RIP Cool "Disco" Dan
July 29, 2017 9:44 PM Subscribe
D.C. street art legend Danny Hogg, aka Cool "Disco" Dan Dies at 47
Subject of the Henry Rollins narrated film The Legend of Cool "Disco" Dan (trailer)
His work has been displayed at the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art.
His tag itself was nearly gentrified in 2013 before Cool Disco Donut backed down and renamed before opening.
From 1991, Mark of the Urban Phantom
Subject of the Henry Rollins narrated film The Legend of Cool "Disco" Dan (trailer)
His work has been displayed at the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art.
His tag itself was nearly gentrified in 2013 before Cool Disco Donut backed down and renamed before opening.
From 1991, Mark of the Urban Phantom
Dan – he's on a white wall at Fifth and F NW, next to Engine Co. No. 2. Dan – he's on an orange door below ground at d.c. space. Dan – he's on girders holding up the Sousa Bridge. Dan – he's on a liquor store at 11th and I SE. (Actually, he's there twice.) Dan – he's on the side of the Good Earth Holistic Center in Chinatown. (Cool Boogie Dancer is there too.) Dan – he's outside the Golden Dome video arcade at 14th and K NW. (This is one of his late-night hangouts.) Dan – he's on an import auto repair below the Marine Barracks on Capitol Hill. On this same huge blue space, you'll find Gangster George and Rockin' Ra Ra and Sexy Snoop and Kool Keith and Lisa of the World, along with some unprintable others.From 2012, The mark of Cool “Disco” Dan lives on in Southeast
To many, Dan was nothing more than a vandal; a low-level criminal who defaced private property for reasons of petty vanity. There is no reason to recognize or remember him. He and his ilk cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in clean-up costs.From 2013, Why Cool "Disco" Dan matters
For others, cutting across ethnic and class divisions, Dan was a local celebrity. He fulfilled a raw human desire for acknowledgment by writing his name all over town, from Metro lines to rooftops to vacant buildings. On the violent canvas that was DC in the 1980s and 1990s, Cool “Disco” Dan’s greeting was everywhere. His heart and veins pumped no fear. He was the murder capital’s restless scribe.
The truth is that as a young person in the Marion Barry-Sharon Pratt years, the city was a pretty hopeless place. But while the crack era was claiming lives and families, there were two music movements that existed and thrived in the same place and managed to transcend racial lines: go-go, which was black at its roots, and hard core. Although on the surface they seemed like racially segregated genres, they were not.Previously
Dan was one of those who lived in both worlds. His cultural interconnectivity laid the groundwork for kids like me to want to check out new things and explore new heights. And Dan marked his tag in locations that seemed impossible, including atop the old Washington Coliseum. That effort was not lost on a lot of young minds. If Dan could do it, so could I.
I remember visiting Washington in the 90s and seeing his tag all over the place. He was simply everywhere. You couldn't help but be impressed.
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posted by Spatch at 10:18 PM on July 29, 2017
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posted by Spatch at 10:18 PM on July 29, 2017
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posted by sleeping bear at 12:23 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by sleeping bear at 12:23 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
So soon after Jim Vance, too - DC local celebrities of the 20th c. are slipping away quickly. RIP, Dan.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:17 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 5:17 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
"Every place that had a gridlock, I would write my name." Every place.
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posted by Doktor Zed at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2017
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posted by Doktor Zed at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2017
As a kid growing up in the area, I scoffed at the idea that this could really all be just one guy. I guess I was wrong.
posted by escabeche at 6:19 AM on July 30, 2017
posted by escabeche at 6:19 AM on July 30, 2017
Oh, wow. I remember counting this guy's tags with a friend on a subway trip to the Smithsonian in elementary school. The count topped 200.
posted by valrus at 8:17 AM on July 30, 2017
posted by valrus at 8:17 AM on July 30, 2017
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RIP to DC's second-most infamous graffiti legend.
posted by schmod at 9:17 AM on July 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
RIP to DC's second-most infamous graffiti legend.
posted by schmod at 9:17 AM on July 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
RIP. He was an indelible part of the DC of my childhood - the one of invisible walls everywhere, of an ominpresent feeling of danger whose urgency depending on where you were, the color of your skin and the neighborhood you were from, of the crack of gunfire every night and brass found in the gutter every morning, of a burned and shuttered 14th street and U street.
It was a shitty place. But the lives lived there mattered, and gave birth to great fucking music and powerful art and people like Cool "Disco" Dan. Who wasn't an artist of any kind and by all accounts was pretty fucked up, but was so deeply attached to his city and all its edges and scars that he put his name on all of them. He understood DC better than I ever did, not just the physical geography but how people moved and lived within it, and he unfailingly tagged the parts most likely to be seen and remembered. Because he and that DC belonged to each other, and I can't help but feel that his death is the final gasp of that DC as we lived in it. It's been dying for a long time, and TBH good riddance to most of it. But nobody will ever love the new, condoized and franchised DC the way Dan loved the old one.
Oh and let's not forget his death was entirely preventable. He died from a lack of adequate medical care - both for his mental health and his diabetes. Fucking fitting.
posted by xthlc at 11:26 AM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
It was a shitty place. But the lives lived there mattered, and gave birth to great fucking music and powerful art and people like Cool "Disco" Dan. Who wasn't an artist of any kind and by all accounts was pretty fucked up, but was so deeply attached to his city and all its edges and scars that he put his name on all of them. He understood DC better than I ever did, not just the physical geography but how people moved and lived within it, and he unfailingly tagged the parts most likely to be seen and remembered. Because he and that DC belonged to each other, and I can't help but feel that his death is the final gasp of that DC as we lived in it. It's been dying for a long time, and TBH good riddance to most of it. But nobody will ever love the new, condoized and franchised DC the way Dan loved the old one.
Oh and let's not forget his death was entirely preventable. He died from a lack of adequate medical care - both for his mental health and his diabetes. Fucking fitting.
posted by xthlc at 11:26 AM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
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posted by oneironaut at 3:08 PM on July 30, 2017
posted by oneironaut at 3:08 PM on July 30, 2017
I loved seeing those tags, always made me smile. RIP.
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posted by mon-ma-tron at 4:50 PM on July 30, 2017
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posted by mon-ma-tron at 4:50 PM on July 30, 2017
Seconding that I kind of can't believe he was just one guy. Sad and unreal to hear of his passing.
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posted by LobsterMitten at 9:45 PM on July 30, 2017
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posted by LobsterMitten at 9:45 PM on July 30, 2017
My first encounter with tagging, early 90s. It really was incredible to see his tag everywhere.
posted by PHINC at 11:03 PM on July 30, 2017
posted by PHINC at 11:03 PM on July 30, 2017
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posted by rtha at 10:03 PM on July 29, 2017