DUFFED OUT is an IRAK related product that is put out for the world by ex-Philly graffiti writer ARTZ. We wanted to find out more about DUFFED OUT and the infamous IRAK clique, so we contacted ARTZ and set this interview up.

ARTZ is the kind of person that we’ve known who he is for a long time but never actually really known him. Back in the day, I’d see him and his crew at shows and, basically, I knew to keep my distance if i wanted to keep my teeth. We know Artz has a gallery show this week and we wondered if the guy had mellowed as the years have worn on.

Check out the interview after the jump. Be sure to scroll all the way to the very bottom of the page for a link to a mixtape Artz made just for Fun Vampires readers.

Tell me about Duffed Out:

First off, I wanna say to all the biters out there that all my artwork and everything I say is copywrite: Tim Artz. And, yo, the Duffed Out Legal Team makes housecalls.

I think you probably mean the Duffed Out zine? That’s a zine containing my artwork. My friends Jesse Geller and Serge Trudnowski contributed some work too. It’s a look into the streets of tomorrow. Issue Number 2 is out now.

But, Duffed Out isn’t just a zine. It is an Art Promotion and Consulting Firm. We are interested in providing real information to paying customers.

Our clients and co-conspirators include: Steve Powers, King Solomon, aNYthing, IRAK, Derels, Mass Appeal magazine, Fader magazine, the NYC Public School System, less talented writers at the New York Times, as well as the streets of New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Currently we are working with Angela Boatwright and her company, Killer of Giants, on various aspects of production and curation of an upcoming art show entitled “Welcome to the Dustward” which features work from me, Dan Murphy, Serge Trudnowski, Jesse Geller, Stefan Simichik and Patrick Griffin. That opens April 5th at Max Fish.

Past Duffed Out projects include:

Fader Sideshow - In the fall of 2006 in conjunction with IRAK, with connections provided by Andy Pry, we were able to entirely cover two floors of the inside of a $.99 store with throw ups and tags to be used as the scenery for The Fader’s CMJ showcase. It was a positive collaboration allowing for all members of IRAK to meet up and work on one constructive product as well as exposing more uninformed indie rockers to our work. Participants included EARSNOT, SACE, ESPO, ARTZ, GLACE, FANTA, REAZN, KENT and KS.

Summer School - In the summer of 2006, we arranged for artist Stephen Powers to teach a one hour lesson at Facing History High School on 12th and A during their summer school program. Powers commented on a slideshow of his work and interacted with the students and faculty discussing art, graffiti, sneakers, and art gallery violence. This project enabled dialogue to take place about the legality and importance of graffiti as a component of modern art with the young students of NYC.

Duffed Out Zine - Duffed Out Zine is a source book for our design projects. If you look at the artwork you can see recurring, icons and characters. The zine contains the launching point for most of my current work.

We offer design work such as flyers, business cards, or bar mitzvah invitations at a reasonable rate. We also provide a consultation service where we work as Problem Solvers to fix you or your company’s creative issues. Anyone interested in any of the services we offer should contact us via email.

In the future we plan on moving forward with our current projects: Duffed Out issue 3, T-Shirts in collaboration with IRAK, more community outreach and continued card pulling. Get down now. It’s embarrassing to be the last one to know something. .

Where can people pick up Duffed Out the zine?

In New York you can get it at aNYthing on Hester and Essex. That’s the Lower East Side. F to East Broadway.

In Philadelphia you need to go to WTHN. That’s by where Footwork and One Hour Couriers was. Take the El.

You are down with what is probably the biggest crew in NYC right now. What is that like? Tell me a little bit about the crew.

IRAK is a talented group of like-minded individuals. We watch movies like the “Big Lebowski” or maybe the Discovery Channel and then we go shoplifting. It’s the glamorous life. You should see the clubhouse! It would blow your mind. No one can go in there though, unless you’re in IRAK. I can’t even tell anyone where it is. I can tell you that the TV in there is GIGANTIC. And, the sofas are real comfortable.

There’s a website, too. You can buy some t-shirts to support the cause. Ace Boon has the illest blog on there. Look for commentary from ESPO and other kool guys on it.

Even though you live in NYC now, I know that you are from the Philly area and that you’ve commented that Philadelphia has had a positive influenced you and your art and general outlook on life. Tell me a little bit about what Philadelphia means to you.

Without Philadelphia I wouldn’t be who I am today.

This is how it went down. I was a 12 year old skateboard kid. I got into hardcore music from Thrasher Magazine, like PusZone and Notes from the Underground at the end of the 80’s. I was really into that scene hard from like 90-97.

Around 95 I needed money, so I became a bike messenger. I saw Dan Murphy and Esher riding track bikes and I thought “Those bikes are crazy!” and had to get one. It turned out that dudes I knew from hardcore shows and being a bike messenger were down with graffiti and tagging and I wanted to get down with that.

Like, I had known DASAR from City Gardens mosh pits in the early 90’s and we ended being neighbors in 1995. He was the one who put me down with graf showing me hand styles.

It was a really great time. We went to shows, rode bikes around, wrote graffiti, got into fights, racked the shit out of spots and got away with all of it.

We’d all go to see Ink and Dagger every time they played in the city or the surrounding suburbs. They were our boys. That was real art. Everyone put that skeleton makeup on and bugged out. Sean McCabe was a genius. He was a real artist.

At one point we had this giant mansion in West Philly with 8 bedrooms and a closet that I stayed in for two months. That was like the spot for one year.

So, that whole scene brought me into seeing art. When Space1026 opened up I don’t think I even understood what art was. Not that I know what art is now, really. But, now I’m a little more advanced in my understanding.

I knew about TWIST and I knew that people bought his artwork. I knew that ESPO was coming up hard. And, I was seeing all these Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton paintings and I knew who they were from skateboarding. It made me realize that actual people made art not just Salvador Dali or whatever shit I thought I knew about.

I lived in this house on 19th and Bainbridge after the 4518 house collapsed. It was a pretty famous Philly skateboard house. Vern Laird, AJ Mazoo, Serge Trudnowski, and this dude Brian were the dudes who started it.

When I lived there it was: me, Mazoo, AGUA, and Vern. I think Robby Redcheeks moved in after Vern left.

The house had paintings by Mike Manzoori and all these dope skateboard artists in it. That place was the shit. Serge told me about all these dudes and was telling me about Alleged Gallery in New York and things like that.

He moved to New York that summer and was having a blast.

I was down in Philly in a bad relationship that blew up on New Years 99-2000. Which was a great night…

Then you moved to New York?

Serge and Bobby Puleo were getting a place in East Williamsburg. I was still in Philly, staying on NEMEL’s floor and working on the Mainline at this ill Pro Bike shop.

Serge said I could get in at the spot in Brooklyn and I was like “Fuck it!” and made the move.

I got to New York and wanted to make art but graffiti just took over everything else.

This was my life:

· Get up at 8am and ride into Manhattan. (I was a bike messenger again.)
· Work until 5 in some shitty cold ass winter.
· Ride back to Stewart Avenue. Sleep until 8.
· Hop the turnstile for the L at Jefferson. Back to Manhattan.
· Start doing tags as soon as I stepped off at 1st avenue.
· Go over to this apartment on St Marks and A.
· Dinner that was a 40 of Mickey’s, a Twix and a slice of pizza.
· Go to either Mona’s, Sophie’s, Cherry Tavern, or Max Fish until 1 or 2 or 7.
· Walk around until 3 or 4 doing tags.
· Get back home somehow.
· Wake up and do it all over again.

That was me and SIMA. All day, every day.

We were on a program.

I moved to Manhattan in the summer of 2000…now its 2007.

And, all of that has influenced your style and artwork for what you’re doing now?

Completely. One hundred percent.

Now you are concentrating on art shows?

Making art is what’s up. I’m just starting to figure out the direction I’m headed in with it. It’s like something that changes everyday. Sometimes I want to sit in front of the computer for hours or draw or take pictures or whatever. It’s always some new thing.

I think it’s a real dope time for art right now. There are a lot of new artists doing dope shit. At this point you all know about DASH and them but I’m loving people like Dan Murphy in Philly, Jesse Geller and PEZ in SF. My homie Nico Ponce DeLeon is wild. And, this dude Josh Mize is here in NY doing some cool stuff with zines and photography. It’s very active. I see new stuff people are doing everyday and it’s real fresh. It makes you want to try harder.

What about people exploiting graf artists in order to make money?

People want to put some “post graffiti” kind of label on it and I think that’s just lazy and simplified. Someone will come up with a name for it eventually but it’s what you are going to see now. I’m just happy people don’t call it “street art” because that shit is for 40 year old dorks with campers on. Anyway, it goes both ways. They can’t really exploit us without us exploiting them a bit, you know?

Here is a little about what’s up with me currently:

Duffed Out is the zine. I make a printing of it when I have the money or the time. Issue One was only 50 copies. Only a select few have those. I won’t reprint it. Issue Two is what’s out there now.

Issue Three is currently in the works with more contributors and more fire.

There are Duffed Out/IRAK collaborative t-shirts that are in the works. Look for those in the next couple of months.

I’m real into making flyers. I used to collect flyers for hardcore shows. The first party flyer I did was for Bushy. I did a couple for him and Andrew Pry. Those dudes are the shit.

Right now, my man King Solomon does a party every Saturday night at 205 Chrystie. It’s called SNIFA or Saturday Night is for Assholes. I’ve been doing flyers for that. I think it’s blowing up a little.

I’m a contributor for Mass Appeal magazine and have an article coming out next month or the following month about pre-paid calling cards. Those things are the best. Keep an eye out for the article.

On the Duffed Out myspace page I have a blog. That’s a lot of shit. Check it out if you want to see what the weather looks like.

I’m in Bum Rush but Bum Rush is Jesse Geller’s project. The current lineup in the group is Jesse, me, and ESPO. We are not a band. We are not a rap group. We don’t rhyme. We just break it down for you. There are two songs recorded that are underground sensations. The songs are out there but you can’t get them…well, maybe.

Our first performance was at the 2006 Deitch Art Parade. We basically had two microphones and an amp in a shopping cart and pushed it down West Broadway snapping on the crowd. We set up shop in front of Deitch and just let fools have it. It was a great success! I guess that’s performance art!

Tell me more about Bum Rush!

Bum Rush was a concept Jesse Geller created two years ago. There are four recordings of him and his friends wiling out on drugs with a microphone on. They are classics in their own right.

I started talking about the project with ESPO last year. We began to formulate more of a concrete idea of what we thought Bum Rush was going to be and wrote pages and pages of lyrics.

We did this pretty much all summer just back and forth on the blackberry messenger.

ESPO flew Jesse out in August. Right before he got there a couple of Jesse’s friends tried to do a Bum Rush show in Philly without him there. We talked about it and decided that we had to make a break from what those guys were doing.

For the next two weeks we had Bum Rush training camp at the Sign Shop in Coney Island. We got a bunch of instrumental tracks and just talked shit to everyone that was cruising Surf Avenue. In the beginning we were trying to rhyme but we realized we were just more natural born shit talkers.

It was a real great time, DOOM from the Gents of Desire was doing handmade tattoos inside, ESPO was making signs, me and Jesse were in the front drinking 40’s and being wild. MEAK and NOPE were chilling, BARE from Boston was doing his thing. Bum Rush’s DJ, Vejde, who is a Swedish rock star, was on the internet. We were wiling out.

All of that fun led up to the Deitch Art Parade. ESPO has this crazy inflatable limousine float, I guess it’s 20 feet long. Me and Jesse had a bottle of lean to keep it mean. Our DJ, Vjede the Swedish rockstar, pushed the shopping cart that ESPO designed under the limo float while me and Jesse destroyed the crowd with some vicious snapping. Both me and Jesse have a lot of stuff to say so we just kept saying it for a couple hours.

All the parade participants hated us. Everyone else loved us.

At the end of November, me and ESPO flew out to SF to meet Jesse and record a song. People have compared it to ‘Bitchin Camaro‘ and Suicidal Tendencies ‘Institutionalized.’ Its just us talking and ESPO lays down the hook.

In December we recorded our second song called “Messenger” in Flatbush with Matt Goias. Thats another monster hit.

Its kind of scary how good we are. The only thing holding us up is Jesse getting back here to finish the full length. Its going to be ill with guest appearances by EARSNOT and KS and other IRAK team members. Record companies are sweating it already but we are playing it cool.

I am pretty sure that I saw you wearing a dope CORROSION OF CONFORMITY t-shirt in some book, right?

Peter Sutherland worked in the juice bar of Angelika Kitchen in 1999, I think he got fired or quit or something but he always was coming back for free take out. I got a job there in spring of 2000. I got Serge a job that summer and we were chilling. It was a great place to work at the time-it was like x-members of hardcore and indie bands, a handful of graffiti writers, and some girls into interpretational dance.

So Peter jocked Serge in the juice bar everyday. Somehow Peter had gotten the word that he could put him down with like IRAK and whoever else was chilling downtown at that time to take some pictures. So we did it, and put other writers who were up down with Peter. It’s called Autograf.

A lot of people felt weird about the book being billed as: “New York City’s Graffiti Writers” and not like “Downtown 2000″ or something because of the uneven distribution of portraits of kids from the boroughs and kids that could be seen downtown.

Some other odd things happened around the book and there was general uneasiness about the whole project among a lot of the people who had pictures taken or were suppossed to be involved.

Everyone let it ride and the book came out. Other than all that, it’s cool. There area few good pictures and you can just cross all the wack dudes out when you get it.

Tell me about the movie about bikes that you were in!

It’s called “Bicycle Gangs of New York.”

Cheryl Dunn was making a movie about bikes and bike gangs; both real and ficticious. She wanted a gang that wrote graffiti and rode fixed gears in there. Tim Badaluocco put me, Mike Levy, and Dan Murphy in the gang. He also came up with the name, The Landlords, and the Landlord Manifesto that is pictured in the book for the film.

We had a great time making it. They shot Tim’s crib as the Landlords HQ. He hooked up all the set design for that portion of the film. I have one line in the beginning. I say some funny shit about doing tags. I had to say it like 50 times for the voice over. We got some lunch at a cafeteria on Broadway and rode in to film the rest at Union Square.

It came out with a real decent book to accompany the DVD. You should totally go out and find it. Serious.

What music have you been digging lately?

Check the podcast (editors note: see the bottom of this page) for what I’m currently rocking. I put a lot of early 90’s hardcore on there. A lot of people ignore that time in hardcore music but there was a real huge active scene for those years with some cool bands.

Besides that, Bob Dylan’s “Hard Rain” is on constant rotation on the turntable. In the whip there are two CD’s: “Combat Rock” and a live record by The Jam.

If I had to tell anyone to get a tape right now it’s Thrasher Magazine’s Skate Rock Volume 7. That’s the one Pushead compiled. Tons of great bands like Brotherhood, Unity, Insted, and Underdog. That was a really influential recording for me

And gallery stuff?

Art openings are a blast. You get to chill out with your squad, talk shit about dudes, drink tons of table wine, go outside and get tags, et cetera. How couldn’t you like that?

But, I’m saying, you have an art show coming up, right?

Yeah, there is going to be an art show at Max Fish in April. It’s going to be curated by Angela Boatwright, the Art Director of Mass Appeal magazine. I think I mentioned it earlier.

It’s called “Welcome to the Dustward.” That opens April 5th at Max Fish. The opening is April 2nd. The artists are: Me, Dan Murphy, Jesse Geller, Serge Trudnowski, Stefan Simikich, and Patrick Griffin.

click here to get the DUFFED OUT vs. FUN VAMPIRES mixtape