Graffiti as an art-form is one of the most important pop culture movements in recent memory, and one that’s intrinsically linked to musical expression. It makes sense that a touring musician would be exposed to some of the finest spray paintings the world has to offer, right?
In reality, a touring band spends most of their time cooped up in vans, and in the venue’s green room. And you’d be shocked to find out that the graffiti adorning these green room walls is a far cry from the enigmatic epigrams you’d find in the late seventies on the Lower East Side. That is to say, it’s mostly all dick drawings.
Tokyo Police Club’s Graham Wright doesn’t see it that way. For the past decade, his band has played thousands of venues worldwide, dining on tortilla chips and admiring the intricacies of the phallic renderings that are ubiquitous in venue dressing rooms. Wright started treating these modern cave paintings with the same reverence you might give a Rothko or a Koons balloon. On his Tumblr Green Room Dicks, Graham posts photographic evidence for posterity, along with some insightful commentary to match. Here are a couple of gems:
1.
"Truly one of the most tragic and poignant pieces one is likely to encounter, the famous 'Dickhead' portrait evokes feelings of deep and tangible sadness. Who is this mysterious boy, destined to be persecuted throughout his life just because his nose is balls and he has a dick on his head? We learn nothing more about him - not even his name, forcing us to think of him by the same hurtful sobriquet as the rest of the world. 'Stare into my eyes,' the boy seems to plead. 'No, not there, that’s my balls nose. My eyes are over here. Just below the penis on my forehead.' Haunting."
2.
"Although popular puritanical notions of propriety can obscure the fact, the male penis is in fact as much a part of nature as a pinecone or a majestic soaring Eagle’s penis. This work seeks to remind us of that, turning what at first glance is a troublingly malformed unit into the body of one of nature’s most beautiful animals - the peacock. As to the possibility that the plumage may feature crude vaginal representations in place of the peacock’s 'eyes,' that question is beyond the scope of this project. The viewer may draw his own conclusions."
We caught up with Graham Wright to talk about his noble quest as a dickumentarian.
Be honest: did you come up with this idea while taking a shit?
I mean, probably. I remember the idea first occurring to me years ago in Phoenix, AZ when I saw this really incredible drawing called “dick man at work,” which was this lovingly rendered, anatomically accurate, super veiny penis wearing a shirt and tie, sitting at a desk on the phone, this perfect expression of annoyance on its (his?) face, and a speech bubble that said something like “Steve, can I call you back? I’m swamped.” I took a picture on my awesome digicam with the vague intention of doing something like this. And it only took 7 years to get to it!
What's the most impressive green room dick you've ever seen?
Weirdly, when I tweeted about this thing yesterday, Damien from Fucked Up linked me to a blog that David Eliade made back in 2011 that is insanely similar to mine. Not only did he set out to document dick graffiti, he did it with basically the exact same tone that I did. Great minds think alike about dicks, I guess. That was the first I heard of it, but I think he has to get credit for the idea, right? Anyway, I can only hope I’m carrying on his legacy in a way he’d be cool with.
Other than the aforementioned Dick Man, the greatest piece of dick art I ever saw was in the dressing room of Call The Office in London. It was a huge bird that took up a whole fridge door, and every single part of it was a dick. Its wings were huge dicks, and all the feathers on its dick wings were dicks. It had dick talons on its dick feet at the end of its dick legs. There must have been at least a hundred dicks at least making up this bird, it was insane. I think I took a picture of it but I haven’t successfully dug it out of the archives yet. If anyone out there has a shot I would dearly love to add it to the collection.
(Incidentally, David’s first blog entry covered the amazing Call The Office dressing room, but the mighty Dick Bird wasn’t depicted.)
A green room dick is kind of like a graffiti tag. Each artist brings his or her own nuances to the medium. Have you ever been able to track a dick artist from one venue to another?
Not yet, but that could have more to do with my limited skills in the field of dick art criticism. Maybe when I have a better grasp (lol) of the medium, I’ll be better equipped to notice the subtle variations in pube length and shaft veins that set each artist apart.
3.
Have you ever drawn a green room dick yourself?
I have not—I think it’s probably important that I remain an impartial observer, so that my critical opinions are beyond question.
Is there a venue's green room that stands out in your mind as host to the most dick drawings? Where is green room dick Mecca?
Like I said before, Call The Office used to be, like, the Lascaux caves of dick art. Sadly, they painted over all of it, which really serves to highlight the importance of my mission: someone has to document this genius before it’s erased from the record! There’s no heritage designation for wicked good dick drawings. Yet.
What's your "white whale" of Green Room Dicks? Describe the perfect GRD that you have yet to see.
I hadn’t thought of it until right now, but since you say “white whale” I think it would be pretty cool to see the entire plot of Moby Dick portrayed in some kind of magnificent ding dong triptych. Or just dick butt. Why isn’t everybody drawing dick butt everywhere all the time? Come on, people!
Follow Green Rom Dicks on Tumblr, and check out Tokyo Police Club's music video for "Hot Tonight" below.
