DocNight Thursday, May 15 - 7:00pm
Hosted by Lisa Kennedy, Film Critic, The Denver Post
Director Jon Reiss IN-PERSON --> Reception to follow at Double Daughters (1632 Market Street, Denver, 303.623.3505)
Exclusive Denver Engagement of BOMB IT continues May 16 - 22

Street-2-Screen begins the celebration of graffiti culture and film on Thursday, May 15, with the Denver Film Society’s DocNight at the Starz FilmCenter at 7pm, featuring an in-person appearance by the film’s award winning director, Jon Reiss.

Bomb It by Antidote Films, the global graffiti documentary by award winning director Jon Reiss, features street artists and top graffiti writers from 5 continents Bomb It is the first film to update the story of graffiti with a truly international perspective.

Roughly 200 artists and personalities were interviewed, including Cornbread, Lady Pink, acclaimed hip-hop artist and former graffiti writer KRS-One, international art machine Shepard Fairey, Brazilian bombing twin brothers Os Gemeos, Mear One, Terrible T-KID 170, Taki 183, Zephyr, Tribe, Ron English, Cope 2, KET, Chino, Revok, Pez, Faith47, and many more.

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Friday night the Street-2-Screen Graffiti & Hip-Hop Party keeps the festivities rolling at Falcon Bowl (the newly renovated bowling-alley-meets-venue, next to the Gothic Theatre) at 8pm, 16+, for a night of hip-hop, old school and new, live graffiti, b-boys, graffiti video mashups via the DVJ skills of An-ism and the Denver-based, internationally renowned Magnet Mafia crew.

THE FIRST 25 PEOPLE THROUGH THE DOOR RECEIVE A STREET-2-SCREEN GIFT BAG WITH GOODIES FROM BEATSOURCE, ARIZONA ALL CITY NRG, AND A LIMITED EDITION MAGNET MAFIA/STREET-2-SCREEN "HELLO MY NAME IS" MAGNET.

Headlining the night is San Francisco freestyle master TopR, previously of the Earthlings hip-hop collective and whose tracks have appeared on the graffiti inspired feature film QUALITY OF LIFE, as well as the graffiti documentary PIECE BY PIECE, and who will perform with Foul Mouth Jerk (GFE) and DJ ATM.

The line up also includes Denver’s Input, the founder of Fameless entertainment, who has two albums under the belt and a third on the way, Pictureface, due out this spring. Opening the night and filling in any aural gaps is Drzen, who will bring a bevy of classic hip-hop tracks from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.

The night will also give back by donating the proceeds our silent auction, which will include the live graffiti art pieces, and the all-night raffle to the Arts Street Youth Program (www.arts-street.org), which provides educational programs for Colorado’s younger generation, incorporating real-world learning, artistic expression, creative thinking, and education of these youth to become tomorrow's professionals.The other recipient of people's raffle or silent auction generosity will be the Globeville Rec Graffiti Art program, which is close to the heart of one of the artist groups, Your Name In Graffiti, who will be part of the night's live graf artist line-ups.

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Next Friday, May 16 San Francisco rapper, TOPR, will arrive with his crew - Dick Nasty, Foul Mouth Jerk (GFE), and ATM - ready to perform with Denver's Input and Drzen at the Kaffeine Buzz Street-2-Screen graffiti and hip-hop party at Falcon Bowl.

Click here to read Part One of this interview.

Kaffeine Buzz: Bay Area rap is starting to get some serious recognition these days. Who do you see coming up on the horizon—besides yourselves, of course?

Conceit: (Laughs.) This asshole named TOPR, You gotta Love ‘im. No, look… the Bay Area has always been on the rise. On the national radar, it hasn’t—the Hyphy movement helped build a lotta that—but financially and successfully, as independent labels, the Bay has been self-suffucient for the longest period of time. That why you almost don’t see ‘em on the radar, cuz you got companies like Hiero[glyphics] or Quantum or Sick Wit It Records or Git Lo.

TOPR: Stones Throw.

Conceit: Things of that nature. So the Bay has been on the rise; it’s just that on a mainstream perspective it hasn’t. As far as that goes—the hyphy movement—I have nothin’ against how it started. Now it’s a little played out, and you can fuckin’ quote me on that. But like, E40’s bringin’ up a lotta tight talent, you know; I mean Turf Talk is one of my favorite dudes outta here. A-wax is another dude—and that’s mob shit—but I grew up on that shit, so I like it. As far as independent shit, there’s a lotta groups. Besides myself and TOPR over here who’ve been killin’ it…

TOPR: It’s almost like two different genres of music. It’s all hip-hop, but we’re doin’ more traditional breakbeat sample/loop-based rap music and shit.

Conceit: We’re not playin’ shit that’s marketably as cohesive as some of the other music is. Right now what they wanna pick up is not the music we wanna do, but we’re starting to see a change with that MORE

Street-2-Screen wraps up our celebration with a Graffiti Panel Day at the Starz FilmCenter on Saturday, May 17 with two panels, Education and Commerce, starting at 2:00pm. These panels are free and open to the public.

Denver's graffiti artists will join civic leaders, city officials and community directors to discuss the past, present and future aspects of graffiti in Denver, ways to combat vandalism, and the programs that embrace graffiti art in a positive way, including youth oriented projects and exhibitions such at the Denver Botanic Gardens' Urban Nature.

2:00pm to 3:00pm - Education Panel
This panel will address the vandalism to private property and business while presenting learning examples of how graffiti is being used as a positive outlet for the younger generation through programs like the West High Mural Project, and how graffiti art is adding to the “Quality of Life” in our neighborhoods.

3:15pm to 4:15pm - Commerce Panel
This panel will take a look at how graffiti is appearing more in more in our overall society, how entrepreneurs have turned to their graffiti skills as a foundation and gateway to their business success, and how Denver can incorporate this art form into our evolving art culture while supporting its artists and giving guidance to our younger generation’s entrepreneuristic future.

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The idea of offering customized graffiti art to others was generated by graffiti artist Wiser. This idea was made a reality with the assistance of Dynamistic Productions and graffiti artists Kanz and Dread.

Your Name In Graffiti originated from the idea that everyone can enjoy graffiti; from little Johnny to Grandma Zalinsky.

We strongly believe that graffiti can be appreciated by everyone, given a proper introduction to it. Adults tend to experience graffiti on personal property, resulting in a negative perception. Kids are introduced to it now in the media, but do not have any real connection to the art form itself. We at YNIG are promoting the understanding of, and connection to, graffiti art by helping humanity flex its right brain, one piece of artwork at a time.

As YNIG grows, the idea of a “starving artist” will fade as more help and opportunities become available to dedicated artists. MORE

Atmosphere’s Sean Daly, AKA Slug, proved his wily, clandestine, and flatly, bare-bones promotional campaign for When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold a pure act of genius, dropping the album straight into number five on the charts on it’s release date (April 22, 2008).

Daly dictated a frustrating and elusive promotional campaign that allowed absolutely zero promotional copies of When Life… to be released—not even to his own publicist, who had to fly to New York City and sit in on a private listening session in a bar. That session, another the same in Los Angeles, and one at the top of the Hilton in Austin Texas were the only opportunities anyone got to here the record prior to it’s drop; and this is precisely why you are reading reviews of the album a week after it’s release rather than a week prior. Most publications had no idea what to review. But clearly the public did.

When Life… takes atmosphere and friends on a whole new adventure, boasting all live instrumentation (with the exception of beats), a guest appearance from TOM FREEKING WAITS, and a phenomenal packaging design that emulates the classic Little Golden Book of any 70’s kid’s childhood collection—forty pages of lyrics with cunning illustrations from MK Larada. (The disc even comes with a blank space, “This album belongs to ________________. If you recall the Little Golden Book series, they had the same feature in the first page so you could dedicate your copy of Hansel and Grettle er whatnot to yourself.)

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