Frank Turner, Wembley Arena.

April 16, 2012

On Friday I went to see my friend Frank Turner play his first headline arena show at Wembley and tattooed the date on him between the main set and the encore.

 It is usually completely dark backstage but I got one light to work with (rubbish for tattooing as you cast a shadow with your hand), he was sweaty, it had to be quick and I also had to match the lettering to the old Wembley tattoo he had done when he supported Green Day. Needless to say, this tattoo was more about the experience and the moment than technical perfection.

I met Frank a few years ago and have tattooed him a few times, including in the video for “I still believe”, also a stressful and difficult tattoo! He asked me about tattooing the date on him at Wembley and then mentioned the idea of broadcasting it on the screens between sets. I didn’t think too much of it as it wasn’t confirmed and then as the date got closer and it seemed to be more definite I started to think I had maybe been mistaken, maybe we would do it before the show and it would just be broadcast between sets? That seemed to make more sense, but no. It was live, right at the back of the stage, seconds after the last song. I had put the stencil on much earlier in the hope that he didn’t sweat it off and it had luckily stayed on so I just had to pick up my machine and go.

You can see more pics of the gig, by Ben Morse, here.

Morrissey said “we hate it when our friends become successful” but in this case I don’t. Frank works harder than just about anyone I know and he doesn’t seem to have changed one bit as things have taken off for him. When I first saw him play to a tiny crowd of people I thought “why isn’t this guy playing to massive crowds?”, and now he is.

Addendum

I am no fan of tattooists who make a name for themselves doing average tattoos on famous people and name dropping is vulgar and unpleasent. I hope this doesn’t come across like that. It was an interesting experience to tattoo live at Wembley though and I wanted to share it.

Oh you handsome devil…

April 11, 2012
The astute and educated observer will have noticed that my work and this blog is littered with references to The Smiths. They were the first band I ever fell in love with and, unlike most teenage love affairs, this one has never waned. If you have never understood the appeal, this sums it up better than I ever could:

“Morrissey displayed an almost supernatural ability to tap into the teenage psyche: not the fizzy surface of marketing and mainstream pop culture, but the muck and dirt. His witty, allusive lyrics – sometimes literary, sometimes extremely blunt – deep-mined the less palatable sides of adolescence.
It’s all there: sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, the oscillation between feeling abject and worthless and wanting to take over the world, the fantasies of power and revenge.”

(Taken from a Guardian article, you can read it all here)

Morrissey tattoo

Facebook

March 12, 2012

I have never had anything to do with work on Facebook until recently. I now have a public folder of tattoos and artwork and you can subscribe to my public updates here. Please don’t add me unless we really know each other, I prefer to keep it private. Take my word for it, you really aren’t missing much, just hit subscribe and you’ll see anything of interest.

If you have subscribed you will have already see these pieces, if not here they are. These are probably the closest representation of the direction I am trying to move my work in right now, I hope you like them:

Pheasants.

February 8, 2012

I haven’t completely abandoned this blog and here is a painting I finished a little while ago to prove it. I haven’t measured it but I am guessing it is about 1 x 1.5m.

I have been working very hard lately on some new designs and new ideas to try and push my work in some new directions. I have been finishing tattoos, including some of the new ideas, but I want to wait and post a few at once. I think sometimes work has a better impact when you can see it is part of a collection, or of a period of time.

[Untitled]

January 15, 2012

I painted this recently. It is in oil, 50×60 cm and in an old frame from a charity shop, the 4th painting I had started for this frame, none of the others worked out. Even though I am completely un-superstitious, I was starting to wonder if it was jinxed. Here is a progress pic I posted on twitter.

I know it’s over.

January 1, 2012

I finished these two paintings recently, both with the same lyrics. The cultured reader will recognise where they are from of course:

Monochrome.

December 28, 2011

By accident rather than design, this blog entry is black and grey only.

I did this little one shot piece on a wrist:

I am trying to remember how long this took me but to no avail, maybe 3 or 4 sessions:

I had seen a few drawings done in ballpoint pen recently and really been impressed at the look that can be achieved, so I thought I would give it a go. Turns out I quite enjoyed it but it is bloody slow going. In some ways it is similar to tattooing; you can put a line in and then shade over it and know it is not going to go anywhere. Both of these pieces are pretty small, about A5 in size but took me at least 4 hours each:

I have a few new paintings nearly finished and a couple of big tattoos just waiting to be photographed so the next blog should be along quite soon.

Standing there in your raven hair

November 30, 2011

Here are a couple of pieces I finished recently.

I like the fact that the 3 skulls in this sleeve are pretty subtle, maybe more so in reality than the photo;

Rib tattoos can be hard to do, especially if the customer doesn’t sit well. Luckily this wasn’t one of those;

Time for another musical interlude. I fucking love this band;

The needle and the damage done.

November 28, 2011

I had the pleasure and privilege to take the tattoo virginity of my good friend Steve Gerrard. He is an amazing photographer and I recommend checking out his work here.

He pretty much left me to it and here is the tattoo I did for him;

And here is a video I made of the whole process;

Banning the sale of tattoo equipment to unlicensed individuals.

November 25, 2011

Forgive my indulgence, there are no pictures in this post, just me getting on my soapbox.

The UK tattoo industry has been remarkably libertarian in the past, resisting all attempts at external regulation and control. Now however, there is a movement to “Ban the sale of tattoo equipment to unlicensed individuals”. I could go on at length about this but two main issues spring to my mind; Firstly, what is an “unlicensed individual”? Assuming it just means that as long as you are licensed by your local authority it is ok, because it is about proper sterilisation equipment and use then I can see a case for that. But it’s important to remember that such licenses don’t cover technical/artistic competence or even anything to do with basic cross contamination knowledge, often just that you have an autoclave. (All local authorities seem to have their own rules but it all seems pretty basic). If this is the reason, then this movement may be campaigning for the wrong thing and putting the cart well before the horse. We may have to face the reality that we should have a qualification for cross contamination competence and more stringent regulation, which of course will have to be paid for. Having dealt with the self-perpetuating-bureaucratic nightmare of Laser Removal legislation before, I can only say, be very careful whenever you ask for more government intervention into your life and check that it is absolutely necessary.

Secondly, I am not sure whom we are trying to protect with this? I know some people might say “the industry” but that just seems pretty vague to me, I am not really sure what that even means. The industry can certainly survive people putting out shit tattoos from their house, it has for years, and it can survive a negative public perception of tattooing, it did for years and some prominent artists have nostalgia for those days. I actually think that with every crappy home made tattoo, more people are going to realise that it is not actually as easy as it looks and being a tattooist involves art and skill.

I presume it could be to protect the individuals getting tattooed. Is anyone really so naive they don’t know about blood borne pathogens in this day and age? I find that hard to believe. If they are under age then there already exists legislation to protect them, as there should be, and it is a different problem of how to best enforce that. If they are over 18, then as far as I am concerned, they are free to make any decisions they see fit in regards to their own body and they can face the consequences of those decisions too. Far better orators than me have summed this up so I will leave with a few choice quotes.

On responsibility and choices:

  • It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself – Justice Casey Percell
  • If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all – Jacob Hornberger

On over regulation;

  • If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law – Winston Churchill
  • One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation – Thomas B. Reed

 

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