As a NYC based denizen, I've frequented a few (but not many) tattoo studios in the five boroughs. One of the best studios I feel is Three Kings Tattoo situated at the corner of McCarren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Unfortunately, one of the artists- Matty No Times has been out of commission for the past few months.
From their news section: 'as
i think most of you know, matty has been out of commision for the past
few months. matt is waiting for a liver transplant and though he has
been in and out of the hospital for the past 4 months, his spirits are
high. we've all got our fingers crossed that his new liver will arrive
soon and he can get back in the chair, but for the time being, he needs
some help. like most tattooers, matt didnt have insurance and has a
pretty hefty medical bill in front of him right now. he is also engaged
to be married to a great woman, who also has an 8 year old daughter, so
money is pretty tight for him right now. if you can help at all, you
can donate to his paypal address
Mattienottimes00@hotmail.com
and come to his benefit show on january 29th. Gospel is playing for the
first time in years, drunkdriver and tournament are both coming out to
raise money, and i hope you will too. there will be posters for sale,
t-shirts for sale, and hopefully a bunch more benefit shows and art
auctions. thanks for all your help
I was lucky enough to be tattooed by Matty during their Friday the 13th Zombie special last March. He was the first artist in the past year to start tattooing my legs.
Every little bit helps- whether it be a small donation, a t-shirt (only $20!) or just coming out to the show...
There's been a lingering itch that I have yet to scratch (and not just from last Thursday's outline session at Kings Ave Tattoo) - to do a post on my favorite songs about tattoos. But after enough time with my iPod in the NYC subway system, I realized that there's a tattoo reference on just about every Tom Waits album ever recorded.
So I present to you, in no particular order, my top five Tom Waits songs that mention dermal decoration (and feel free to click those iTunes buttons to preview and get the songs for yourself).
9th and Hennepin from Rain Dogs "And the steam comes out of the grill / Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow / And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos / And everyone is behaving like dogs"
The One That Got Away from Nighthawks At The Diner "Tattoo parlor's warm and so I huddle there inside / The grinding of the buzz saw / whatchuwanthathingtosay / just don't misspell her name, buddy, she's the one that got away"
Circus from Real Gone "She had a Tattoo gun made out of a cassette motor and a guitar string / And she soaked a hanky in 3 Roses / And rubbed it on the spot / And drew a rickety heart and A bent arrow and it hurt like hell"
Warm Beer and Cold Women from Nighthawks At The Diner "All my conversations I'll just be / Talkin' about you baby / Borin' some sailor as I try to get through / I just want him to listen / That's all you have to do / He said I'm better off without you / Till I showed him my tattoo"
That Feel from Bone Machine "I cross my wooden leg / And I swear on my glass eye / It will never leave you high and dry / Never leave you loose / It's harder to get rid of than tattoos"
I had to get the Christian fish tattoo. The problem came the other way & when I rejoined Tap and they looked at the fish tattoo and said, "what's this?" So, after a few days of thinking about it in consultation with my tattoo master, I had a second tattoo...this was before laser removal of course...a second tattoo of a very large devil with an open mouth consuming the fish. So, I made it a two parter.
Yup, those are the words of Spinal Tap bassist, Derek Smalls (as interviewed by Ear Candy Mag), on his brief stint with with Christian rock group, Lambsblood, and his subsequent return to the almighty Spinal Tap.
I have to admit, I was a little amazed that my webernets-search for Spinal Tap tattoos came up almost entirely empty. Given the wealth of Ironic Ink out there, you'd think that someone out there would have tattooed the numbers 1-11 around their nipple like a Marshall knob or some Celtic armband homage to an 18" Stonehenge. All I managed to find was the image at right, which admittedly is pretty rad - Eric Mai's ink is a tribute to a Tap album that was mentioned in the film but never actually released, Shark Sandwich (and, yes, Tap *did* release albums and even tour).
"Why all this talk of the Tap," you ask?
Because Lapdance Academy has some new, free music for all of you - a trilogy of works from the canon of Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and whichever drummer hasn't spontaneously combusted just yet.
First up, is "Rock N Roll Creation" from my stoner-metal act, Dogs of Winter. Drop-tuned to a sludge-tastic C# standard as two drum kits pound away in tribal fury, not only does RRC feature an analog-keyboard breakdown, but it's also got a sample of the pre-natal heartbeat of bassist/vocalist Ryan Dowd's son (not to mention some killer cover-art for you fantasy-genre junkies by illustrator, Joe Boyle).
But the real kicker for you members of the Needles and Sins Syndicate will be my piano/guitar arrangement of "Lick My Love Pump," which features vocals from the lady of the manor herself, Miss Marisa! I managed to convince her to purr and coo Nigel's lines from that infamous scene (performed here by Legos!!) and all I had to do was make some vague promises about housekeeping, bathing and dinner at a four-star restaurant. (Oh yeah, I also did a blues cover of "Gimme Some Money," which is a part of the same download.)
While the Lady of the Manor is off cavorting with the Maori in sunshine of Auckland, New Zealand, some of us are still stuck here in the cold, harsh, grey reality of the northeastern United States. Better still, some of us get to travel to a Massachusettes town on the coastline during a Nor'Easter to play some stoner-metal with a horrifically mangled finger. But I digress...
No, it's not a tattoo convention, but I can almost guarantee that there will be a convening of many fabulously tattooed bodies - not to mention 11 great bands over 10 hours (including the illustrious Dogs of Winter at 6pm) and a cover charge and 50/50 raffle that will benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That's right - it's DINKSTOCK 2!
If you're in the Boston metro-area, please come on down and say "hello." I'll be the sleeved, bald dude who's either bleeding profusely from the fingertips onstage or just drinking in the corner to ease the pain of a cooking accident gone horribly awry.
It's no secret: I love playing cover songs. I take great pleasure in arranging (and re-arranging) a composition to give it a Pretty-Woman/Eliza-Doolittle makeover to turn the whore into a saint, or vicea versa. It's an extra treat when the song I'm "covering" is one of my own.
Today marks the release of "Beneath The Fold" from my stoner-metal band, Dogs of Winter. We stripped down the psychedelic maelstrom (as it appears on From Soil To Shale) to a few acoustic guitars and a string section and I have to admit, I can't decide which version I like better.
You can download the MP3 in two high-quality bitrates at lapdanceacademy.com/fold - bundled with a PDF digibooklet featuring artwork from Boston-based illustrator, Joe Boyle (the design process for which, he blogs about here).
I also got to lose my mind for a few days, scouring the Prelinger collection of royalty-free movies at archive.org and cobbled together a companion video for the track. Any filmmakers/video-artists out there really need to take advantage of this amazing collection.
Let us know what you think of the track and the video in the comments, would ya?
[UPDATE: my previous link to Joe's illustration process was based on the old cover, here's his process-piece on "Beneath The Fold" for all of you art-nerds]
Not to say that I'm among their ranks, but I happen to know a lot of talented people. People who inspire me through their individual avenues of expression - be it music, acting, writing, painting, tattooing, photography or just bare-bones intelligence. And then there are people like Alex Walker - a guy who has made myself and plenty of my rock-n-roll cronies just shake our heads and mutter, "Shit... I ain't NEVER gonna be that good." Whether he's finger-picking a Leo Brouwer Etude on the subway platform or creating a delay-pedal homage to Michael Jackson in his bedroom, I always have to sit back and drool.
So its with great pleasure that I announce today's official release of his latest track, "Sacrifice," available for free download at lapdanceacademy.com/sacrifice.
You can read Alex's thoughts on the song over here at his blog, but I prefer the opening paragraph from his press release:
How do you release a "Summer Anthem" during a season plagued with monsoons worthy of a January in Jakarta? If you're ALEX WALKER, you don't give a fuck; you just write the song and wait for Al Roker, Al Gore and the rest of the world to catch up with you. SACRIFICE, the latest single from ALEX WALKER, is the track you would have heard bumping from drop-tops in every major city if we had actually had a "summer."
It's free to download, so quit sittin on yer thumbs and get clicking!
Marisa's Black Tattoo Art book release and subsequent party tonight at Tattoo Culture might be dominating the headlines around these here parts, but for those of us tattoo junkies with monstrous 4x12 Marshalls on the brain, there is another event worth noting...
Righty roo, Rorge. Free fucking tater tots, all night long at Trash Bar. Open bar from 8-9pm with paid admission ($7) and the mighty - albeit petulant and nerdy - Dogs of Winter taking the stage at 10pm.
It's with great pleasure that I announce the beginning of Safe To Swim Weekend 2 tomorrow brought to you by the Patron Saint of the New England Music Scene - and founder of Sub Rosa Party - Anthony Yacobellis.
And while I may be "follicularly-challenged" in comparison to the cats and kittens on the flyer above (designed by yours truly), I can safely stake my claim in the event as both a vendor and a musician.
This Saturday, Marisa and I will be giving away Needles and Sins swag and slinging t-shirts at the Lapdance Academy Records booth from 1pm on and my stoner-metal band, Dogs of Winter, will be gracing the "Cultural Commission Stage" at 6:50pm. So if you're in Danbury, CT, or the surrounding area, definitely come on by and pose for pictures with us!
Over 35 bands will be gracing the outdoor stages and the subequent "after-parties" from Friday until Sunday, including: my old and dear friends, Earl Greyhound; my collaborators and confidants, Saint Bernadette; the NHL's favorite novelty act, The Zambonis; a frightening version of myself in 10 years, Joe Roberto; and my nominee for "best band name ever," Total Dick.
Admission to the outdoor shows is totally free! Bring a lawn-chair and cooler and prepare to have your face melted.
(Seriously, if any of you are in touring bands, you NEED to get in touch with Tony - if you have your shit together and have your chops up, he is the man to know for your runs between NYC and Boston.)
While the exact month and year escapes me, I distinctly remember beginning work on my Bedlam Nights album at 51 Lions Studio in Quincy, MA. The studio was run by a bunch of my old Boston pals (guys who had played in The Sharking, Kicked In The Head, The Street Dogs, Big D and The Kids Table and Random Acts of Violence) and I will jump at any chance to get out of my NYC element in order to buckle down and work - especially if it's a sweltering carriage house that nearly mandates nudity when tracking vocals.
Towards the end of my first day of tracking I met Hooker, the brilliant guitarist from Random Acts... who, at the time, looked like Zakk Wylde without a healthy diet of anabolic steroids. He and another housemate had just arrived on their Harleys and a third housemate said, "Hey, My friend Gina wants to ride with you guys... you'd like her! Real cool, killer body..."
"Nah," Hooker said, opening a beer. "I only like fat chicks with sloppy tits." And with that he walked out of the room without even acknowldeging my presence, leaving me to giggle about that exchange for the next few months. Hooker was A-fucking-OK in my book.
So thanks to the miracle that is FaceSpace, I realized that Hooker had moved down to North Carolina and had basically traded in shredding Gibsons for dabbling with oil painting. And while I was initially drawn in by a blog post about his Rising Sun shoulder-cap tattoo, what really caught my eye was his plan to turn the garage's beer fridge into an homage to Eddie Van Halen's 5150 Strat.
(So if that kind of DIY, psuedo-white-trash reportage photography doesn't inspire you to click through to a blog post, let me just inform you that it also contains the sentence "I went over to Food Lion to buy beer to eat for dinner." Eat your heart out, Bukowski.)
Yes, Virginia, this is what happens when people with an unhealthy obsession with 80s metal do in their spare time. And while I have no love whatsoever for the ouvre of Van Halen, I would be proud to walk to my garage to remove a beer from this piece of folk-art (or even just to have a separate fridge dedicated for beer in the first place).
Seriously, Hooker is one of those cats that I hate. He bucks the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" title by, well, mastering nearly everything he lays his hands on (excluding sobriety and good manners, of course).
Definitely check out his blog and his oil paintings for sale, including a great series of "meat paintings" and, my favorite piece, the Tom Waits portrait pictured to the right.
Buy it quick before I do.
PS - for $50, he'll do this to your fridge in Randy Rhodes polka dots, a Zakk Wylde bulls-eye or the Stryper-style bee stripes.
As a NYC based denizen, I've frequented a few (but not many) tattoo studios in the five boroughs. One of the best studios I feel is Three Kings Tattoo situated at the corner of McCarren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
I was lucky enough to be tattooed by Matty during their Friday the 13th Zombie special last March. He was the first artist in the past year to start tattooing my legs.
Every little bit helps- whether it be a small donation, a t-shirt (only $20!) or just coming out to the show...
