Tattoos for your Tuckus :: Electric Solos Motorcycle Seats

I like it when people make stuff. Handcrafted goods in this country have been disappearing at an alarming pace over the last few decades, and I am always excited when I come across someone putting their nose to the grindstone, producing quality artisan products. I get even more excited when these handcrafted goods are badass, either functionally or aesthetically. In Alex Higgins' Electric Solo tattooed motorcycle seats, you have both.


Higgins hard at work in his studio.
Alex's work is a combination of two of the most symbiotic things in rockabilly culture - tattoos and custom parts for your ride. He has logged in over 15 years of tattoo experience, and uses his mastery of old school flash to provide custom bike aficionados with a way to bring even more of their individual style to a bike build.


Some examples of Higgins' work.
And if you decide you'd like a matching piece of work on your own rawhide (aka, your skin!), you can find Alex working as a resident tattoo artist over at The Tattoo Factory in Chicago.

Royal Flush Magazine: Book Seven Sponsorship Drive

Hey there! Do you like music, art and comics? Do you think it's a fucking shame that so many print publications are disappearing faster than endangered turtles in the oil-filled Gulf of Mexico? Do you want to reach out a helping hand and do some awesome strangers a favor, boosting your rock-and-roll-karma-quotient???

Well then have I got a charity case for you!


Royal Flush Magazine is primed to put out issue #7 of their acclaimed magazine, read by more than 50,000 of the most serious fans of music, art,comics, rock and roll culture, street culture, skateboarding, grafitti, pro wrestling, political satire and so much more. But like every other great, grassroots publication, they are in need of some cold, hard cash to keep their demented dream alive.

What do you get for putting your money in RF's proverbial print g-string?:

Pledge $5 or more (the cost of an extra pint of beer here in the city!)
Receive a free Royal Flush Magazine bookmark and Hispanic Batman collector's pin.

Pledge $10 or more (cheaper than a pack of NYC smokes!)
Receive a free Royal Flush Book 7 PDF edition, a Royal Flush Magazine bookmark and Hispanic Batman collector's pin.

Pledge $25 or more (about the cost of a pair of tickets to one of those lame-ass new 3D movies everybody is pissing themselves to see)
Receive a free copy of Royal Flush Book 7 upon release of the book in October 2010, a Royal Flush Magazine bookmark and Hispanic Batman collector's pin.

Pledge $50 or more (the cost of ten days worth of McDonald's lunches...save your fat ass AND support a good cause!)
Receive a free copies of Royal Flush Books 6 & 7 upon release of the book in October 2010, a Royal Flush Magazine bookmark and Hispanic Batman collector's pin.

Pledge $100 or more (less than your tab after a depressing night getting lap dances by aging, herpes-farm strippers at your local girlie bar)
(LIMITED REWARD)
Receive a personalized thank you printed in the pages of Royal Flush Book 7. You will also receive copies of Royal Flush Magazine, Books 4,5,6,7 A bookmark and a collector's pin

...Don't think you can afford to pledge more than $100 to anything these days? Well guess what, my friend, overspending is as American as Apple Fuckin' Pie!!! Someone will bail you out later!

Pledge $200 or more
(LIMITED REWARD)
Receive a personalized thank you printed in the pages of Royal Flush Book 7. Your copy of Royal Flush Book 7 will be autographed by all the book's contributors. Royal Flush 18"x24" silkscreen print of Joan Jett, signed and numbered by Flush artist Josh Bernstein, limited to only 200 prints A Royal Flush bookmark and a Hispanic Batman collector's pin


Pledge $500 or more
(LIMITED REWARD)
An illustrated portrait of the donor by one of Royal Flush's top contributors on archival paper and signed by the artist, Receive a personalized thank you printed in the pages of Royal Flush Book 7. Your copy of Royal Flush Book 7 will be autographed by all the book's contributors. Royal Flush Magazine issues 4,5,6 Royal Flush 18"x24" silkscreen print of Joan Jett, signed and numbered by Flush artist Josh Bernstein, limited to only 200 prints A Royal Flush bookmark and a Hispanic Batman collector's pin

Pledge $1,000 or more
(LIMITED REWARD)
An illustrated portrait of the donor by one of Royal Flush's top contributors on archival paper and signed by the artist that will appear in Royal Flush Book 7. A copy of Royal Flush Book 4 signed by My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way Your copy of Royal Flush Book 7 will be autographed by all the book's contributors. Royal Flush Magazine issues 4,5,6 Royal Flush 18"x24" silkscreen print of Joan Jett, signed and numbered by Flush artist Josh Bernstein, limited to only 200 prints Royal Flush Poster Set (5 classic Royal Flush offset poster prints) A Royal Flush bookmark and a Hispanic Batman collector's pin

What are you waiting for?? As Mike Shinoda, from LINKIN PARK verifies**: "I wish they had ROYAL FLUSH when I was a kid–I would have stood in front of the mailbox waiting for it." DO IT!!!

**While this is a real life endorsement for Royal Flush Magazine (one of many), I still believe Linkin Park sucks, and this was used strictly for ironic purposes.**

The Collage Art of Robert Mars

Oh look! I managed to crawl out of my icy little hermit hole in the North East to write another blog post. OH happy day!!! While most of you up here have been washing the blankets of salt crust off your four-wheeled highway hooligans, I've been in the process of moving and unpacking and trying to rearrange my life's worth of tchotchke in a new apartment (and laughing because though cars are a beautiful, beautiful thing, so is not having one in the city).

Everybody knows that if moving is good for anything, it's getting a reason to rifle through all your old stacks of ___________ (fill it in) that have been sitting around forever, toeing the line between memories and garbage. Of everything one usually finds straddling that border, I guarantee the bulk of it is in the form of magazines. Ah, magazines! The best ones are filled with recipes, naked people, tattoo ideas and pre-'65 American-made vehicles (obvious bias). But while you can still look fondly upon books you read once and haven't touched since (but still want to keep around), magazines tend to evoke a deeper, more complicated level of clutter-hatred. I don't know if the difference is the fact that magazines are about 25% advertising, whereas books are all straight up content. And even in your favorite magazine, there is still only about a 65 to 70% chance you'll really love/use/laugh at all of the articles. Now math was never my strong point, but if I were to guesstimate, of that huge stack of old magazines you have over there taking up valuable space on your dining room table, only 50% of that is matter you will actually need and/or use ever again. And if you're a glass-half-full kinda person, you are probably thinking what I am, "Well I'd better not chuck them because I might want to read that articles about how to interpret what your cat is dreaming about again!"

Which is exactly how you end up moving the same forty pound stack of paper around from three different apartments, even though you've never opened one of those magazines the entire five years.

SO, what to do with all those magazines?? Well, you can do what I am going to do: decoupage our disgusting wooden country-time coffee table...

...which basically looks just like only with a finish like someone tied it to the back of a pick-up truck and drug it around on the street for awhile. Our plan being to turn it into a collage of custom cars, bikes, old ads and - if I have my say - a scantily retro-clad boob and a butt or two here and there.

Decoupage can be pretty damn sheik (see left image), but we're going more for the one on the right.

Not into arts and crafts Martha Stewart home-maker garbage? Then why not try you hand at mixed media collage work? Today I'm going to introduce you to a mixed-media artist named Robert Mars who creates stuff that you, my engine revving roadsters, might be interested in. In Robert's words:

"My work is a chronicle of Americana. I am determined to capture the independent aesthetic of the not-so-distant past that has been replaced by homogenized corporate culture and standardized cityscapes. Industrial design, graphic design, architecture, vintage neon and mid-century icons all render important roles in my work."

How Good It Is 2008, 48" x 36", Mixed Media
I can only hope my mentioning of his fantastic work within the confines of a blog that has, so far, mostly been about decoupage, doesn't cheapen it in any way.

I like Robert's work so much because he so perfectly invokes in me such a heavy feeling of desolation and forgotten America, through his large swathes of color (that could have been chosen directly from an old Mopar paint chip card) and sparse use of period imagery. Although I've seen a ton of mixed media "collage" artists in my time, a lot of them have sucked. But Mars is a beacon of shining light in the murky sea of collage work that typically looks just like your 80 year old, leagally blind, Great Aunt's scrapbook. It's not like you just slap a bunch of crap on a canvas and "Voila! Gimmie $3000 for this original artwork, sucka!". You've gotta have a major handle on color and space usage (the two things that separate random-dude-with-a-brush-and-a-trust-fund from legitimate-artist-guy) and a "vision" that makes it through to your audience. Robert hits every proverbial nail on the head exactly, in my humble opinion, anyway.

Robert Williams is ruling everything these days

Finally got to see his exhibition tonight at the Tony Schrafrazi gallery in Manhattan...INSANITY! There is something that makes me feel like I'm in the presence of god when I stand within five feet of any of his paintings. The color! The light! The NEON! Oh the humanity...

Now I find out that he is one of two LA artists chosen to be in this year's Whitney Biennial, only one of the most (if not THE most) prestigious art shows to be held in the country.

Williams ruling your face in 2010.

And never forget, kids..."Derision finds its greatest success in those who attempt to avoid it." Words to live by.

SKULLZ

"Hi STRANGER! ROCK YOU!" Got ¥3990 (or $45.90, at today's going rates)? Then blow it on one of these:


Shelter Bank's Genuine Fake "Human" Skull

Roughly the size of a 6" cube, they come in assorted colors (including glow in the dark!) and probably fit nicely inside any box, stocking, bag, scrap of used newspaper or whatever you might give nondenominational holiday gifts to people in.

Now if only they came in a life-sized version that cost less than $82,000,000.

Robert Williams Art Show in NYC

While I was standing in the rain, zombie makeup melting off my face, waiting to be in the annual NYC Village Halloween Parade, thirty blocks north at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery is where I should have been. Much like the rest of October, I found out a week too late that the always bewitching art genius Robert Williams was having a Halloween opening night party at the gallery for his latest showing of work, "IN THE SERVICE OF THE HYPOTHETICAL".


See a preview of the show at Art Nouveau Magazine online.
I found out about the show from my always in the know (somehow) manfriend, Mark who stumbled upon the show on his lunch break just the other day (I'll have to post some pictures when he uploads them off his camera). He and his coworker stopped in and, while checking out the myriad of mindfucking paintings and nine foot tall sculptures, Mark realized that Williams himself happened to be in the gallery at the moment and he got to meet the artist who was integral in bringing together my love for absurdist, surrealist art and hot rods...a major part of how I self-identify today.

And then, I wept a little. (I mean, come on - when I found out I'd missed the Robert Williams opening for a less than perfect Halloween evening in the rain coupled with the fact that I was too sick to go to the Art of Rebellion show put on by Harley Davidson a few weeks earlier, I was, to say the least, pretty devastated.)

Anyway, lucky for me (and you!) the show will be open until January. You can visit the Tony Shafrazi Gallery at 544 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001 (Hours: Tues - Sat 10-6).

NYC EVENTS: Royal Flush Mag Release Party, Art of Rebellion, Rumblers Side Show

Holy crap! There's a ton of stuff going on this weekend and my liver is throbbing in anticipation of all the free booze that will be going with it. I'm pretty sure nobody gets any useful information about events from my website (because if you are, you should send me an email or post a commment or something, fer christsakes!), but I'll give you the deets anyway...

(TONIGHT!) Friday, Oct. 16th:

Royal Flush Magazine #6 - Release Party

Mark illustrated the "New Blood" section, and my bros at Royal Flush even threw in a photo of Stainboy and I from when he was in town last year for a book release/poster show of his in Manhattan. Whoopie! I'm a fuckin' art star! (I kid, I kid.)

Anyway, official release party is TONIGHT at Crash Mansion!
199 Bowery St (at spring st), Manhattan, NY 10002
212.982.0740

Bands! Booze! Open bar from 8-9pm. (More Details)
"If print is dead, then the ROYAL FLUSH Magazine is rock and roll's superhero zombie, and it's coming back to life. Part pop culture mag, part rock art carnival, part comic book, and all irreverent fun, the annual Royal Flush Magazine experience returns with a bombastically bulging 112-page sixth book. We're celebrating the new issue with four bands, open bar, and a huge party."

Tonight's lineup is:
9:00 - Cinema Cinema
10:00 - Black Water Rising
11:00 - Goes Cube
12:00 - Suicide City

Free entry with Royal Flush Fest badges OR if you RSVP...better do it NOW.

................................

Saturday, Oct. 17th:

Rumblers NYC present: The Sideshow

The Freakbar in Coney Island
1208 Surf Ave
Brooklyn NY 11224-2816
Tel: 718 372 5159
By Train: Take the D, Q N or F train to Stillwell Avenue (last stop).

Starts at 3pm, goes until you pass out!!
Featuring car and bike show, and bunch 'o bands:
The Turbo A.C.s
The Brains
The Arkhams
(my friend Bobcat plays guitar for them)
Black Boyfriend
(Ex Krays, Urban Riot)
The Percs

With DJ Laura Rebel Angel
(from Rebel Angel Productions)

................................


Harley Davidson's Art of Rebellion Show

la.venue NYC

October 17, 2009

Time: 8pm to Midnight
608 West 28th Street
New York, NY 10001

"The second installment of Art of Rebellion is visiting NYC October 17th after a successful run in Santa Monica earlier this year. The show will feature renowned gig poster artists showing painted Iron 883 tanks and signature poster art along with photography by Adam Wright and Steven Stone. Pick up a poster or splurge on a tank-either way, a chunk of the proceeds go to the CUE Art Foundation."

Featuring custom painted motorcycle gas tanks by big wig poster artists:
Art Chantry
Brian Ewing
Dirty Donny
John Van Hamersveld
Harpoon
Derek Hess
Frank Kozik
Lindsey Kuhn
Tara McPherson
The Pizz

...be there (something, anything!) or be a huge square.

Harley Davidson: Art of Rebellion show, Oct. 17th, NYC

Coming to the La. Venue in Manhattan is Harley-Davidson organized Art of Rebellion, another round of posters and custom painted gas tanks from several of the best gigposter artists today to present their take on the theme of "rebellion". All the artists involved are masters of their craft, but I have a special place in my heart for a few of them I know more personally (Chantry, Kozik, Tara McPherson and Brian Ewing). I always like to see up close and personal what people I like have been working on.



The Art of Rebellion is a one-night only event taking place on October 17, 2009 at LA Venue in the Chelsea arts district of New York City. Each artist will have an original, one-of-a-kind piece created on an Iron 883 tank, as well as signature posters from their collection available for purchase.

La. Venue is located at 608 West 28th Street (Between 11th & 12th Ave, New York, NY 10001. There will be DJs, free drinks and the event itself is 100% FREE. Doesn't get better than that!

Brian Ewing

A preview of Kozik's painted bike parts.


Dirty Donny's contribution.
This is also going on the same week as the Royal Flush Festival, an insane four day stretch of hard rock art, music and film events, coinciding with the release of the latest issue of Royal Flush Magazine, put together by my buddy Josh Bernstein and a handful of his metal head SVA graduate friends. This new issue is also special because my most handsome and talented man-friend Mark was asked to participate and illustrate a section.

So I'll be killing myself from October 14th - 19th, trying to survive going to work every morning after having been up rocking the fuck out of every art show, rock show and party to be had. I suspect it will all be worth it. Join me...jerks!

Puttin' the Dick in Dixie

Dear Hank III,

Yes, please.


Photo taken by David McClister, rock photographer extraordinaire.

I am starting to think long and hard about moving to Nashville, or maybe Louisville, Kentucky, so I can be neighbors with amazing artists and extremely lovely gentlemen Justin Kamerer (aka Angryblue) and Jeral Tidwell.


Justin (left) watches Jeral (right) airbrush boobies

Together, those talented, charming (and good looking!) men form Crackhead Press, a screen printing studio based out of Louisville. I just recently purchased their Ink Alchemy Vol. 2 book and the print quality and illustrations are just outstanding.


Order at either of their websites, Angryblue.com or Humantree.com
Of the two of these great guys, I think Jeral's work (I am lucky to have several art prints and posters of his at home) is probably of particular interest to the Greaser Garage crowd as he has a plethora of rod-related art to boot.


Tidwell poster for Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock
So ladies (if there are any of you even reading this site), this post filled with smart, savvy, talented, crush-worthy ass-kickers is for you.