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The last year has seen a pushback within the tattoo community; with tattoo artists uploading their own tattoo videos to the internet as an antidote to cable network programmed tattoo “reality shows” that are anything but real.

But you know the old saying- “there’s nothing new under the sun”. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of tattooists took the bull by the horns and produced their own tattoo films. Royboy, Crazy Ace, tattoo fan Michael O. Stearns- folks who documented tattooing for a niche market of worldwide devotees who at the time had no outlet for tattoo programming.

I’ve been collecting these tapes (have you held a VHS tape lately? They’re comically huge) since they originally came out and, fearing that these glimpses of our history may end up forgotten, digitizing them for my ‘Occult Vibrations’ blog. The idea is that if folks all over the world have access to them, they can never disappear.

Instead of talking about the specific tape (dude… you should see the outtakes. Debra dancing butt naked in a snow cemetery, rolling around naked with tigers and a baby… so fucking weird) I figured a little blurb about where the video came from would be more fitting.

–Guest post by Shawn Porter of Occult Vibrations

We’re looking for quality guest blogs from tattooers & enthusiasts–shoot us an email.

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Jack contacted us with photos of this super-collab tattoo he had done at Tattoo Jam this year. I think I’ll let the gentleman tell you a bit about the piece himself:

This charity piece was donated by the All or Nothing crew (Brandon Bond, Tony Mancia, Dave Tedder),  Paul Booth and Darrin White also offered to take part. They didn’t break it up into sections, instead using quite a novel approach, as Brandon, Tony and Dave blood-lined the piece first. Which means (sorry, I’m sure you know this already) that they used just water to lubricate the needle and outline the design on my skin, which left a red bloodline for the time that they were doing the tattoo, but goes away when it heals.

If you study the tattoo, you’ll notice that there are no lines, just clever shading. So it meant that all of the artists could just tag each other in and out (about 30 minutes at a time)–it took about 6-7 hours to do.

All of the artists were involved in the shading and blending. The only areas I know to be attributable to specific artists were the white lining (Paul and Tony) and the large extended background areas above, below and around the rose, which were done entirely by Paul.

Check out photos of Jack receiving this amazing tattoo on Facebook.

Collab tattoo by: Brandon Bond, Paul Booth, Tony Mancia, Dave Tedder and Darrin White

Instead of posting a list of people you should follow today, I’m going to go out on a limb and do something different for this post. Below is a list of tattoo artists that have Twitter accounts, but don’t use them.

Consider this my wish list. All of these artists took the step to make an account – now let’s just hope they start tweeting.

Mike Devries – The occasional tweet does come out from Mike, but it’s typically a plug and they don’t happen all that often.

Carson Hill – Carson was tweeting on a semi irregular basis, but he hasn’t since the end of November.

Joshua Carlton – Without a single tweet, I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll see this account start up. I’d love to see what Joshua is up to from day to day.

Paul Booth – The man, the myth, the legend. While Paul doesn’t have one tweet yet, there was a “test” tweet yesterday. I’m taking that as a sign of hope that this account will start tweeting soon.

So why follow them? Well, as I said, I’m cautiously optimistic.

As always, I’ve added all of these users to the appropriate lists. Currently we have lists for Tattoo Artists, Tattoo Shops, Photographers, and Clothing Companies.

The Last Rites Gallery recently opened it’s second annual 13th Hour exhibit. The exhibit features paintings, photography, film, and sculptures from a variety of artists, including Paul Booth, Shawn Barber, Chet Zar, Scott Brooks, and Lithium Picnic. You have until November 22nd to get to the gallery to see everything, which shouldn’t be difficult consider it’s opened Tuesday through Saturday from 2-9pm, and Sunday’s from 2pm – 6pm. If you can’t make it to the gallery, you can always view the exhibit online, courtesy of Last Rites.

Judging by the pictures that Steve Prue took on opening night, I don’t think it’ll be the same experience, but you can still enjoy the art.

by Stephanie Henderson

by Brian Viveros

by Genevive Zacconi