When any graffiti writer out there hears the name Zeck, skills and lettering style is the first thing that comes to mind. The man is definitely a pillar in the Montreal graffiti scene and comes off as one of our most established and internationally-known writers. From street-level funk to some of the most elaborated murals in the city, Zeck has definitely paid his dues in the game and fully merits the fame and recognition attributed to his name.

Talent and status don’t always fall from the sky, it’s something that is built up slowly through many years of hard work and dedication for a passion that runs deep in your blood. Before he was known as Zeck 156 JKR TFO KG WF, he was an ordinary kid on the block with a spray can like anybody else out there. Everybody starts at the same place in life but it’s time that dictates which paths we choose and separates the weak from the fit. Only the strong survive and Zeck is still here today to tell his story.

Today, Mook-Life goes through the vaults of one of Montreal’s graffiti bosses. We’ve decided to educate the youth and focus on the early years of our local legend instead of giving you the fancy modern graffiti eye candy you’re all used to being spoon-fed. For this edition of History 101, we present to you the come up of Mr. Zeck. Take notes youngins, we’re taking you back to school.

This story starts in a neighborhood squeezed tightly between the looming shadows of downtown’s skyscrapers and the green pastures of the city’s Mont Royal mountain. It’s in this heart of the city, also known as the Plateau district, that Zeck had a particular upbringing that would shape him into the Montrealer we know today. He came up in an era when the Plateau was still populated with Portuguese immigrants and working class citizens, an era when this neighborhood was still one of the purest corners of the city and wasn’t overrun with out-of-town hipsters and France expatriates like it is nowadays. It was a time when families used to live in this neighborhood, modest housing prices used to make sense and you could still find born and bred Montrealers walking the barrio’s streets.

Zeck: I was born and raised in the Plateau, on the corner of Rachel and Bordeaux. I’ve watched the neighborhood change over the years and it’s become completely different from when I was younger. The smaller streets have changed with the construction of condos, but the main changes revolve around Mont-Royal. It used to be a ghetto street filled with arcades, underwear stores, second-hand clothing… shit, I think the fanciest store on that strip was Croteau. I remember going to the movie theater on Mont Royal and the film stopped right in the middle of the screening. The lights came on and everything, they couldn’t even make a movie work right.

Zeck started his career around 1993 when he attended St-Luc highschool. This is where he met Swarm who one day brought him cans to go on bombing missions in the alleys.

Zeck: The first name I wrote was “Crazy” until Swarm stole it from me. He started writing it on the wall next to me and got mad when I told him it was my name so I let him keep it. After that I switched to the names “BOZO” and “Lil’ PIG” (laughs). It took about a year before I decided to write something more serious and efficient, it’s then that I took the name ZEK.

After a short stint at St-Luc, Zeck quickly switched to a school in his Plateau neighborhood by the name of Jeanne-Mance. It’s from there that he’d meet more kids with the same hobby and sink deeper into this passion we call graffiti.

BAT crew at Jeanne-Mance highschool where the majority of the Plateau’s mooks had their education. Many writers have sat in those classes such as the main players of JKR, but some more notable underground ones are the Dominican boys Poisson and Kaboom, or guys like Asik.

Zeck: Jeanne-Mance used to be a pretty hood school with lots of ruckus and fights. It was a good mix of working class Quebecois and immigrant kids from all backgrounds. I remember one year there was a huge Christmas tree made out of paper-mache decorating the inside atrium which is open on 3 floor levels. Right before the Xmas vacation a bunch of mooks thought it would be a good idea to light that tree up and make a huge indoors bonfire!
We used to paint school walls in the courtyard during recess without being seen by security. We’d do fillins everywhere, from bathrooms to staircases and hallways. We’d cut class to smoke spliffs and go paint the outside walls of the classrooms.

All of Zeck’s earlier crews had something to do with his love for smoking toots back in the days. Everytime him and his boys would spark a spliff at recess, they’d come up with a new crew name. SCC stood for Slow Cells Crew and was mainly him and Cast. There was also MW which meant “More Weed” and the infamous BAT which is a Quebecois slang for spliff.

Some classic 90′s graffiti punchline mookness right here. “Blaste par l’Aerosol en Tabarnak” Notice how the L’ is not on the same line as the rest of the Aerosol word it’s supposed to be connected to, this way the words spell BAT when on top of each other. I guess the Jeanne-Mance high school education was not renown for its grammatical strengths…

Zeck: BAT is the first crew I formed with the friends that were closest to me. It started out with Swarm, Fiusr, Iatch, Simo and myself. Afterwards came Stack and Cast whom we met and put down with the crew.

We also used to chill with DeStar from SVC with whom we formed NEM crew, short for New Evolution Mob. Let’s not forget FUK with Stack and Cast… Fresh Uptown Kings. We claimed uptown because the Plateau was just north of the downtown area and you could see a total neighborhood contrast between the two boros.

Throughout the years Zeck has seen his share of legendary painting partners. Amongst them is Montreal graffiti pioneer Stack who recalls the early years of our man’s upcoming.

Stack: Zeck and the rest of BAT are all kids from my neighborhood but one of my friends had beef with a kid from BAT over a broad so there was a little tension between my crew and theirs. I remember them being dirty weed head kids bombing the neighborhood, and to be honest at first I thought they were toys. But before shortly I noticed this one kid painting good shit at Redpath and around the hood, Z-E-C-K. I started bombing with Cast and Carm around that time and one night Cast was like “Yo come paint freights with me and the BAT people” I wasn’t sure but then I thought “what the fuck, that beef is irrelevant and was over some bitch that I don’t even know anyway” so I said aight. I met up with them and they were all cool, humble and funny. After that night I started chillin’, playin’ ball, rackin’, drinkin’ and painting with them almost everyday. Zeck was the one with the most talent out of the bunch and had a genuine passion for graffiti plus he was wild mooked out. We were gettin’ fucked up daily going to neighborhood bars and nightclubs. I remember one night we ran for 10 blocks at top speed on Mt Royal pushing people out of the way just to make sure we wouldn’t miss the 5 dollar pitcher deal at Centrale. Mook shit. I have mad good memories from those days and nothing but pride when I see how far my man took this graff shit. Definitely the best Montreal has to offer.

Zeck with Iatch and Simo at the park on de Gaspe near Laurier. This spot is no longer existant and has long been replaced with new condominium developments.

The first official Under Pressure jam near Henri-Julien park on Mont-Royal street. There was another 1995 jam at Timer’s old loft in St-Henri a year before that set off the Under Pressure movement but it held another name.

This picture depicts how the Henri Henri building next to Foufs looked like back then. Today we all know this spot as being one of the main parking lot walls for the annual Under-Pressure event in the city.

When walking around our streets today, you’re definitely bound to run into some of the illest productions and contracted murals the city has to offer. I’m confident to claim that more than half of those murals have the talents of Zeck behind them as he’s one of main resources people go to when they want a mural done right. However, this level of professionalism was not always the case as you can see with this mooked out production above. This 90′s picture depicts the very first legal contract done by Zeck for a corner store depanneur. The genius marketing here with a pack of “Z” cigarettes and a bottle of “MW” beer would even make a pregnant woman fall off the wagon and start chain-smoking again. There was also a sketchy marijuana leaf drawn on that store’s wall with the crew name MORE WEED but the Chinese owner had no clue what it represented and gave this beautiful mural the thumbs up.

This piece was done at the old location of Taz Mahal skatepark when it was near Berri metro in 1996. A lot of graffiti pioneers such as Timer, Stack, THC, Fiuser, Swarm had painted the inside walls of the park.

Zeck: The Taz paid for our pieces by giving us free entrance passes instead of money. So instead of using them, I would hustle the tickets for half price at the door to all the skaters and I probably made around 200 to 300$. It was the most money I had seen at the time.

Some things never change… Another day, another silver.

You might be wondering why there’s always a “32″ in Zeck’s old school throwups and pieces. Well when you’re part of the Slow Cells Crew or More Weed family, your stoner ass looks at that 32 and sees an upside down “ZE” short for ZEK. Basic weedhead knowledge that has nothing to do with the number 32.

There’s one thing I love even more than handstyle is OLD SCHOOL handstyle. Keeping it simple and readable is the basis to any good hand; arrows, halos and fancy underlines will never give you flavor if your letters are weak to begin with.

Respect to that BEAM SVC tag near the top of the door. For the record Beam is the first writer to do window scratching graffiti in Montreal. Notable mention goes to FLOW as well for being one of the innovators in this medium.

Zeck: Beam is an old friend of Fiuser who was 3 years older than us. He had a really fresh handstyle and his pieces were ill as well. He started by writing ESKIMO and in the lapse of 1 week found himself some cans and went around solo putting his name up around the city. He’d go around doing savage shit on people’s garage doors or apartments without giving a fuck .

The Warehouse on the Outremont tracks with SIMO. Also shout outs to half of that LOST piece on the left, another old school OG presently known as freight killer PLAY SWC/LNC from the South-West of the city. For our local cats who know the time on this spot, notice how clean and virgin the walls looked back then. Nowadays kids are crying about how people go over their spots and politic that they had a piece there first. I beg to differ.

This is the first piece Zeck has ever done. With Fiusr at the Journal de Montreal wall on the train tracks in Rosemont. If you don’t know, now you know nukka.

First Zeck throwup at the legendary Redpath abandoned factory in Point St-Charles. If you’ve had the privilege of painting here in your graffiti career than you know about the magic of this spot. There was a vibe so special when you entered this building that even Hollywood films have been shot in its courtyard. I can dwell all day on this classic Montreal landmark but that’s another post altogether. Rest In Peace Redpath, gentrification is a motherfucker.

This wall was sponsored by ECKO unlimited clothing which is the reason why Zeck chose to paint zECKO for the first time in his life. From that point the extra “O” stuck well to his name and he’s been using this wording to this day on his pieces.

Also shout outs to that black MAINK throwup to the left, one of the original most mooked out writers this city has ever had. Word on the street is he’s one of the main players responsible for starting the Stanley Cup riots in 1993.

To understand the present, you need to know your past. Montreal has definitely one of the illest graffiti scenes in North America and most of the styles seen on our streets today is due to yesterday’s architects who paved the way for the youth. Mook-Life is proud of the city that birthed us and we represent our stomping grounds to the fullest, therefore we hit you with some local history and pass down knowledge that was passed down to us by our elders. We’ve just started to scratch the surface, there are still too many untold stories and legendary kings to be talked about; from the Sike, Santi and Soak’s to the Mersh and Carm’s, from S! throwups and FLOW straight letters to the early KOP influence in NDG. Stay tuned for more upcoming History 101 lessons straight from the archives of our potholed Montreal streets. Class is out.