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.

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!

Saturday Surfin'

My brain is a little foggy from the first late night out I've had in a very long time (I must be getting old), and I don't know if it can spit out a well constructed, cohesive and entertaining post for you. So instead, here's a list of all the tabs I have open in my Firefox browser window. Soo much stuff to learn, so many millions of words to read...it's a little overwhelming sometimes, this internet junk.

The Jalopy Journal, H.A.M.B. messageboard - reading about this year's Hot Rod Hoedown that happened in Bensalem, PA last weekend. (An aside: somebody on the board PM'ed me to tell me literally, this one sentance, "I like your website." I'm a success! Huzzah! Somebody give me my Miss Popularity sash already, goddamnit.) The always reliable Mr. Ralphy, who likes to take and upload his photos as fast as I do to Flickr, has a bunch of shots from the show.




Custom Torino Wagon with awesome metal flake paint job, via mister RALPHY on Flickr.
I've noticed a lot of these late 60's muscle mom-wagons popping up at car shows lately, which I think is funny. Maybe it's a weird gearhead version of an Oedipal complex. Something about hauling ass and layin' rubber in a loud, sexy, powerful, vibrating, souped up version of the car your mom shuttled you around in as a child sounds like an issue you need to discuss with your therapist or maybe your cat, after polishing off a handle of whiskey. This one, a '71 Ford Torino Wagon (or so I think, anyway...I first totally misclassified it as a custom '68 Pontiac Tempest wagon), had a pretty sick flake-paint job on the hood.




Dice Magazine Blog
My motorcycle building buddy Peter mentioned to me that he thought he would have seen me last night at the Dice Magazine issue release party at Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (a former auto parts shop turned booze slinging bar, catering to the greasemonkey, punk rock, metal crowd). Instead, having not known anything about said release party, I was out until 3am elsewhere in the city - and then rode my bike all the way back to my hood near Coney Island.


Cover for issue 16 brought to you by Coop!
Having missed what sounded like a good party, I went back to catch up on the Dice blog and see what else is going on. HOWEVER, I then realized they basically have two blogs, one on their site that is just NEWS (where the party info was) and the other one I am reading, more 'lifestyle section' than news...which confused me. But whatever - they can have a million blogs for all I care. I'll still forget to read them, but not because they aren't awesome, but because I'm an idiot. And that means I'll continue to miss out on all the good parties. Damn! I need a personal assistant.



Panheads Place - The History of the Knucklehead Engine
There's nothing I love more than when some nerdlinger in this universe who is obsessed with some particular item or pasttime or person has something interesting to say or a wealth of information I'd like to access and makes it all available on a website of their creation. I especially like it when these websites are really poorly designed and filled with animated GIFs and you have to close a pop up window at least once a minute. IT'S AWESOME! MOST FAVORITE THING EVER OMFG!


HOLY SHIT IT'S PANHEADS PLACE WELCOME BIKERS! LOOK there's an eagle!! Microsoft Paint RULEZ!
Despite it's total lack of graphic sensibilities, this website about the history of the various original models of Harley engines over the years pretty much covers everything. Nerdlinger starts his history of the knucklehead enging by talking about the standard three drops of oil for every five seconds of runtime the old Harley flatheads had. That right there is something I didn't know, so I can't dis the guy for teaching me something. SOAR WITH US!

Also, check out this sick knucklehead custom chopper from the Rumblers show back at the end of August, and another that's a shovelhead, which I have video of riding away from that spot (albeit sideways video). I swear, those Rumblers photos are coming soon...if you haven't already found them on Flickr.


The "Speed Fetus" has a luscious ass...just look at that rear end action!



Shovelhead custom chopper in Brooklyn.




The Dart Project
A story about a boy, a car (stock 1966 Dodge Dart GT), and a transformation from mundane Mopar to divine dragster.



I remembered the Frenchy who runs this website - he's an artist and pinstriper who goes by the moniker Empire32 and his Kustom-o-graphics. I'm pretty sure back in the early youth of thegreasergarage.com, we were linking to that guy's work and raving about it even then. So I guess posting about his Dart project somehow completes the circle of internet life.



Thesaurus.com - so I could look up a snyonym for the word "boring" that begin with the letter "m". (Told you I was braindead.)



Flickr Upload window - I'm desperately trying to upload a video from the Rumblers show I took, but it keeps getting 99.5% complete and then never actually finishing or showing up in my photostream. As soon as that changes, you'll get to see the video right here. Impatience is a major imperfection of mine.

*UPDATE* It finally uploaded! Burn it up!!

...and here's the rubber carnage left behind.



Coop's Flickr Photostream
...because who doesn't like a little high quality dirty art fetish photography on a Saturday morning? I'll take my coffee with a dash of milk and a little bit of nip.


Kumimonster & Ulorin Vex and a pair of old schwinn fastbacks - photo by Coop

...yep. I think it's shapin' up to be a damn good day.

BrandX Photos on Flickr

Having once again missed out on a great day of vehicular mayhem somewhere in a ten mile radius of my house, I turned to Flickr to see if maybe some other like-minded soul was smart enough to get some photos of this shouldn't-have-been-missed 'cycle show. Success!


Indian Larry trailer shot via Jamie Boud on Flickr.
As you can see, I was completely wrong about what I send in my last entry about this show, regarding bikers scaring away rogue wanna-be hipsters. Of course, at some point the bedbugs and cockroaches end up taking over everything and there's nothing you can do but try your best to exterminate them...or move.

Check out Jamie's BrandX Flickr set for more great shots of a few of the bikes at the show. And next Saturday is the Rumblers Kustom Kills & Hot Rod Thrills show under the BQE in Williamsburg (hipsters beware).


For more info read my old post about it, visit the Rumbler's Site or visit Union Pool's Myspace for exact band times.

Upcoming Events: 6th Annual Exhibition of Vintage Motorcycles - Williamsburg, Brooklyn - Sun. Aug. 23rd

My custom bike-building friend Peter sent me this just now and I'm rarin' to go. The 6th Annual Exhibition of Vintage Motorcycles, "Brand X", is being held this Sunday, August 23rd @ Works Engineering 168 N. 14th Street Near Wythe Ave in Brooklyn in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. I'm pretty sure I've stumbled onto this show before back when I lived and worked in Williamsburg, and although I have no clue what happened to the photos I can tell you it was an insanely great showing of two wheeled power, technique and creativity. Best of all, the bike crowd is scary and angry enough to keep most of the curious hipster trash away.


The show is from 10am to 6pm with plenty of booze, BBQ and bands to keep your Sunday rollin'. Be there!