If or when humanity manages to bring about the apocalypse, whether by war or misadventure - there is going to be an awful lot of mess left around the place. If in this scenario humans are reduced to such numbers that a long slow struggle to repopulate the earth is required you might ask yourself - what names will come down to them through history? What monumental achievement of humanity will last the longest against the justified attempts of Mother Nature to take back her realm? The Mona Lisa? Shakespeare? The Pyramids? Mobile phones, underground cables? Mcdonalds? Supposedly the answer is the Hoover Dam and microplastics. Not that anyone will be around to check answers. For a preview of the (possibly) forthcoming apocalypse, you can’t get any better in the flesh than the experience of creeping around bandos to see nature clawing back space from human intrusion. On that note - Concrete Fetish today speaks to urbex specialist and occasional paint to surface applicator Sen aka @Puttingartonthings on Instagram! C: First of all, thank you for your time and for being the first international guest to be interviewed! Now, I'd like to start by asking for the benefit of the audience. Who are you and where are you? S: I'm Sen, and I'm from the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. C: Where was the first place you saw graffiti, and what drew you to it? S: Somewhere around 2007-2008, I was on the bus and saw a high schooler tagging in a notebook. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, the way you could make letters look different than they're supposed to. I’ve been hooked ever since. C: The United States is well known as the originator of modern graffiti, with an enormous variation in styles, regional flavours and deep history. Personally, how would you describe California's graff scene? S: When I started actually writing on walls I was living in the bay area and the scene was filled with heavy hitters, folks who'd just smack the most absurd burner on a freeway walk out like 3ayem or Anemal. It all seemed unique to each writer and there was a lot of individuality. People still do that crazy shit today, Elms is still putting rollers and such in the middle of skyscrapers, but the scene is also flooded with people attempting to come up. Suddenly everyone wants to be a writer or just plainly vandalise. It's an interesting time and it can be hard to sort through the chaos. Even the tunnels have been affected, there's just a lot of people testing the physical boundaries of our society. C: What's the heat on graff like over there? Do you guys have organised task squads tracking writers? S: Only if you're on some super intense shit like that guy Noner who hit a Vietnam memorial back in 2016. Police will keep track of who they notice though, and you can be hit with charges for all your work at once if you get caught and they can prove what you're writing when you get wrapped. C: Now when you say the bay, do you mean San Francisco? S: It's labelled the San Francisco Bay Area but it ranges north to Santa Rosa, south to San Jose and east to Antioch. It's grown so much that cities that don't even touch the actual bay waters are part of "the bay." C: Funnily enough the urban sprawl is doing something similar here where 'greater Brisbane' can include areas half way up the coast. As I understand the bay has a rich tradition of writers, bus tagging and some internationally famous names coming from that area. Who should we know about from San Fran? Sen (2021) S: I'm not an og by any means, I've only been in this seriously for about 10 years. But accessing historic spots like the thunderdome has shown me some of the remnants from the greats like Taco, Tie, and Sace, along with giants active to this day like MQ and Tase. But one important thing to note is that most of my experience is underground in drains in the east bay where the scene changes dramatically. The list goes on and on but Rome, Remer, Enero, Fres, Condor, and Kava were some of the first people to stand out to me and they still continue to crush it. Nothing beats a good tunnel gallery of straight heat. C: You mention the drains here and I'm going to take this opportunity to change gears. When I first came across you, you were putting out some incredibly gnarly drain photos of raw concrete. I'd like to know - how did you get started draining? (Editor's note: Some consider draining and Urbex to be separate disciplines) S: It's kinda wild and could've been a lot worse. But I was a passenger in my friend's car in early college. We were exiting the freeway and I noticed some graff on a wall in the creek, and the creek disappeared under the road. I'd discovered what's known as the Spirit Drain, this 25 foot tall arch storm drain built in 1954, that splits into a square shotgun (Two tunnels side by side) downstream. It's absolutely filled with burners. The problem was when I went to check it out it was raining. Common drain rule - when it rains no drains . I didn't own boots so I was very limited on what I could explore but I ventured in until the water rose too high. I was hooked, mostly by the unknown darkness downstream but also by the sheer size. That something I didn't know could exist under a city. We didn't have that sorta thing where I came from so it quickly became an obsession. The Sen Den (2022) C: Oh man, that's actually a really cool origin story. Though, as you said, one slip and it could have gone very badly. S: Luckily I'm from the mountains so river danger is not a foreign concept. C: From the looks of your recent work you're full time in bandos above ground too. The quality of which is different from what we see here. Our country literally isn't old enough to have crumbling factories and empty rotting suburbs and so on. Rust belt industrial collapse aside, what is urbex like in your area? S: I've been focused on abandoned buildings more or less as a primary focus for the past couple of years. Part of it was due to a move back to the mountains where there aren't too many drains. There are more bridges than anything. But then you start digging past the easy to find ghost towns or local factories and start combing the woods, which is how you find the houses that no one has touched in more than a decade. Gyer (RIP) (taken 2021) I had a brief string of absolutely heinous locations, one three story house that was stuffed with model trains- me and my best friend have made more than $12k so far from the place. The town I live in doesn't have any urbex really, so I drive 3 hours to the bay when I want to explore. Lately I've been trying to conquer the Alameda Island Navy Base, next will be Mare Island Air Force Base. I've also accessed a historic observatory, a school (ran into a k9 squad training their dogs) and a couple coast guard neighbourhoods - all entirely abandoned. Organisations in America often used horribly toxic materials through the 90s, and when they become unusable, they just sit. We're actively losing Hunters Point Naval Base in SF which is sad to see, but it's a prime example of something sitting for 30 years until the government gives enough of a fuck to remove it. C: I've gotten the impression that a lot of the infrastructure of old america is rotting leaving more locations than most. I visited a few cities myself and was quite surprised at the number of fully burnt out rows of houses. Do you have any thoughts on the state of American infrastructure at the moment and urban decay? S: Oh boy do I love urban decay hahaha let it all rot. These playgrounds are rad. From an economic and environmental standpoint however it's all atrocious. We have a pathetic homeless person to abandoned structure ratio and combined with the "wealth" this country possesses it's truly astounding how little of a grip we have on taking care of our communities. Infrastructure overall, sometimes it's super built up and sometimes it's quick patchwork over real issues. I found this hexagonal drain in my college town, part of it is a regular corrugated metal tube. Those corrode over time and the city knew it was getting sketchy. All they did in response was put boards over places where the earth had begun to burst through as the pipe buckled. Eventually, a huge sinkhole opened up after a storm which ended up rupturing a gas line and causing our shopping centre to require evacuation. It cost $3m to repair. A lot of places are like that - just ticking time bombs waiting to collapse. C: While I was there I was struck by a strange loneliness, I don't know quite how to describe it but the huge streets, rundown areas and creeping decay left an odd impression. S: Yeah you can for sure get that vibe in cali too. Whole streets of houses or factories to yourself. Classic haunted settings haha but the only ghosts are the radiation and asbestos. Hunters Point naval shipyard (2021) C: Now you say you're up in the mountains these days. What's life like in the Sierra Nevada mountain range? S: It's very calm. My current town has 2000 people so it's very safe for the most part. You can see the milky way at night. I deal with a lot of bears, we also have coyotes, foxes and a helluva lot of geese. I've seen some really neat and uncommon wildlife lately like blue tailed skinks and badgers. Winters are nuts, we had 3 feet of snow in two days this past winter, but overall the climate is pretty manageable. C: You said there wasn't much in the way of urbex up in the mountains right? S: In the town I live in, there's virtually nothing. In surrounding towns it can be a gold mine. I've literally found gold, along with antiques, small coin collections, a bayonet, sculptures, etc. One house even had the power still on despite being unattended for a decade. C: Do you encounter many hobos or squatters in those kinds of places? Not in the mountains, generally these places are pretty hard to access let alone find. Think something like - drive down a private dirt road for 5 miles without cell service and then plow through the woods for an extra mile on foot, then you're at the spot. C: Are there any memorable finds you've made lately you'd like to share? S: In terms of items I found an 1875 Remington revolver two years ago, I think that's my favourite find ever. In terms of recent buildings I accessed an art deco Egyptian themed theatre on a navy base, before it got super vandalised. It was probably the neatest explore of this year, everything was so eccentric. It felt like I could've stepped into the 1950s. Another cool one was an old observatory that still had the power on so it was fun fiddling around with the darkroom lights and stuff like that. C: What's the lifetime of these spots like, do they get trashed pretty quickly? S: In Oakland it can last a week. In the mountains it could be decades before someone even discovers it. I've seen spots get trashed in a month's time while the cuttier one upstream stays chill for years. Really depends on who gets their hands on it. For every one respectful person there are 10 nutsacks who think breaking things at bandos is the coolest thing ever. Soda Springs castle (2021) C: Do you paint the bandos you find or keep that for other spots? S: I usually paint bandos if they're already painted. Anything historic or pristine I leave alone. Tunnels are great canvases and are much easier to safely paint, so I tend to stick with those when I want to create C: What are the tools like in america. Paint brands etc. You guys have lots of thick stuff like Rusto and Krylon right? S: Unfortunately Ironlak stopped servicing the states, that was my favourite :( folks hate on it because they hate shaking cans! haha. It doesn't hold up well in the sun but I paint underground so that's a nonfactor. Aside from higher end stuff like that, yeah we have Rustoleum and Krylon. Rusto has gotten intensely expensive lately but everything has all around. The quality is still solid. Krylon however, took a major dip in quality. I guess in maybe the mid 2000s, before my time. Basically Krylon is a huge joke to everyone here and it's useless as a project spray too. Super watery, major drips, poor coverage. Kilz used to be fire primer for a good price way back when too. But now it's overpriced and watered down. I try to stick with mtn 94. C: Ever prime the spot with roller paint? I feel a lot of the walls you paint must be thirsty bastards. S: Yeah sometimes it's necessary, certain walls will eat up your paint. I personally prefer the look of a piece on bare cement so I usually don't do that but it definitely does extend the life of the piece. C: I’m not too familiar with the systems but I have to ask - do the trains get hit over there? S: Not so much BART. (Editor's note: Bay Area Rapid Transit) Though folks catch tags on Muni (Editor's note: San Francisco Municipal Railway) . Freight is generally pretty covered, some yards here and there are notoriously chill, post up broad daylight sorta deal. Honestly trains scare me man, that's a lotta moving metal. In 2021 in the Colorado Rockies, I had an Amtrak roll through a tunnel I was in at ~70mph. Obviously I died. C: Fucking hell, nothing like a near death experience to make you appreciate the power of rail. You mentioned this briefly earlier but do you make much scrapping and selling from bandos? S: I don't scrap for money. That's to refine the precious metals, sit on em and eventually start a private coin mint. But I've personally netted around 6k from reselling model trains from one house 😬 I keep my eyes open haha C: Do you paint solo or rep a crew? S: I used to be in a crew, LS, but I'm the only active person. I still throw it up but it's just me doing that haha LS (2021) C: Is there anything we have touched on you'd like to talk about? You seem to have a lot of detailed responses about nature, the drains and so on - the floor is yours man. S: I'm not sure about anything specific. But I would like to provide a warning for anyone getting into this, particularly kids. The rise of popularity of this hobby on instagram and tik tok means more people are trying it out. I'm all for testing the limits of society, but folks need to know there are consequences. Cops might let you off with a warning each time you slip up as a minor but they keep records of each of those times and will hold it against you later on. Health issues are a major factor too. As a 10 year vet I've been exposed to asbestos, lead, aerosol, radiation, mould.. the list goes on. It takes a toll but it might take decades to notice the effects. Mask up and increase your chances of longevity by taking care of yourself. You might not feel it now, but without the right gear you're doing serious damage to your body and will regret it down the road, that's a guarantee. C: Any shout outs you'd like to give? S: I'd probably like to thank you first for showing interest in my experience, it means a lot. I'd probably shout out Honest, mvrkdmnd and repkid321, dudes who kill the lurk game and don't ruin it for others. I got hella friends in this and can't mention everybody, but I'm immensely grateful for the community I have around me and all the positivity and fun adventures we all get into. Stay crushin it yall. C: Thank you for your time!