I think he said that in one of his books, didn't he?

There's a couple more pre-stencil tags on this page from August 1999. Check out Kato and Sake.

www.graffiti.org/dj/n-igma5/bristol1.html

They're usually with the tag DBZ by them - was DBZ their crew back then? It appears near Kato, Tes, and Sake's stuff. What's it stand for?

if you look at the wall Banksy did where they are selling the house the sytle is so alike to the sake piece in the second link above ... its quite weird seeing banksy's unpoliticle graffiti .... by the way i swear i have an old interview of his or some publication where he speaks of a crew ? .................. im looking !!!

that is some seriously impressive detective work.



er,


'respect'

Same here. ;-)

Of course DBZ could be short for Dubz, but that seems a bit generic to use it as a crew name.

It's that site that credit's due to - it's an amazing archive, absolutely vast - I just sat around all day clicking pages. :-)

Let's hope Azlan knows and reads this thread. The only other realistic term I can think of for DBZ is 'Divided By Zero'. But yeah, we need someone who was there at the time, really.

What happened to Kato and Tes? They seem to disappear around 2001. Wonder if they're still in Bristol.

Got one last link - after that E-Nigma fanzine folded, they carried on posting stuff on a new site, where I've found a Banksy I've never seen anywhere else. Basic stencil this time of a cow + tag:
www.graffiti.org/dj/30-01-02.html

He got voted 29th in the Top 50 writers of 2001. ;D

old interview here

www.designiskinky.net/profiles/banksy.html

DBZ crew = DryBreadZ (its a west country sandwhich thing)
Although Banksy went out writing with them on ocassion, I'm pretty sure he wasn't an official part. Most Bristol writers have gone out spraying with one another at some point (it's a small place). Writers often put names of friends or people they've been writing with alongside their graff pieces, like a mark of respect.

Fronted by Banksy and with the help of many others, he arranged a huge graffiti jam in Bristol called 'Walls on Fire'. Writers from all over Europe came to paint about 1k of wall space surrounding the building site of what is now the bristol centre. Every writer and crew from Bristol was there including DBZ. Banksy sprayed on his own (think he painted a team of surgeons opertating on a sick graff piece). This was also the day Sleezenation came down and met us all to write about everyone in this new wave of Bristol art and music. (A certain Steve Lazarides was the photographer...)

Hope that helps...

Here's the press release for the 'Wall on Fire' event!
Date: 22-23 August 1998
www.at-bristol.org.uk/about/Press/03_graffiti.htm

Here's Banksy's piece from that event!



I can't remember what issue of Sleazenation it was featured in, but they made
a small (A6 size) mini-Sleazenation about Bristol just after the event. It was given
away for free, and featured everyone from the scene at the time.
(I've got a copy somewhere among all my old rough work in my parents loft...)

Thanks for that info. Regarding the DBZ (DryBreadZ) crew thing I thought DBZ was a joking name, in that they meant they couldn't afford to put on anything on their bread, hence DryBreadZ, I'm not certain though.

Yer, Banksy was never one to really run with any crew in particular and if he was DBZ was the closest he came to being 'officially' part of a crew.

When he was starting to get into it a bit more, 92-94, he would sometimes mooch around the local skate park where people like Tes, Kato and other DBZ peeps could be found but he was never renound for working with others.

thanks for posting the links!

Nice one, anyone else have any uncommon finds? Feel free to add to this thread

Severnshed flyer!

Stunning, cheers for adding it to the thread. There are one or two versions of this kicking about