New episode of Breaking The Rules. This time we return to Alicante to hear the personal story and to know about the history of the city, through one of his graffiti fathers. Loco13 began, as many writers of the 80's, with break dance and today continues to paint although away from social networks and current media.

Once again thanks to the Breaking The Rules team: Adrián Robos, Harrybones, R de Rumba, Hen67, Anisa and the latest addition Moockie who is preparing the Breaking The Rules website. The music is by Lalo López.

Thanks to Aire for his invaluable help for this episode.

Loco13 started break dancing in 83-84, when he was 13 years old, after seeing some tourists dancing on the beach promenade in Alicante. At that time we were in the prehistory of graffiti.

In 1985 he was training with the Power Rock. One day they came across a girl they called "la Ramon", because she was wearing a painted jacket. Eventually she invited them to her house and they saw that she had a "Wonder" painted on the wall of the terrace, with a brush but with graffiti . “La Ramon" turned out to be Anayansi.

Later Sombras Callejeras painted two pieces, one with "Alicante Break" and the other, unfinished (they had had problems with the police) with the name of the group. When Loco and his friends saw them, they decided to paint, but, as the sprays were very expensive, they had to go to the Pryca (old Spanish supermarket chain). He and Nene took turns to take out two cans while they bought some nonsense to disguise, but in the end they were caught, the cans were taken away and they had to pay for them.

This is how their story begins...

L- They found the cans and we were told we had to pay them. I think it was around 1500 pesetas (pre-Euro Spanish coin), and we did not have that on us. Ángel told me he had money at home, and he left to get it. Meanwhile I stayed behind with the security guard in a room, awaiting his return. About an hour and a half later he came back and we were allowed to leave.

We already had 4 cans outside, plus the 2 we had just had to pay up. And with that we did some bubble pieces. The first I did was a MAD. Bubble letters. I had chosen metallic paint. No idea how it worked, but I had seen what they did in the movies, and I had to try out the spray. The truth is that I loved that first impression, i was fast at painting and shading off.

M- With us is an honor to have Loco’s mother, and we are going to ask you how your son was as a child.

Mother- I didn’t pay any attention. We he went off to paint, I went off to work in the fields, I didn’t have time for it. He hung out a lot with friends that would dance with their heads. Like Multi, who would do lots of turns on his head, I remember because I found it funny.

L- Don’t you remember when my room started to get all tagged? The closet, when we lived in Alcalá Galiano.

Mother- As there were many friends coming and going, I didn’t really pay much attention. They were clean and healthy. I left to work, but as they weren’t into drugs, I let them be. A bunch of them came over, into the house, I didn’t know their parents.

M- So basically you had a lot of freedom.

L- Yes. There was a Break contest in Galerías (department store) and after that, everybody kept dancing. We decided to meet up in the Explanada every Sunday morning. I started going every week to check out what was new. There I met what would later become my piece buddies. There was Tom, Alex, Octopus, Marca2. More than doing pieces, as cans were really expensive, we’d tag. Tony, Nene, later I met Kami, Rojo Alicante, Rebel who in those days wrote Electro, Norma that used Informático, but we didn’t properly read it and thought it said ‘Normalico’, and that’s how it became Norma. There were many that were into computers and that are still in that world nowadays.

The whole marker thing was more at the beginning. Remember that in ’86, the Crazy Beat won the Spanish Break championship in Barcelona, it was in the Music Palace club. It had a profound influence for me, and a month after that, Octopus and Tom came to ask me if I wanted to be part of their group. I accepted, although I left behind the Power Rock, which had been the group I had grown in. We were neighborhood chums.

From then on, I had to go to Juan XXIII (neighborhood in Alicante). I lived around Plaza de Toros, and that meant having to go further to practice. Getting into the champion team of Spain required a lot, and I had to train. I was the link between the grown-ups and the young ones, which were Multi and I. Multi wasn’t allowed to go to Juan XXIII and we had to practice at his house, on the kitchen, which I now see and I’m gob smacked because it’s so small we barely fit. We had to be really careful, his mom was quite fussy. We’d notice in the shows it wasn’t a good practice spot, as during our performance we’d barely move.

This doing shows thing came with the following: we’d do our gigs, and afterwards they’d be people coming to ask for an autograph. The first time I found myself in this situation, I had no tag that was very break of hip hop. So I had to get to it, and started using Crazy.

Loco13, Alex and Tom Rock, Christmas 87-88.

M- So it’s always been clear for you, huh? Mad, Crazy, and Loco…

L- Yes, because it was a name I had gotten in Power Rock. They’d say I’d have some moments of craziness from time to time, and that’s why they gave me the name. Craziness in my dancing and in my temper; sometimes when trying out something and it didn’t work, I got angry and broke stuff, or got into an argument, stuff like that…

M- So starting from those autographs, you started painting.

L- Before that we must walk a bit along the history line of the country, because we started meeting people, and not only from Alicante. We met people from Barcelona, and the next year, we were there. I met the DFR and the D.C. Rockers. Some of their members, due to interest in graff, had already been to the Henry Chalfant exposition. I had only seen the flyer, but I was told Lee Quinones and Henry Chalfant were there. They’d run the Wild Style movie. I wanted to see it, and we got our hands on it through a german guy who came to see us practice in Juan XXIII. He brought the first copy of the movie that was broadcasted on German TV. It was the original version, with german subtitles (later on it came on TV here in Spain and I recorded it). I barely understood anything, but with the actions and my little English, I got some of it. Later when I met Kami, as his English was better, I understood a bit more.

L-Have I explained how I came to meet Kami?

M- No.

L- Nene and I listened to a radio show on Saturdays. We would call in and ask them to put on Break music, HipHop. There was another guy that used to call in too, and ask for the same music. The broadcaster asked who was calling and that guy said “I am Kamikaze”. And we thought ‘hey, this guy asks for the same thing as we do’. We called the radio station and asked of he could ask Kamikaze for his phone number. He was chill and went along, and shortly after we called him and invited him to meet up in the explanada one of the following Sundays. That’s how we met.

I met Kami through break dancing, and from then on we moved forward. I had the movie, but I didn’t get shit, and he helped me out to understand what they were saying.

Another thing was that I’d look for magazines, or anything related to break or hip hop. In those days, thanks to the Henry Chalfant expo flyer, I already knew what hip hop was, because on the back of the flyer there was a glossary. From there on, I came across a book called The Graffiti, from Craig Castleman, whom I had the chance to meet a couple of years ago, and I loved the book. Specially the part about Ex-Vandals and all about the nights on the trains and the bombing. He also explained everything from a graffiti point of view. The movies were cool, but this was like firsthand info. There was also the bit about the NYC history from before the large pieces, the whole tagging story. We had to do the same, and that’s how All City came about.

“Some people remember “Loco, you would tear up our sketches, you were a bastard”. But I saw that I had to stimulate them, give them some hard love, because we needed to have our identity, our style.”

There was no subway in Alicante or anything like that. Buses were what went around. At first, we’d meet up in my house, but at a certain point there’d be so many people that my mother said ‘up to here and no further’. We decided to get another meeting place, just as in the book, and we settled on a corner where almost all bus companies drove by. There we’d talk about graffiti, we’d check out each other’s sketches, we’d watch what drove by, and you’d try to get something done to be seen. First it was only a few of us, the week after a bit more. Some people remember “Loco, you would tear up our sketches, you were a bastard”.

But I saw that I had to stimulate them, give them some hard love, because we needed to have our identity, our style. Kami mentions this in his podcast, and I saw that clear too: we need to have our own thing. I’d see people from NYC having their own style, we had to forge our own. At first, what I did a lot was take a loose letter and fixating on them. I’d start drawing them, and then making them mine, making my version.

Another slap in the face was when, in ’87, we went to Movida Gansa.

In Movida Gansa, we saw people doing pieces, Henry was also around there, and we also saw pics from NYC. The guys from Sweden had brought a magazine with in it pieces from Mode2 and Bando, of what was going on in Paris. Pictures of the Rock Steady, of the New York subway, and I met the people that painted abroad. Mast really caught my attention, Fase, the Swedish, Prince, and I don’t know who else. That was also the first time we saw someone do a piece, live.

I had been dancing with some English guys that summer. One of them did graffiti and he sketched our group’s name and gave it to us as a present. Those were the letters we based our first piece on, but later in the club were we organized ‘Que Punto de Fiesta’, we did a kind of graffiti rock. We had a performance and asked the owners of the club for some paint. We did two performances, and we did a piece. We were off to a side, not on the main floor. It was a garden club, they put our panels outside and there we did our Crazy Beat piece.

“ “That summer I was dancing with some English guys. One of them was a writer, he sketched the name of the crew and gave it to us. Those were the letters on which we based our first piece.” ”

L- After that, we got another gig, we did a piece in the DADA club. On the bar there was a big, fitted carpet. We were such newbies that we asked for plastic paint and turpentine. We were mixing it up, and a man that worked there took a look and told me: ‘I don’t know much about paint, but I would say plastic paint need to be mixed with water, not turpentine’. Of course, we saw it wasn’t mixing at all, so we did as we were told. That carpet sucked up the 25 liters of paint. We did a monkey with a Kangol, Octopus, Tom and me.

There a funny anecdote happened with Tom and Kami. They had asked Tom to paint the DJ cabin. That’s where the wariness began. Tom asked Kami how to write ‘Pon música” (play music), but Tom wasn’t allowing Kami to paint, so Kami got pissed off and told him t was written like this ‘Don’t play music’. When the Dj got to the cabin, he tripped. He said, “Hey I do not think this means the same”. Hahahahahaa. Tom didn’t change it.

M- The first piece you did on the street was the group’s name. Tell me how that went?

L- We went to a school during the night, I think it was Los Salesianos. What we didn’t know is that across the street there were public office buildings, and once we started doing the outline of the letters, a police car appeared. The agent walks up to us, remember this was in the times of the ETA. ‘Good evening- What are you doing?’ ‘Well, we’re painting, graffiti”- we said with our attitude on. He asked what that was, and we showed him our sketch; he liked it and asked who had done it and if we had more. ‘Can you bring them? Where do you live?’

Tom lived close by and went home to get some sketched. The rest of us stayed with the cop.

M- You’re always the hostage, huh?

L- Yup, yes, it’s always been that way. He came back after a while with the sketches, and even though he liked them, he said he couldn’t let us do that there. “You’re going to have to find an abandoned place, which doesn’t belong to anyone.”

They put us into the patrol car and took each of us home.

L- We switched to the tomato factory that was abandoned and was on our way. The first time we were doing a piece there, a whole downpour came down on us. We couldn’t paint then, we had to wait a while longer, but ended up doing our piece. Then Tom did another on one side, he put Tony or something like that. Later Kami and I went back and did the Howard duck piece. That warehouse slowly started to get filled in. Then we did a piece on the Bola de Oro square, it had a diagonal wall that had windows in it, and the inner part was quite discreet, and it didn’t bother anyone. We took it. Then Alejandro did the outer part and had trouble with the cops; but he did do the whole wall, in one night, he had balls. Although they did make him cover it up. He didn’t want to, so he asked me to do it for him, and I had to otherwise he’d be reported.

Graffiti downtown was the trigger, more people started coming out, we’d all get together and we started to polish up our style.

M- That’s when you tore up people’s sketches, right?

L- Yes, I was like the teacher to them. Kami and I were a bit ahead of the rest and we passed on what we knew to those who responded well. I think about that now, and it’s like it was a sort of agora, as the classics did. We’d get together and just shared it all, to all who came. And between all of us, we started developing the style. And then appeared mister Fat, Toxic, Dólar Tiro, Sombra, Puma. The best of each place. Rebel, Ghost, Tony, Poli… each day we were a larger group of people, and afterwards we’d all go to the club that was near. Or we’d flock down the rambla, all of us, bombing it all along the way. But, then again, who was going to say anything? We were out as a herd and tagging everything. Businesses, buses, bus stops, etc… and we started to be a problem. The cops started getting involved.

M- You told me on the phone how you learned to give phone conferences…

L- When I started meeting people from Madrid and Barcelona, I’d do a lot of talking on the phone, and of course, that became a problem. My mom put a lock on the phone dialing disc. I couldn’t call anymore. One of those nights in the station, someone told me that it was not actually necessary to turn the wheel to be able to dial. You just had to press the hookswitch the same number of times as the digits of the phone number. So, in that way you memorized people’s phone numbers, and I had to practice a bit, but when I got the hang of it, we’d go around looking for locked phones. There’d sometimes be phones in foyers, or at taxi stands, or in official buildings. For example, I think the superintendent at Kami’s place once got a considerable phone bill. We’d just go in and call.

M- So you’re saying that when Kami says he called Loomit, it was done this way?

L- No, that was at his father’s restaurant, where Kami worked. We had gotten pictures from Siko, from Munich and Dortmund, and a bunch of other places. They were of great quality and we were in awe of how brutal they were whilst painting. One of the pics had Loomit’s phone number and tag on it. I told him ‘Why don’t you call?’. Kami called and it was just as he said, and they started corresponding. And with others too. There was an English guy, Steam, that I cant remember whether we met him through Escive or Prince. Can’t recall, but he got pictures from London, and we started having a string of contacts. Back then, you’d see someone with a Def records, or thick shoelaces and sneakers, and you’d deduce he danced too. And we’d approach that person to meet them. Sometimes it turned out to be a disappointment, but other times not. Also, Alicante is quite touristic, so we’d meet lots of people during the summer that came for the holidays, as well as Benidorm, where we’d do some gigs. Other days we’d take our vinyl flooring with us, hit the streets, danced and passed the cap around; and, well, we’d meet people. Becoming aware of the international scene was something else. It was a whole other level.

We’d trip. I really liked TCA. We had bought the books of Henry Chalfant and Prigoff (RIP).

It was much of Henry’s fault what happened here on the peninsula. Because he had lots of good gestures with loads of people from here.

L- After that, break dancing took a step back and graffiti took over, there were people who reprimanded me for still being hooked to break dancing even though it wasn’t ‘in’ anymore. But the feeling I got while doing a windmill, nothing else gave me that.

Besides, graffiti was really booming in Europe, and some of that was in the air. We made good contacts with people from Barcelona, in ’88 I exchanged letters with Sutil, Prince and later I met people from Alcorcón during one summer, and Zeta invited us over during the Christmas holidays. A bunch of us got together; people from Barcelona, a couple of Swedish, our people and people from Madrid and did a small jam. I think I still have pictures of that. Many of these things we’re commenting, if I’d take out my albums, I could be showing them to you.

We are now in ’88, we’re starting to do real pieces, I’m starting to level up, we’re bombing like crazy, we start doing trains; and Kami and I had promised ourselves one thing: taking a trip to NYC. “When we turn 18, and we’re independent, we’re going to NYC.” When the time came, my visa wasn’t approved, his was, I stayed behind in Barajas (Madrid airport). I told him “They’re starting to stop painting subways, this is the moment, you gotta go. If I was in your shoes, I’d go”. I went back to Alcorcón or Móstoles, got ahold of Jase of the Jungle Kings and told him: “I have the money for the trip to NYC, and I have to go somewhere. How about we go to Paris?”. We went to a travel agency, got bus tickets and off to Paris we went. During that time I was coming across the arrow-y graff in downtown Madrid, but I realized that the graffiti in Alcorcón was different. It was a punk style and a hip hop style. The people from Alcorcón were giving it that almost Parisian flavor, and I was liking it way more than what I was seeing from the ‘flecheros’ (arrow makers). Although I did meet some of them later, and honestly... I mean, like Muelle, on that trip to Paris… Look, we took a bus that came from Portugal and stopped in Benavente, and I ate a bunch of his pieces on the way. I did not expect to com across pieces of his in the middle of nowhere, hahahahha.

L- So anyway, to Paris we went. Kami got the NYC groove, and I got the Paris one. I took pics, we went to the Stalingrad area, that was also in its last phase, and almost crossed paths with Lokiss, who was doing those strange machines. We touched the wall, and it was still wet.

We were quite lost over there, walking miles around like nuts. I’ve got another great anecdote here. We stayed at Nest’s house, through mediation of Zeta. I had really stinky feet, from having walked so much all day, my fucking sneakers reeked. And Nest was saying, “You either wash your feet or I’m not closing the damn windows”. And I was telling him, “Yo, man, I’ve been walking all day, I’m dead tired, I don’t feel like standing up now”, but of course I ended up going to wash them, it was November, and it was freezing hahaha. Something happens there at night, which to me seemed magical; at night everything sort of shined, it was crystalline, the frost over everything… it was beautiful, but so very cold. Nevertheless, Nest took us to clubs that were in at the time, during the free moments he had, and he took us to one where the TCA were. There I met Mode 2, Bando and Boxer. I was in awe, as I really liked them, but it was a one-off thing. We also were able to dance with some of the Paris City Breakers, who were a bit in decline in those days.

We were there for a week, and we bombed with the cans we had found in the Stalingrad area, but didn’t do any pieces because I didn’t have the budget for it. We had errands to run for our friends too, and it was just the two of us, so we had to stretch the money.

When we arrived back here, we didn’t have a penny left. The Portuguese workers bus had dropped us off in Burgos, it was really cold and we had no money. I remember going to the ticket counter and asking how and what we could do in order to get to Madrid. The guy at the station told us “Get on the train, show your ID to the conductor, and you’ll be able to pay for it later”.

We got on the train, in a wagon where there only two others, who got off the train after two or three stops. These were those old wagons where the seats were next to each other, and as we were all alone, we laid down to sleep. The next morning, Jase wakes me up. We were in Madrid already. The conductor hadn’t come, and if he had we hadn’t woken up. We got off quickly.

“‘Look, I have the ticket to leave to Spain tomorrow. If you take me in tonight, I will miss the bus, and then I will have to do what it takes to get me to Spain’. He talked with his superior and we could leave.”

During those years, when we traveled from south to north, there was Stones, a club we’d go to. We’d cross the whole of Madrid from Móstoles or Alcorcón, and we’d bomb the train and subway on the way. In Barcelona as well, when I was there in ’87, for the Movida Gansa, I’d go tagging on the subway with Turtle. The security guard would spot us, so we’d run off at full speed and we’d jump into the subway right before the doors would shut, and we’d give the bird to the guard.

In those days it was popular in Barcelona to jump the stile. I’ve practiced. You know, when in Rome do as Romans, hahaha. In Paris we had something similar. We bought our ticket, but in one of the stations in the outskirts of town, we saw everyone doing just that, jumping it and leaving. So, we did too. We had trouble with the cops on our last night, we almost remained in Paris. They caught us in the tunnels. The came out of nowhere and asked us for our tickets, and we told them we didn’t have any because we didn’t have any money. It was either paying them the ticket fee or staying a night in the hole. One of them spoke a bit of Spanish, and I told him “Look, I have the ticket to leave to Spain tomorrow. If you take me in tonight, I will miss the bus, and then I will have to do what it takes to get me to Spain”. He talked with his superior and we could leave.

After that there was another thing, the English guy I knew sent me a flyer and it was for a “Street..” something or other. Known writers would be there, such as Jon156, Lokiss, Ash. I saw that flyer and thought – we need to get over there. England, London. So we went to London, and then to Bridlington, where this was taking place. London was terrible, I also hate it. We ended up having to sleep in Victoria station. We were out money real fast. I didn’t have much with me, and neither did Tom. They tried to rob him too, fuck him up. We got shoved into a building, me a couple of stories down, and they took Tom upstairs. I heard him starting to yell. I was with some guy who tried to stop me, but I got him off me. I went upstairs to look for Tom. I found him, with some guy atop of him. I took hold of that guy by the front and smashed him into the wall, he ran out. Tom was OK and they hadn’t managed to take his cash. That’s the last thing we needed, being there and not having a penny to our name.

“...there we met Jon156, that was so surprised we had come all the way from Spain, and he treated us so well. We didn’t have a place to sleep, and they took us to their hotel. The next day they even offered us some cans, but I had the same as Kami, ‘How am I going to write with these people?’ It was a respect thing. We didn’t have anything prepared, we just had pics of our pieces.”

L- But on the other side, it was a fantastic trip, you can’t imagine the number of times we were caught by the police on the train tracks, or in the metro, and taken out. They’d ask ‘where are you staying’. We were there to take pictures, and people often painted the walls of the tracks, so that’s where we wanted to be. I would tell the cops that in Spain we were allowed to go into the tunnels, and that was true, but the police would argue that these rains were very fast, and it was dangerous as we could get run down. But I was used to being on the tracks. We went to some abandoned places, and we achieved to find what I was looking for, which were pics of the Non Stop, we went in and found pieces. You know that underground site, that appears in many music videos, where the cool people always painted? I was looking for the ‘Cazbee’ wall with Howard the duck; I had the picture and I had been told where it was, I had the address. We must have walked by it a thousand times, but we didn’t find it because we were looking for a high wall, and just when we were about to give up and were leaving back to the subway, we saw the underground court.

Then we went up north to that street thing, and there we met Jon156, that was so surprised we had come all the way from Spain, and he treated us so well. We didn’t have a place to sleep, and they took us to their hotel. We went together to the jam the next day and they even offered us some cans, but I had the same as Kami, ‘How am I going to write with these people?’ It was a respect thing. We didn’t have anything prepared, we just had pics of our pieces.

We got along great, also there were Romance and Bates, also doing their pieces, and they had come down from Denmark.

Over there they used French Spray Color, and Marabú, which I thought was divine when I got my hands on it. It wasn’t like our Spray Color, nor like the Novelty, although they were good, they had a very limited array of colors.

M- You used to mix colors!

L- Yes, because they had male caps, and you could get a small tube and mix. It occurred to me while thinking about pressure: if I took the can with most pressure, I could add paint to the can that had less. I studied the functioning of an aerosol can. Later when I started using the airbrush, you’d regulate the pressure by which I understood that if I put the cannula connecting a fuller one to an emptier one, some of the paint would transfer, and indeed. This aside from the fact that I experimented a lot with caps; I would cut them, tried them out, went by the shops, new cap I saw, new cap I had to try out. And with the cuts I managed to get a bevelled effect, bit of a plump gothic style.

My tag, the next one I developed was very stretched, almost 2 meters, and that worked perfectly. I did a bunch of them. You’d insert the tube of the needle into the cap, you’d warm the other side up, and cut it. This would get you a very thin line. I think we first tried it out with a junkie needle. Some places where I painted were panic inducing, the floor would be carpeted by junkyard needles. We’d go to remote places, where people went to shoot up.

Now I’m going to jump over to ’89 and ’90. That’s where the fanzine story comes in. Sutil made CFC, his own magazine. I would send him stuff and ultimately decided to make one myself. But Fat got ahead of me and he brought out his own fanzine, of which only on number appeared, they decided not to continue. So I took Chome aside and told him “we’ve got to start a fanzine”. We got to it and number 0 of Freestyle came out. Then came number 1, and up to number 3. After that I got a bit tired of the whole mess, bear in mind I was doing all the managing. I had taken on a PO Box and I was doing it all on my own: keeping up the contacts, sending pics, and thanks to the fanzine that became 3 or 4 times the work and I couldn’t keep up. That’s when I started working in photo labs, that way I saved up a lot of money. I would beg my colleagues upstairs for some meters of photo paper, and tried this way to get some negatives developed for myself and Kami. We’d be giving out pictures to everyone. But then military service really crashed me. I did it in Valencia, in a small village in the middle of nowhere, called Marines. I didn’t have much savings then, and they vanished quite fast. When I came back, I didn’t have a dime and going back to work was tough. Those were hard times for me, and I couldn’t keep the fanzine up, that really sucked.

M- And no one wanted to take it over from you?

L- Yes, Funk and Ray of RNS. They wanted to take over the fanzine. I handed over the contacts, helped them out with the pictures, and there were new issues up to number 5. But when Game Over came out in color, it was done and dusted. We couldn’t do that and from that point on, people only wanted to have full color fanzine and not black-and-white copies.

Thanks to making that fanzine we got to meet lots of people, and it brought us to the moment of making the ‘Qué punto de fiesta!’.

“I started to realize that there was already a hip hop scene in Spain, and that we only needed to get that snowball rolling downhill… Why don’t we get all these people together?
We made a portofolio and started looking for sponsors, but we didn’t get much. The number of doors closed on our faces was upsetting.”

L- We were already organizing some small parties, and one of the establishments took us on as residents for the afternoon parties, before the late session began. It was amazing because now we could put on and listen to hip hop. The experience of organizing parties in that place, which was called 27 Cotinos and pops up in a couple of songs by McLee, in the old district, made us think of organizing something bigger. All added up; the parties we were having, the pictures, the contacts we’d made, and another phenomenon that was taking place right then: the demos. ‘Listen to this demo I just got from Málaga, or this one from Barcelona, that one from Palma’.

I started to realize that there was already a hip hop scene in Spain, and that we only needed to get that snowball rolling downhill… Why don’t we get all these people together?

We made a portofolio and started looking for sponsors, but we didn’t get much. The number of doors closed on our faces was upsetting. Coca Cola did in the end agree to help us out a little, and the nightclub where we hung out in the summer, Va Bene, also agreed because we would do their decorating and made their summer signs. We’d do these jobs and get free paint out of it.

We started setting it all up, speaking to people so they’d come. Listening to demos and inviting them to come perform. We told them that if we made money we would share and divide it with the performers, or with drinks, and that we’d have a blast.

And in between a job we did in Valencia (the phone bill they received afterwards was probably huge too), and cards, we got the money to go ahead with it.

Another thing i haven’t talked about, the mail. We had a foolproof way of tricking the postage: putting deodorant on the stamps. You’d send the letter, and you would tell the receiver to put deodorant on his forehead and rub it against the letter to get the stamp off. And this way you could reuse it once more.

M- And just how did you discover this? Don’t tell me you were also experimenting with deodorant? What are you, the McGyver of graffiti?!

L- Yup, hahaha. Well, you know, it was a lot of money on postage. You had to find your ways. Bear in mind that I had a no-resources type of mentality, there’s no money, need to get by, find your means. I haven’t studied chemistry, but I know it was there. The deodorant creates a layer that can resist up to 24 hours (read in advertisement voice), just enough for the letter to get to its destination. It was way cheaper.

Lots of people came to the party, but many of them were invitees, the entrance ticket profit was low, we sold tickets but… there were more invitees than paying public. Just as everything you do with the heart instead of the brain, financially it was a disaster. On top of it all I was the treasurer, I did the math and left an open debt, which wasn’t small. I had to work for free later on to settle the bill. At least we were able to pay the buses, the club rental, and Coca Cola got us some radio slots. I don’t have them recorded; I’ve lost them.

L- We achieved organizing the party and gave the option to a bunch of people to realize that we were a nation, and it triggered everything that happened in the ‘90s. I had been in this for 10 years, from ’83 to ’93, and for me it was exhausting. After that party, I was worn out. No money, and all the spray cans I had, I had given out to the people who had taken part in the jam. After that, I closed off that chapter. The old school was done. From that moment on, I decided that the next generation had to start doing their thing.

I started socializing a bit, because up to then I had been completely submerged in hip hop. Also, my partner at the time was telling me I had a somewhat destructive life, and asking ‘Why have you done this party? What did you get from it?’

M- Everyone remembers that party. It was a turning point.

L- Yes, but it was not that positive for me. I mean, yes, we had a great time. But I mean, Tom left at a certain point, Chome held on as long as he could (he told me so with a hoarse voice) and he passed the mic to me. I held on until 5 am, with the performances. I could see people falling asleep in the corners of the nightclub. Until finally the staff from the establishment came over and told us they wanted to go home. That was it; and that was that for that period of time. Remember, we did our first and last piece in that club. The nightclub closed down and never opened again. Shortly after that came the techno wave. It was the change of a cycle.

I kept on writing, but less. I started getting into other disciplines, other fields. I’ve always been a restless person, have always like researching. I got into airbrushing, I could work at home, and didn’t have to pick up the cans… I did lots of t-shirts, lots of textiles until I got the hang of it, and then got tired of it.

“One day while we were painting, all of a sudden, I see a bull, and we’re face to face. Thankfully the staff of the square got him back inside quickly. ‘Cause I was thinking “Where do I go?’ ‘What do I do?’. There was nothing there except the wall, not even a car to hide underneath of.”

L-I kept on writing, but less. I started getting into other disciplines, other fields. I’ve always been a restless person, have always like researching. I got into airbrushing, I could work at home, and didn’t have to pick up the cans… I did lots of t-shirts, lots of textiles until I got the hang of it, and then got tired of it.

Then I started with the hogueras*, the fallas*, and ninots*. We introduced that world to the spray can, this was around ’94-’95. I stayed there for 3 years, and we sort of revolutionized that scene. Later, I started doing large floats, for parades, for another 3 years. I haven’t stopped, there’s a lot of work during the summer. I was alone in the workshop, organizing the staging and props, the floats, which were just like a staged scene, with figures.

The customers would come in and they’d order from a catalogue of stuff we could assemble for them. And then you’d mount it, transport it, set it up, did the parade, unassembled it all and rode back, or stayed to join another parade. I was with the Alcoy parade for 3 years.

During the time of the fallas, I changed artistic styles and did an exhibition. It went quite well. One day while dismounting the paintings, talking to the doorman, I commented I hadn’t sold or earned anything. He responded that he had been keeping track of the flow of incomers to the exhibition, and that more than 1500 people had walked through, and that it was one that had attracted the most public to the gallery.

I could have done it alone, but I’ve always like the collective thing more and interacting with others, so I asked Bad and Glub for some paintings, and did it with them. It was a large space and this way it wasn’t as much work to get it filled up. And in those days, I used large sized canvases.

*Hogueras – yearly festival in Alicante featuring bonfires and street festivities.

*Fallas – the name of the burned figurines in the bonfires

*Ninots – colossal lifelike statues made of cardboard and plaster

We also did a large mural in the Plaza de Toros. One day while we were painting, all of a sudden, I see a bull, and we’re face to face. Thankfully the staff of the square got him back inside quickly. ‘Cause I was thinking “Where do I go?” “What do I do?”. There was nothing there except the wall, not even a car to hide underneath of. I was on the street. It was crazy. The mural was under charge of a street educator. That man told me years later that he was summoned to the mayor’s office due to that mural. Tom had done a topless woman and people had been complaining. On that mural was the first time I did model pastel.

“ ride through the highways of the country and I see those slogans that remind me of ads, and I ask myself “Where’s the style gone?”. My heart just sinks. You must think and rethink it, and work on the style. There should be no fear to some not identifying what it says, because you do your pieces for writers, and writers think in graffiti and will find a way to understand it.”

I didn’t start off only using Loco, I used a bunch of different names. AREA was one that made me most popular, and on trains I used DICK, which I wasn’t completely fond of, but at the same time it just worked really good on trains. From there came the DEL, I shortened it a bit and it was fast.

When Renfe (Spanish national railway company) was still yellow and blue, when they erased the piece, you could still see the tracing of it, so I used a design that was simple, so it would remain visible. I think in graffiti. When someone asks, “What are you thinking of?”. I think graffiti. I think it through. About the style, I think just like Kase said in Style Wars. The phrase “Computer Rock”. You have to do incredible styles. That remained burned in my mind. Every time I draw, I try to do something different. I think through the years in the graffiti scene, seeing what’s done and what’s not done, I’ve always liked to come up on doing something where people would think “this is different”. I miss that. And I’m going to give hell to you now, young ones. I ride through the highways of the country and I see those slogans that remind me of ads, and I ask myself “Where’s the style gone?”. My heart just sinks. You must think and rethink it, and work on the style. There should be no fear to some not identifying what it says, because you do your pieces for writers, and writers think in graffiti and will find a way to understand it. It does not have to be neat and clear, so everyone knows it says Pepe or whatever you write. I understand there’s a rush and you must be fast nowadays, but you must also deliver on the design part and got to break your brain about it. It’s turning out to be almost vulgar, just a “spot”. We weren’t looking for just a spot. We fought against that shit.

“Long ago, in the ‘80s, we used to talk about where the computers and internet would take us… I was opposed to it, I was anti-machines, and I think I plastered that in some of my pieces, that these machines were going to devour us, and they would finish the human spirit off.”

M- OK. So, what do you think of the new styles? The ignorant and all that.

L- I’m really out of the whole social media right now, I don’t want it. Long ago, in the ‘80s, we used to talk about where the computers and internet would take us… I was opposed to it, I was anti-machines, and I think I plastered that in some of my pieces, that these machines were going to devour us, and they would finish the human spirit off. Now I see people making pieces as if they were vectorials. It’s not the machine that’s ended up making the outlines like you do. No… It’s you that’s doing the outlines just like a machine does. Have we gone mad or what?

I don’t have social media because I had some trouble, media investigations by the police. On the other hand, the computer is part of my household. If I had a guy checking out everything I did all day long, I’d get angry. Wouldn’t you? Haven’t you ever trouble with someone who was getting just a bit too nosy? Well, some of these big names in social media are way too nosy and no one is saying anything to them about it.

I rather stand aside of all that. I use WhatsApp and I’m about to stop even that.

“The first time I was pointed at with a gun, it was the police, and it was just because I was painting. They got there in their car, wheels screeching, and they stepped out with their guns drawn and put us all against the wall. We were doing a wall in Conde Linares, in an open field, a normal wall. But that was because of something else… Fat had called the cops saying we had robbed a video camera.”

L- Then there’s the media investigation by the police, which turned out to be a mess. I told you about this graphologist that, through social media investigation, accused my girlfriend of something I did myself. He’s supposedly an expert assessor and whatever he says is the truth in the eyes of the law.

Mister jurists, when I had a trial, I won them.

I was winning the trials against the city council. Then it all changed and came to pass through administrative channels, and didn’t have to go through court, but until then I had won a good deal of trials. I’ve only been convicted with house arrest once in all these years and that’s because I was watching people doing their pieces. The police persecuted me for just being there. I was going to paint somewhere else; I mean… I was going to the train station and they caught me with the cans, not even the same color as theirs. Bummer for me.

I’ve had stories with the police… The first time I was pointed at with a gun, it was the police, and it was just because I was painting. They got there in their car, wheels screeching, and they stepped out with their guns drawn and put us all against the wall. We were doing a wall in Conde Linares, in an open field, a normal wall. But that was because of something else… Fat had called the cops saying we had robbed a video camera. Fat and his prank calls… There was a time when we had to tell him to chill with those pranks.

M- Alicante has been a city with quite a bit of history huh?

L- Yes, at the beginning we were all real tight. People from other places would come over and they’d flip with the unity they saw here. Later came the whole north and south thing, and the movie Colors came out, and suddenly there were people for one faction and other for the other.

M- Is that where Alicompton came from?

L- Yes, but you also have Bronxtoles, Alcorbronx… The LA thing… Some of my comrades started to listen to those type of lyrics and got that movie in their head. The gangsta rap thing. There are people I’ve tried to get out of that shit, but I didn’t succeed. I’ve had problems with them.

M- You’re like the dad of the city.

L- Well yeah, and it bothers me to not have been able to get those people out of the whole thug life crap, and all that shit. Some people are dead. I would have liked my message to have gone through so these people could have been saved. Friends. Here in Alicante there’s more than one graffiti artist who has committed suicide. I’ve written with these guys, and if I haven’t partied with them, we at least had some relation.

Everyone has his own life, but some hard things happened back then; things that some might have a good laugh about, but these things aren’t that funny when people end up burned out or shattered. We all know about the Hinchu Boys lyrics, that they sent to Kami. I don’t know what thoughts Kami had when he was in NYC, but these guys made fun of everyone... But if you grabbed Fat by the neck, he didn’t squeak. I’d say to him “Not to me, I have taught you. You are not gonna mess with me”. Fat often took the mickey out of me, let’s be honest. But I did try to help him. I went to jail more than once to see him, behind the glass. I was with him later, but he had already grown used to that kind of life, and there was nothing I could do to help him off the drugs and the bad life.

“I am thankful to hip hop for taking me to where I am now, having been able to travel to many different places, having met so many people. I haven’t had to break more faces than was necessary; and by respecting people, just seeding and spreading good vibes, you’ll find that the vast majority of times you will receive that good feeling and respect back.”

M- Graffiti tends to be on the tightrope verge.

L- Yes, but when you have the talent that person had, it’s a shame he went down that route. I told him more than once “Damnit Fat, if you’d take it a bit more seriously, things would be different”. He wouldn’t have had problems with people, which later turned into more serious stuff. All the same, the environment you see at home as a child, in this case, does influence a lot. And if you have a certain type of parents, that kind of sets in.

I always remember the people as I met them, alive, young and in the prime of their lives. I have them well kept in my head and can’t get them out.

M- Maybe they shouldn’t get taken out, maybe you should make peace with that.

L- I think I’ve done just that, in the end I told myself “Don’t get so worked up about it, you did all what you could humanly do, and then some”. But really kids, it’s a shame, if you’ve got talent hang on to that, and not to other craziness. The bad boy style, nope.

I am thankful to hip hop for taking me to where I am now, having been able to travel to many different places, having met so many people. I haven’t had to break more faces than was necessary; and by respecting people, just seeding and spreading good vibes, you’ll find that the vast majority of times you will receive that good feeling and respect back.

When we write, whether you like it or not, we are sharing something. You get to the wall, talk about it, then each gets into his own world of shapes and colors. Then you chat a bit more and in the end each goes home with his own pic, happy as can be.

So, I don’t understand people who make graffiti so serious, because, excepting a couple of microns of paint on a surface, I don’t think we are hurting the planet. There are much worse things.

M- Tell me the craziest thing that has happened to you.

L- I always tell the story about the night that Tom was painting a mural, we went with the german guys, Siko, At and another dude. Kami and I were there, and I can’t remember who else. Kami tells me these guys have shown him the worst neighborhood of Hamburg, and that he wanted to show them “las mil” *. Las Mil of the ‘80s, not of today. We head over, we took the R5 that was completely full of tags – we stuck out like a sore thumb. And we get into Las Mil, through the middle streets, with the bonfires, junks and the whole ambience. All of a sudden, we are cut off by a police car, locked in, a car in front of us and one in the back. They take us our of the car, ask for ID, they pat us down and ask for the car registration. They take a case out of the trunk of the car, which was Zico’s camera case in which he used to carry both his cameras. The case was missing the video camera, and the police accuse us of exchanging it for drugs. We tell them no; the camera is just being used by others. What I told you about being pointed at with a gun had just happened the night before. We convince them and we ride down escorted. The german guys are tripping with all this. We got there in our R5 and they didn’t understand what was going on. They didn’t understand because the cameras are theirs, but they didn’t have the papers on them. They were home. Kami leaves to go get the camera papers, and I had to get with Siko and the others in the police car. Siko was claustrophobic, and they wanted to put him in the rear box with me. I tell them not to, that he’s going to go crazy in a small space. I get in and someone walks him to the police station.

M- You’re the eternal hostage.

L- Yes, hahaha. We’re taken and on the way we make a stop, because apparently someone was trying to bust a shutter. The cops get out to investigate, and we’re there waiting.

We get to the north police station, which in that time was in the middle of the Mil Viviendas. The papers are checked, everything is solved, and we’re allowed to leave. But of course, now they have to take us back to the place we were taken. And sure, we all have to get back in the police car. But we’ve got the same issue again with Siko. The cops take a minute to talk it out and tell us they’ve decided we’ll all get into the car and that Siko will get on the hood. He sat on the hood of the car!! We took the street down, turned right and we drive through the bonfire street, where people are selling. They see the police car, and people see Siko sitting on the hood. Every single person by the bonfires was clapping and yelling. Siko with his arms raised high, triumphant. We’re all roaring with laughter in the patrol car. The cops had it and let us out right there. This story remained engraved in my mind, because we literally made fun of them that day. We always had a big mouth, and were always up to something. We drove them nuts.

*Las Mil Viviendas (The thousand housings) is a popular neighborhood in Alicante, which later became infamous and marginalized due to its crime and deterioration.

L- Of the national scene… By default, I would say Nova of Valencia, or Mata. See if he remembers the nights in Móstoles, in the Soto. We’d go train bombing, on the suburban train line. People like me that came from other cities, and who sometimes didn’t have a place to sleep and ended up slipping into the station to sleep. I’ve done Alcorcón – Móstoles by foot several times, and that was damn far, and there was nothing between those two points. I don’t know which year I came back (after the ‘80s), but everything has changed.

After ‘Que punto de Fiesta’, lots of jams and parties were organized, and I wasn’t invited to any. No one until 1998, a group from Albacete, the ‘La Fe del Puente’, that organized a jam. I don’t know how that was, but no one counted on me, no one remembered Loco.

M- Why do you think that was?

L- Well, on one side because I huddled down in the 400 (neighborhood). I moved to another neighborhood; I took a step back from it all. Because in Alicante I had gained some popularity and had a series of problems with being known that I hadn’t imagined. It’s not good for a graffiti artist to be well known, to have been on TV, in local press and regional news. I stepped aside, but I would have liked someone to have said something, dusted me off.

The only ones who came around during that time were Glub, Suso33, Rafita from the arrows of Madrid, that came over in summer and we did some things together. That was fun.

Another one I met during that time was SEX69, Diez from Barcelona, who I took to the terminal, and watched while he did his piece. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. He did his piece but couldn’t take a picture. The security guard appeared, and we had to run off. He took out a spatula and started scraping the paint. Diez started throwing rock at him, and I had to take him out of there before things got out of hand. This was in ’95-’96. In the 90s I didn’t do much writing, but if I had the chance to do a train, I’d do it.

“We had a great time. They told us that people were surfing on the trains and we started to get on the mercatas that left from Término and went to the Babel stop. ”

M- You still have a go at it sometimes, right?

L- Yeah, well, I won’t confirm or deny it. (Laughter). That is the original graffiti for me, and it’s always had a special charm knowing I am going back to the roots. James Prigoff came here two years ago, and I showed him some of the trains we had done and this man said to me: “Damn, here in Europe you seen to still have that spirit”. I felt great, I mean, this man had seen the New York trains.

He also cleared up that the book that motivated me, the graffiti book, had been taken out of a work done by Iz The Wiz, and that he had based his work on what the student had done. The stories about the subway were from Iz The Wiz. I owe a lot to this person, that motor of inspiration.

Oh, one more thing, that Kami forgot. Hey Kami, let’s see, don’t you remember our whitening nights, taking the big whitewashing basin in the R5 and going to do several pieces a night? Done with temple, to which we later added the outlines. The nights before the Santa Faz procession, where everyone went, and we’d take advantage and do several pieces. We’d already do several pieces in one night.

He’s gonna remember the basin.

We were fuckin’ crazy! It’s not the same anymore. Imagine us, with a basin, the car fully tagged, so rowdy! Police would stop us often, besides we would frequently surf with the car. That means getting on top of the car and driving. Sometimes Kami, the bastard, would brake suddenly and I’d roll off the car, and we’d take some blows. We had a great time. We heard about people doing surf on trains and we started doing that too. We’d get atop the cargo freights that came out of the train terminal and we’d go until the babel stop.

(Loco13 takes out some photo albums).

M- Oh my god the albums, but I gotta leave, what a bastard!

L- I’ve only taken out two. I think the picture with Loomit’s phone is in here.

M- Wait, let’s finish off the recording first. I am very sorry because you guys are not going to be seeing what I’m looking at right now. This is amazing.

L- We’d go crazy with what the germans were doing… So brutal.

M- Thank you for sharing and telling us all this.

L- Thanks to all of you, I hope this will be something positive for the future generations and remember to think in graffiti.