Classic Hits: New York's Pioneering Subway Graffiti Writers (Video)

I keep hearing a variation on this theme from writers in their late thirties and forties: "If you weren't in Style Wars/Wild Style, it's like you never existed." No offense to the excellent people who were, but many people feel there's a lot more to the story.

Classic Hits: New York's Pioneering Subway Graffiti Writers is a new book by Alan Fleisher and Paul Iovino from niche publication house, Dokument Press.

Billing itself as "the most visual book on early 1970s graffiti ever published" (big call), the book gets its cultural heavies from the early '70s writing career of author Alan Fleisher (ALE ONE), who also happened to be a keen photographer.

The book features an introduction from PHASE 2 and essays and quotations by ALE ONE, ALL JIVE 161, BLADE, CAY 161, CHECKER 170, CLYDE, DEATH, FDT 56, FLINT 707, IZ THE WIZ, JESTER1, JOE 182, LAVA, LSD OM, MICO, PNUT 2, ROGER 1, SKI 168, SNAKE 1, TAKI 183 and VAMM.

"Their names have garnered star status far beyond graffiti culture, and without them, no Seen, no Banksy, no Revok. In Classic Hits, the pioneers talk about how they got started and where graffiti took them. Together, the essays offer an invaluable picture of graffiti in the early, playful years."