into the graffiti world long after the other Crazy 5 members quit. Blade has become famous to a degree.. has made money doing Graffiti and because of his on going dedication to it he deserves all he can get and I admire that. Blade in a way kept the crazy 5 alive as long as he could but he had to move forward…The other 4 were gone…But we should not be forgotten. The graffiti movement back in the early 70”s was something that grew into an amazing event…It is still going on now over 30 years later…Weather you were a King or a toy.. or anything in between it was a happening that will never happen again. I am proud to have been a huge part of it. My most gratifying part to me personally is I came away clean.. Moved on to have a great wife and family.. And still have all my memories. Last closing statement…..........................VAMM...... CRACHEE… DEATH…. TULL 13 and BLADE………………….. The Crazy 5!

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Look for the book on the Crazy Five written by Crachee 11 in book stores soon. Photo credits go to VAMM, BLADE, ROGER, BOM 5 , NELSON, PC KID (R.I.P) and the team at Subwayoutlaws.com. Looks for Bio's of other CRAZY FIVE members in the near future.

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Copyright © Subway outlaws.com 2003. Should any one have photos of VAMM's work, Please contact us at MESSAGE@SUBWAYOUTLAWS.COM FINALLY IN ! Take a sneak peek.....