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MR. KAVES
LORD OF THE BROOKLYN WAY
by Jonathan Williams
Photos courtesy of Mr. Kaves
From the August 2006 issue of Prick Magazine.
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The path to becoming a tattoo artist is different for each person who takes it. While some are drawn to tattooing over other creative endeavors, others start out as one type of artist and later cross over to the world of ink and needles.
In the case of Mr. Kaves, tattooing was a natural progression from two other mediums: graffiti and music. Growing up in Brooklyn, Kaves started tagging trains and other neighborhood fixtures around 1980. But it wasn't until four years ago that Kaves made the transition from aerosol art to body art.
"Being from Brooklyn, kids were already getting tattoos at 12 and 13 years old and I always admired tattoo art," he says. "Graffiti artists had a rep and a name and there was kind of a mystique around being both [types of artist]. I always felt like [tattoo art] was like a form of graffiti where you got your name out there and you were like a neighborhood celebrity.
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"I was writing for years on the trains and after a while you start getting in trouble for that and you have to find another way to get your name out there," he continues. "A few graffiti artists [had become] tattoo artists and obviously it was appealing to me and I was wanting to get into it. Using a spray can is not the easiest thing in the world, but tattooing is an art in itself. So it was like learning all over."
Kaves jumped head first into the world of tattooing by opening his own shop called Brooklyn Ink Tattoo Parlor in 2002. It was as a shop owner that he actually learned the art of tattooing.
"I was lucky enough to have a few graffiti friends who had gotten into it," he says. "One was Bob from Vintage Tattoos in California. He was a graffiti artist I was friends with, and Med from Tough City in the Bronx. So I opened up a shop in Brooklyn with Med, and both guys kind of schooled me on the art. Having the shop, I had access to tattoo artists all around me and everybody was very helpful, so I started practicing on the pigskins and using my cousin as a canvas."
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Although he is no longer involved with Brooklyn Ink, Kaves continues to tattoo and has become known for his interpretations of Brooklyn streetscapes.
"I started doing these neighborhood tattoos, like the Brooklyn landscape themes, and they started to catch on," he says. "So everybody was coming to me to get the neighborhood on their arm, you know, the city block, the lamppost. I always admired Michelangelo's work. He's from our neighborhood and people were getting the typical 'Made In Brooklyn' kind of tattoo. I kind of took it to the next level and started putting the landscapes, the apartment buildings, the fire escapes.
"I'm a friend of Cartoon out in California and I seen what he was doing on the West Coast," he continues, "so I kind of did my own little East Coast version of that, incorporating the bridges and apartment buildings and staying black-and-gray shading kind of style."
Graffiti and tattooing aren't the only things Kaves learned on the neighborhood streets. He, along with his brother ADM, were the creative minds behind the Lordz of Brooklyn, a hip-hop act that toured with House of Pain in the '90s and has been on the Warped Tour for the past three years.
With the release of The Brooklyn Way last month, Kaves and ADM shortened the name of the band to The Lordz to reflect a slightly new musical direction.
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"It's a little bit more guitar driven than a lot of our hip-hop stuff," says Kaves. "My brother produces the band and he flips a bunch of different styles. We grew up listening to everything from The Clash to KISS to Run-DMC. This record we recorded with a live band and we went down to Atlanta with a producer named Rusty Cobb and put the polish on it. When you do a hip-hop record, you take from a lot of different samples. This was more concentrated and focused as a live album."
The Brooklyn Way is definitely a departure from the band's previous releases. There are still elements of hip-hop on songs like the title track, which features guest vocals by Everlast, and "Mama's Boy," but the rest of the album sounds more punk and pop rock. The Lordz even go so far as to cover the Jim Carroll classic "People Who Died," and enlist the talents of people like Jaret Reddick from Bowling For Soup, Bedouin Sound Clash and Rancid's Tim Armstrong on other tracks.
"That was actually something that Tim was working on for the Transplants that they never got to use," says Kaves of the song "Outlaw." "He said, 'I've got the perfect song for you guys,' so we went on the John Lennon bus and cut some vocals" during last year's Warped Tour.
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Just as Kaves has learned to combine his talents as a graffiti artist and tattooer, he has also tattooed musical peers like Everlast and Rancid's Lars Frederiksen. And while The Lordz sound is moving in a slightly different direction these days, Kaves' path seems to keep bringing him back to familiar places, such as performing with Rancid and fellow New York tattoo punks Murphy's Law, as well as the Warped Tour.
"Warped Tour can work if you work it," says Kaves of his fourth stint on the traveling festival. "We went from tent to tent to little stage to main stage."
But no matter what size venue he's performing, Kaves still enjoys being one of the kids on the street.
"We like to work the ground level," he says. "We treat it like a block party and that way you get to hang out with the kids."
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The Lordz are on the Warped Tour through Aug. 11 and will be opening for Rancid at Avalon in Boston, Mass. on Aug. 22 and at B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in New York City on Aug. 26.
For more information, go to www.thelordz.net, or www.eastwestrock.com.
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