Sniper TNS Interview @149st

SNIPER TNS INTERVIEW

©2005 @149st Do not republish without permission.

What inspired you to become involved in writing?
I was doing graff on my own in 1978. I use to write SPY 2 on the streets. Then I started tagging SNIPER. Later on in 1980 I met LUCK and he introduced me to EL 3 and they brought me to Fort Hamilton Lay-up. That's where I did my first train. NR throw-ups on the floater spots of the F ding-dongs. As I started to get up bombing all the outsides I would just tag on the insides with some ink just to even up everything. Even up the tags with the throw-ups and from there it use to break up and go all over the place.

The Fort Hamilton lay-up in Brooklyn was known as a TNS crew favorite. What were other the locations where you hit Fs?
We use to go to Queens. We use to go Sutphin boulevard, Parsons, 75th Avenue. We went to a lot of places. I use to go bomb out in Brooklyn. The Ns and RRs with AC, BT, TAX, KROOK, RISK, ROOK, RET, JOE NUTS, SES, which was my partner. I could keep going. There was a lot of guys I hooked up with bombing the Ns and RRs. I use to travel a lot too and I use to go to Duey Yard. We use to catch a variety of trains there. Duey, the Ghost Yard, the D Yard, I use to go just about every week at least four or five times a week until I saw a lot of my throw-ups running on the trains and I would have to go some place else a place that I never really touched like 175th. We use to go to the Ghost-Yard we use to go to other places like 155th on the D line. As soon as I found another spot I would just do some stuff. I would go with different partners like SE, SES DOG, EL 3.

Tell us about your experiences with EL 3.
Writing with EL 3 was lots of fun we use to go in drop a bomb and come in and come out, but we would bring a sufficient amount of paint and hit one floater on each car and from there that would be running like crazy! Pretty much one floater on each train car and we would go on to the next train do like a couple of throw-ups on both sides. That would be it, then once we ran out of paint we would use all the markers. We use to get or use our home-made ones some times thick, sometimes wide, and at times I wanted to get a little stylish with my tag so I started doing the calligraphy pretty much it was my trade mark after a while a lot of people knew for doing the calligraphy tags and from there as I started to get popular some writers had nothing better to do than compete have war with me cross me out.

Who was TNS at war with back in those days?
We use to have war with a bunch of guys. I had war with SKEME TNT, TAC 147. I had war with SAGO WOW. I had war with BOE also.

The TNS crew also liked the D Yard. When you went to the D Yard who were some of the people you ran into when you went there?
SLIP MPC, CAP MPC, MITCH 77, DISCO MED, KEN 007. COPE 2 I met one time we were gonna' do a little bomb but it didnÕt happen. BOOM ROCK who also wrote BOOM 2 and MR. FRIDAY. One time we ran into DURO and KIST in the yard.

How did you meet SES?
I met SES through REN TNS. REN brought me out to Brooklyn one time and I hooked up with a couple of writers out there. We kind of clicked pretty easy so then we decided to drop a bomb and after a while EL threw SES down with TNS. SES had a nice curvy style. He also had nice pieces and made a major mark on the Ns and RRs back in the days. It was an experience for me and it was a lot of fun we had fun running away from the cops.

Do you have any interesting raid stories?
AnswerI had some crazy raids! One time I went bombing with SES and it was the elevated number 2 train and a raid train pulled up next to us and we were eating ice cream and these cops just popped out of nowhere and we were still in the car and we just jumped down and ran down the cat walk. We were already taking the train back home.It was wild.We had a good ten, fifteen cops chasing us but lucky we got away. I would say the most wildest raid was in the D Yard. It was a good 25 cops and I happened to be under the raid train and the motor was coming at me and as the motor was moving! I happened to move out of the way because I almost got hit by the motor and it was a scary feeling and I thank god I got out of that! I probably would have gotten killed by accident. I had some other hair raising moments. We got raided one time in the number 4 Yard by the D Yard, which is on the opposite side and I was with KEN 007 and MITE and we got raided we had to climb up a pipe and I was also with SCRIBE. We got out at Tracey Towers then some guys surrounded us and asked us why we were going through there. So I said were just passing through. The cops are chasing us so we had to get away if it wasnÕt for my fast talking we would have gotten beat down.

Who was the first writer you can remember seeing up on trains?
0ne of the first writers I saw up on a train was IZ THE WIZ and pretty much LEE TF5. Graffiti pretty much stuck in my brain because I use to see these IZ throw-ups on these old, old rusty CCs. They were brown rusty CCs with mesh kind of like looking seats with funny looking fans on the top. That was when I was like 9 or 10 years old.

Tell us about 199 Henry Street the TNS hangout?
199 Henry use to be an abandon building where we use to hang out every day. We use to all meet there. We planned what we were going to do we did our sketches, got our paint together. We would designate a time we would go bombing. What time, what day and what supplies we needed and all that. From that time on that was the spot where we always met. Once in a blue moon there would be visitors that would come down to 199. Some were wanted some, were unwanted and sometimes EL felt comfortable and sometimes EL didn't; depending on who it was. He either liked them or he didnÕt that's just the way he was.

Who were some of the writers who came down to 199 to hang out?
TRACK 2, DEAL NSA. There were a lot of them. SES, MIN, SAGO and others.

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