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Teaching a Bronx Dog New Tricks: Richard Sen's Graffiti Past

Author: Jonty Adderley
Saturday, April 20, 2002
Whether the teenage years he spent establishing himself as top London graffiti writer Coma were misspent is open to question but the jail time he went on to serve in Brixton Prison and Feltham (where So Solid's Ashley Walters now resides) was clearly less than positive. Saving himself through acid house's summer of love in 88, Londoner Richard Sen went on to build himself a career as a DJ, and 14 years on is a virtual model citizen, save for his criminally bad habit of playing records on Sunday mornings at 8am (Richard lives above Skrufff's East London base). Popping downstairs this week, he met up with Jonty Adderley to talk about his latest old skool electro compilation "Richard Sen Presents Powercuts", his ongoing band Bronx Dogs and his spray paint covered journey from railway to turntable.


Skrufff: The new album has tracks from Ice T, New Order, Paul Hardcastle and Cybertron, how did you choose which tracks-

Richard Sen: "Andy from Obsessive approached me initially because he knew I had quite a good knowledge of electro, having worked in Record & Tape Exchange for years (London's notorious sale or exchange 2nd hand record stores). I deliberately chose tracks that weren't too obvious and people didn't know too well. A lot of the old electro sounds cheesy nowadays but I went for tracks with a more industrial vibe, such as Cybertron."

Skrufff: You ran The Clinic in 1995, which was one of the first nights in London to mix, hip hop, disco and electro whereas now there seems to be hundreds, why is this retro thing happening now-

Richard Sen: "I don't know, when we started it, the club was myself and a friend who also worked at the tape exchange and he happened to be into breaks and hip hop while I was more into house. Disco was somewhere in the middle. We started doing the night together then decided to make a tune under the name Bronx Dogs. I don't know why it's happening now but I think the younger generation of clubbers are more open-minded. Younger people seem to like more different types of music. When I started going out in 1988, I'd only go to house and techno places, listening to (Andy) Weatherall and Detroit stuff."

Skrufff: You were one of London's first serious graffiti artists, were you painting tube trains-

Richard Sen: "Yeah, London Underground trains, from 1984 until 1987. I went to New York in 1985, saw all the graffiti on the trains so came back and wanted to copy it here. I was about 17 then. I remember going to the Fresh festival in New York back then with Run DMC, LL Cool J and Houdini playing but they weren't that famous then. New York was totally different then and was really exciting, people were breaking (break dancing) in the streets, and playing music with ghetto blasters, it was wicked. I got into graffiti first then the music afterwards, also all that punk-meets-hip hop stuff."

Skrufff: Were you spray painting on your own or with a group of friends-

Richard Sen: "I started on my own then met up with other graffiti artists. I used to live in Wembley and there was a writers' bench in Harrow where everyone used to meet up. Once you started doing it, you got to know everyone else, it was a big community with all different races and classes. That was one of the great things about it, anyone could do it."

Skrufff: How did you start painting-

Richard Sen: "Initially by copying American stuff, there's a book called Subway Art which was like a Bible and I'd start by taking different letters. It's really hard, it took me almost 3 years to get good but by then I'd been caught and had almost grown out of it."

Skrufff: Did you come close to being electrocuted or run down-

Richard Sen: "I got a little touch from British Rail once, but the rails are different between British Rail and the Underground. On the Underground you have to touch two rails at the same time to get electrocuted. A few people died while doing graffiti but it might have been from messing around; people used
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