Tattoosday in Massachusetts: Ariel and Her F-Holes

On our way back to New York after a brief stint in Boston, we stopped in Northampton to visit our friends, Anne and Liz.

At their house, I met their friend Ariel.

At one point in the conversation, I asked Ariel if she played the violin.

Initially, she looked surprised that I would ask, but I pointed to the tattoo on her inner forearm, which had tipped me off:

Ariel explained that these are, indeed, representative of a violin's sound holes, commonly referred to as the "F holes." She elaborated:

"I play the violin. I love violin music and fiddle music and this is exactly where, if you h0ld the violin ... if the sun were shining through ... the violin,  I feel it would pierce right there, while you were playing ... It's just a good spot that always reminds me of it, but it's also not very visible and ... these are abstractions of it, they're not perfect, I drew them myself. They're not traced from an actual violin."

Ariel had this tattoo done at Lucky's Tattoo & Piercing in Northampton.

Thanks to Ariel for sharing her musical tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Kevin's Medieval, Mystical, Musical Sleeve

The other day we saw Olivia's "Hippie Chick".

With her was Kevin, who let me photograph his sleeve:

Kevin explained that the sleeve is "a medieval and mystical, musical kind of deal, a battle of what exists and doesn't exist in your own mind."

This work was done by two artists from upstate New York: Joel Mentnor from Hyperion Tattoo in Buffalo, and Josh Avery at Davie Mac's Rock Solid Tattoos on Grand Island in the Niagara Falls area. Kevin sat for the sleeve, by his estimate, approximately twenty-five hours over a two-year period. He has about thirty-five hours of tattoo work on his canvas. [Update: this piece was previously attributed incorrectly to Bob Bieber, but Joel Mentnor confirmed that he and Josh Avery both worked on the sleeve.]

Thanks to Kevin for sharing his sleeve with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Olivia's "Hippie Chick"

Back in September, I met Kevin and Olivia in Penn Station. Both have tattoos and were kind enough to share their work. Today we get to appreciate Olivia's tattoo, which she described as her "hippie chick":

Olivia explained:

"I drew her myself. I draw all of my tattoos ... It's ... my inner personality brought out ... I play the keyboards. There's a hidden paintbrush in there. My name means 'peace' so I have a peace dove."

She had this tattooed by Esther at Beyond DMT in Buffalo, New York.

Thanks to Olivia for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Jared's Sleeve Reflects His Journey Through the Music Business

I met Jared back in April outside of Penn Station on Eighth Avenue. He had an interesting sleeve that he offered to share:

Jared explained that the concept of the sleeve was based on his experience in the music industry. He had been a musician, but gave up the professional calling "about six months ago." He elaborated:

"...It's a sacrificial piece ... the heart right there [at the center of the arm, in the ditch] ... music's in your DNA and it rips your heart open ...

... and the sacrifice you have to go through ... two faces are the two faces you had to deal with in the music business..."

The work above was done by two free-lance artists. The top section of the sleeve was done by a guy named Steve, and the bottom section with the two faces was done by another person whose name Jared doesn't recall.

Thanks to Jared for sharing this work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Vicki's Half-Woman, Half-Octopus Tattoo

I met Vicki at the DeKalb Avenue subway station in Brooklyn last month and I had to ask her about this tattoo.

This design is a half-woman, half-octopus, and was done by Brian Faulk at Hand of Glory Tattoo in Park Slope. She elaborated:

"I went to him [Brian] with a picture from the Victorian era that was of a woman who is all buttoned up, with a high collar, and then her bustle and her skirt are an octopus, so I went to him and said this is something to go from, but I want it to be more modern and not so buttoned up...it was [also] inspired by a song by Carla Kihlstedt, who's in a band called Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, so this is from a song from her band 2 Foot Yard ... the song is called "Octopus" [and] it's the story of a woman and all the different facets of her personality, pulling her in different directions."

Here's another look at the tattoo from the shop's website:

© 2012 The End Is Near - All rights reserved

Brian, the artist from Hand of Glory/The End is Near, has tattooed me before, as reported here and here.

Thanks to Vicki for sharing her woman/octopus with us here on Tattoosday!

Here's a performance of "Octopus" from YouTube:

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Pantera Giveaway

I was never a huge fan of the band Pantera, as they peaked just as my love of metal was on the downswing. I'm more of an 80's metal guy. However, as time has passed, I have grown to appreciate the band and regarded their breakthrough album, Vulgar Display of Power, as a classic.

So when the opportiunity presented itself to help promote the 20th anniversary of Vulgar Display of Power, I couldn't resist.

"But wait," you might be saying, "this is a tattoo blog not a music site."  True, but I can tie anything to ink, it seems, so let's go down memory lane and revisit an old post from July 2009:

I was talking to a guy named Izzy on the R train. My wife Melanie was sitting next to me as he was telling me about his tattoos.

"Ever hear of a band called Pantera?" he asked.

Melanie laughed, the tattoo made sense, I knew what the crux of it was immediately - Izzy had the autograph of Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell forever inked on his flesh. Sadly, for those who don't know, in 2004, Dime was murdered on stage by a crazed fan.

Above Dimebag's signature is the logo CFH from their debut album Cowboys from Hell and below it is a guitar drawn by the legendary musician.

Izzy met Dime about 11 years ago [1998], outside of the building where Howard Stern was broadcasting his radio show. Dime drew it all on with a Sharpie and an artist named Eric tattooed it in the back of Bleecker Bob's Records.


Read the full post here.

Earlier this month, Rhino/Atco released the 20th anniversary edition of Vulgar Display of Power.
The new package includes the original remastered album, with the addition of  "Piss," a recently discovered unreleased track from the recording sessions. It is packaged with a DVD that contains an unreleased live performance filmed in Italy in September of 1992, with the addition of the three official music videos from the album.

Check out the clip from the new video for the new track "Piss":




This is classic Pantera at the height of their game, and the live DVD performances are just phenomenal shots of pure adrenaline and power.

In conjunction with Rhino/Atco, we here at Tattoosday are giving away four copies of the 20th anniversary 2-disc combo. How cool is that!? So, if you are interested, please leave a comment on this post (making sure I have a way to contact you if you win) or, if you prefer, go to our Facebook page (here) and post a comment on the Pantera post to be eligible. I will use a fancy randomizer to help pick the winners and will announce them here on Friday, so enter by Thursday at midnight, EDT.

And, if you don't win, you can snag the CD from iTunes here or Amazon here.

In the mean time, you can also listen to some of the tracks streaming from the record by clicking this link:

Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition


Good luck to all!




This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.