House of Vans!
I'm in NY doing a quick job for Vans. They asked me to paint a 8x16' wall at the opening of the new "House of Vans" in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's an old warehouse that now houses a concrete bowl designed by Lance Mountain and Jeff Grosso, and an indoor and outdoor street course. I got to ride the bowl for an hour all by myself on Friday night before anybody else. It's sick.
I was able to project my sketch onto the wall using a digital projector on Friday evening, so on Saturday at the opening I was able to hook this up in about 4 hours.
Early into the process I got a chance to get this photo with Steve Van Doren. His dad started Vans with 3 other partners in 1966 in Anaheim, California. Thanks, Steve!
I stopped working on the wall for a minute and who do I see watching me work? Fucking Steve Caballero! Holy shit!
Then I ran into my man John Reeves! We went on a tour of Tokyo and Yokohama with Tribal Gear back in 1994. It was great to see him again.
I geeked the fuck out when I saw this guy tearing up the bowl at the opening party. Fucking Tony Alva! He's as OG as it gets in skateboarding. I was SO psyched to meet him.
As I was finishing up the wall, I neglected to get a photo of Mos Def warming up the crowd for these guys...
Public Enemy! Including Professor Griff! No more Terminator X, but DJ Lord is definitely taking care of business! Awesome. Check of my man Flavor Flav!
The crowd was psyched! Bet you skaters will see a few familiar faces in the audience.
Wish I had a better camera to capture this. That's Flav on drums and Chuck D rappin' "Timebomb" from their first album. Awesome!
Great show! Best hip-hop show I've seen in years. Got this last shot with my homies JK5 and Diego in front of my wall before we headed for the exit.
But on my way out, Diego helped me realize that I should at least try to meet PE since I was part of the night's event. So I found my Vans people and they got me backstage to meet Flav. At first it was a little weird when I walked in the room but once he saw my Public Enemy tattoo he threw his arm around me and we got this flic.
Flav was SO cool. He's got a fan for life right here! Fuckin' ruling! More tomorrow...