Musician Monday: A Trio of Tattoos from Justin Y. of Everyone Dies in Utah

 Back in May, I met Justin in the Borders at Penn Plaza and he shared his three tattoos. Justin had recently been signed to a band from Texas called Everyone Dies in Utah and he was moving out from Maryland. He offered up his knuckle tattoos:

Justin has been playing drums for about eleven years and loves drums, which explains these knuckles. Of course, I would be remiss if I mentioned knuckle tattoos and didn't direct you to KnuckleTattoos.com to see more, courtesy of my friend Nathan.

The most compelling tattoo Justin shared was this piece, on his right forearm:

He explained:

"I have a little sister, she's ten now, but it was last year, so she was nine, and she was all bummed that I was moving really far and touring and stuff, so I told her I would get a tattoo for her ... I was trying to think of what would be absolutely unique, and the only thing I could think of was fingerprints. So, I decided it would be cool to get her hand print, so I went out and got a big old ink pad and did her hand print on a piece of paper, took it in, and he [Jason Kramer at Positive Image Tattoos in Baltimore] did all of his magic and got it done."

Justin's third tattoo was this piece on his left forearm:

He told me

"I love Jesus ... simple as that. I was thinking about doing a whole arm, faith-based kind of thing, and I ike the ides of just being able to walk into a room and people know exactly like, well, that guy's definitely a Christina and he's for serious ... It's a good starting piece to talk to people."

All of Justin's work is by Jason Kramer at Positive Image Tattoos in Baltimore.

Be sure to check out Everyone Dies in Utah on Facebook here.

Thanks to Justin for sharing his cool ink with us here on Tattoosday! 

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David's Traditional Hands

Last month I met David when I stopped after noticing his neck tattoo. However, it was his hands he offered up to us here at Tattoosday:

David works in construction and is a contractor. He also manages the band, Drew Nugent & the Midnight Society.

He has about thirty-five (35) hours of work done on his body, and he explained that these are traditional pieces on his hands.

He was inspired to have his knuckles read "True Blue" as they speak to his belief that our country has lost its values that need to be regained. Key among these values are loyalty and honor, in the traditional, "true blue" sense of the words.

To him, the panther represents that we need to fight to regain these ideals.

And the two roses represent the ideal (the healthy, red flower on the right hand) and what he called the "diminished," (on the left) that is, where we're headed with our loss of values.

David embraced these traditional elements because he feels that "the only way to have a future is to look at the past".

He had the panther done at a tattoo convention. The roses and "TRUE BLUE" knuckles are credited to Rick Meggison at Marked 4 Life in York, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to David for sharing these very cool hand tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Gary's Three Knuckles Speak Volumes

I spotted Gary standing at the top of some escalators in Penn Station. As I passed him, I noticed he had knuckle tattoos so I stopped to ask him about them:

Gary explained that they are Korean characters

that translate to "Soo Bahk Do," or "The Way of the Striking Hand".

Soo Bahk Do is a form of martial arts that originated in Korea.

This unassuming gentleman has studied the form for seventeen years and is a third degree black belt. Gary studied at East Winds Karate in Port St. John, Florida.

The tattoo was inked at a shop on Eight Avenue in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Thanks to Gary for sharing his "striking" tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Markjames' Knuckles

Last week I posted this great owl tattoo belonging to Markjames, a Pennsylvania-based tattoo artist.

Prior to sharing it, however, I also snapped his knuckles:


When I asked what this meant, he said "just a feeling". What is particularly cool about these knuckles are the traditional anchor and horseshoe standing in for the letters "T" and "U", respectively.

These were inked by Russell Kelley at Silk City Tattoo in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Work from the shop has appeared multiple times before and can all be seen under Silk City's Tattoosday label here.

Thanks again to Markjames for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

Danny's Incredible Tattoos

On occasion, I will wander from 7th Avenue to 8th Avenue, through the campus of F.I.T., hoping to spot some creative work. One of my first posts (documented here) featured tattoos from someone I met on that stretch of street.

Last month, I ran into Danny, who had several very nice tattoos.

First I took a picture of this hannya mask on his right forearm:


Then I snapped this photo of the tattoo above his right wrist:


This metal-plated heart represents Danny's emotional toughness, with a trace of sensitivity. In his words, "even if my heart is dead, it will still bleed".

I also took a photo of Danny's knuckles, which I wanted to post up on Knuckletattoos.com. However, since they're working on a six-month backlog, I thought I'd spare them the extra post and just share these here:


They read, of course, "HATE PAIN". This just represents what Danny was going through at the time he had his digits inked.

Initially, he had told me his back was done, but I didn't press him to show me the work. By the time I had taken pictures of his knuckles, I guess he felt comfortable enough to share this truly remarkable back piece:


All of his work was done by Thailand Mike at Scratch Tattoo in Elmhurst, Queens. He initially went to Mike for a cover-up on his back, providing just the central part of the design...


Danny visited from time to time for over a year, having elements of the back filled in. The demon head at the top of the back is particularly cool


and the dragon hovering above the wasitline is also impressive:


I rarely get to feature back pieces, as they have to be offered up by generous contributors, so when I see one, I am seldom disappointed.

Thanks again to Danny for sharing so much of his work with us here on Tattoosday!

Amy's Variation on a Sailor Jerry Classic

I met Amy one day a few weeks back, outside of Madison Square Garden.

She estimates she has spent about 36 hours being tattooed, and that her body is "a work in progress".

She offered up this tattoo on her left arm, which is a modified version of a classic Sailor Jerry design:


The original concept is your basic naval tattoo design, with the "Stewed, Screwed, and Tattooed" slogan:

This piece has been elongated, with a few flowers added for that feminine touch, and the banner "1 Life" is inserted as a nod to the shop where she had this done.


This, along with most of her work, was tattooed by Branden Noetzel at 1 Life Tattoo in Brainerd, Minnesota.

Amy, who is a make-up artist by trade, also has the knuckle tattoos that read B-O-O-K W-O-R-M. I would have shot them for my friends over at KnuckleTattoos.com, but she's already on the site (see them clearly here). So, she offered up her two foo dogs (inked on her hands for protection) instead:


Thanks to Amy for sharing her great tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Rachel McKibbens' Bookish Knuckle Tattoos

Today's tattoos were submitted by Rachel McKibbens, who knows, among others, Cheryl, whose beautiful tattoo, appeared here previously. These are, in fact, the first knuckle tattoos appearing on the Tattooed Poets Project:


Rachel, who is almost fully-sleeved, writes:

I got this tattoo on April 30th, 2006, at the True Blue Tattoo studio while visiting Austin, TX. [Work from True Blue has appeared on Tattoosday twice before, click here to see]. The artist was Jon Reed. Next to my "ditches" [the inner elbows] this was the most painful tattoo I've gotten to date. I was running out of space on my arms and decided to finally go balls out and get my knuckles done. I was initially going to get " a s d f j k l ; " to represent the home keys of a typewriter, but I realized, since it would have to be upside down and backwards, it wouldn't match up with the actual fingers that rested on them.

At the time, I was teaching poetry at Bellevue Hospital, and I was always encouraging my kids to read. I would give them the books off my shelves, go to The Strand and buy in bulk, etc. I needed them to feel like they weren't confined to the hospital or their group home. One of the writing exercises was to have them come up with my knuckle tatts - two four-letter words that weren't dirty. They came up with some doozies, but nothing that really fit.

I finally came upon "book worm" after my friend Leah's boyfriend suggested it. It was such a logical choice, but the two words never came to me in the months I was searching. It is one of my favorite tattoos. And it's the first thing people see (besides the teardrop below my eye) and, since knuckle tatts have come to have this "tough guy" persona, people always laugh when they see it.

If you like knuckle tattoos, I encourage people to visit Knuckletattoos.com, where I occasionally contribute a piece I've spotted in New York. I would have sent Rachel there, but they posted a Book Worm tattoo knuckle piece here.

Thanks to Rachel for submitting these here.

Please head over to BillyBlog to read one of her poems here.

Jerry's Sparrows Represent an Ocean Crossed

I met Jerry just outside of our local grocery store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

He was kind enough to let me photograph one of the sparrows flying on each side of his neck:


Jerry estimates that 50% of his body is inked. Today being January 4, a lot of that was covered against the elements, so the sparrow it was.

He has been getting tattoos since he was 17 years old.

He went with the sparrow tattoos to represent the traditional aspect of the art, and the fact that he had crossed an ocean (The Atlantic). This is one of the meanings that sparrows possess when represented in ink.

This piece, and most of his recent tattoos, was created by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink.

Work by Alex and other Brooklyn Ink artists has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Jerry also has knuckle tattoos, which I also snapped pictures of his hands for KnuckleTattoos.com, but a shadow (mine) interfered with a clean shot:


The knuckles read "Ride Hard" because Jerry is a biker and he says it's best to "ride hard or not at all". If I get the opportunity to get a better shot of his knuckles, I'll send them over to KnuckleTattoos.com.

Thanks again to Jerry for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Now Appearing on KnuckleTattoos.com!

Nathan over at KnuckleTattoos.com, who has featured Tattoosday content before, has now added me as a contributor, and I'm pleased as punch (and oh-so-thankful). My first contribution, although not original (it appeared in a longer form here first) is up and viewable here.

I'm excited because affiliation with his site will expand my range of inkspotting and lend me some additional street cred. I mean, what sounds cooler? "Can I ask you about your tattoo? I write a tattoo blog..." or "Hi, I'm a contributing writer at Knuckletattoos.com....".

Either way, I'm stoked to be expanding my repertoire, and am looking forward to a long and productive partnership with Nathan and his site.

Joel Marks Memories with Some Significant Ink

What is this? Read on.....

Last week I met Joel, a writer and a marketing director for an artist management and development company.

Joel couldn't tell me how many tattoos he has (he has that many), but he did share two of them with me.

The first is posted above and, despite being a little blurry in the photo, this small piece is an early band logo. In fact, Joel informed me that it was the first tattoo ever inked in honor of the band Linkin Park, one of the first acts to achieve a massive audience with their blend of hard rock
and rap.

Joel explains that, in September 2000, he was travelling with the relatively obscure band in Utah, working as a driver and director of merchandising. They were touring just prior to the release of their breakthrough album Hybrid Theory.

Tattoos are often road maps for one's personal history and this tiny Linkin Park tattoo marks that moment in time.

More important to Joel, however, is this, one of his more recent tattoos:


It's an interesting and unusual take on the knuckle tattoo. Rather than the 4x4 knuckle piece, it's a 2x2, with the letters "M" and "C" on the right hand and the numbers "5" and "9" on the left. When the fists come together, the MC 59 display, representing Mike Conley and the year 1959, when Mike was born.


Joel described Mike as his best friend, who died tragically in February of this year after falling and hitting his head in a parking lot of a Chicago motel. Mike introduced Joel to the work of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac, and to the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. He was the owner of The Avalon Bar in Costa Mesa, California. I could see the sadness in the eyes of Joel, as he recalled the friend that was taken from life
too soon. Joel said "I'm never gonna be over it."

This was inked by Hek at HB Tattoo in Huntington Beach.

I learned later, by visiting the Mike Conley Family Memorial Fund website, that Mike was a founding member of the Southern California punk band M.I.A. (Not to be confused with the hip hop artist of the same name.)

I encourage folks to visit the website and, if so moved, to make a donation. There are links to some nice articles about Mike and his influence on the music scene.

Thanks to Joel for sharing his tattoos with us here at Tattoosday. And our condolences to Mike Conley's family and friends who lost so much when he was taken at such an early age.