It’s time to get to the tattoo part of the 2018 Elm St. Music & Tattoo Fest in Dallas, TX. I covered all the music stuff yesterday, but I took way more photos of the tattooing since that was an all day thing and the bands were only at night. There were at ton of amazing tattoo artists who tattooed pretty much non stop all day for three days, and I say pretty much because I tried to get tattooed on Sunday and everyone I asked had this pause before they answered and I decided maybe it wasn’t the best idea to get tattooed by someone who has done nothing but tattoo and party for three days straight. 

The tattooing all took place at the club Trees. When I shot the Fest in 2013 they had the bands playing there, but this year they had two levels of tattooing. Of all the people tattooing the only one I’ve ever been tattooed by was Keith Underwood, but my buddy Phil LaRocca works at Elm St. and popped in a bunch throughout the weekend. I’ve also been tattooed by Oliver Peck a handful of times, but he was too busy throwing the festival to do any actual tattooing.

Speaking of Oliver, there were a bunch of Ink Master winners at the fest: Steve Tefft, Anthony Michaels, Ryan Ashley Malarkey and DJ Tambe tattooed downstairs with Dave Kruseman upstairs. Not really sure why Kruseman was upstairs but he’s probably the Ink Master I would most want a tattoo from. I actually love the show, mostly because I love listening to Oliver yell at people, but most of the people who go on Ink Master seem to be these art school tattooers that might look great on Instagram but maybe don’t have the training to make a tattoo last for decades. That being said, anyone who wins the thing is a pretty damn good tattooer, I just personally like tattoos that look like tattoos. And while I liked Anthony Michaels on the show, he was never someone who’s tattoos spoke to me, but he did one of my favorite tattoos of the convention. 

One of the big moments of the tattoo convention was the unveiling of the Sailor Jerry & Harley Davidson collaboration. They have six bikes designed by six different artists that you can win (enter here!) that were shown off for the first time on Saturday. They were driven into the parking lot of trees by Oliver, Lucero’s Ben Nichols, Luke Wessmen who designed one of the bikes, Sailor Jerry brand ambassador Anthony Bohlinger, motorcycle journalist Raine Devries and “fastest woman in the world” Leslie Porterfield. The bikes are pretty amazing and I took a million photos of them so you can click through the gallery and check out all the bikes.

Lastly, I uploaded a special gallery of the Sunday night dice game that was played at Heart in Hand art gallery. I was the only person allowed to watch that wasn’t in the actual game. I shot a similar game of cee-lo back in 2013 that raised money for True South, but let’s just say this game had a slightly less noble cause. In cee-lo the second highest roll is three sixes and one of the players rolled sixes pretty early on. No one was able to match him and it looked like he was going to win. Oliver was the second to last player to roll and made a big production out of his roll. Everyone was laughing about the whole thing until he rolled 4-5-6 the highest roll in the game. Everyone lost their minds and one roll later Oliver won the game. 

Okay, I think that’s about it, go check out the below gallery of over 200 photos, plus the bonus dice game gallery and I will be back soon with some new photos!

Click here to see all the tattoo photos from the 2018 Elm Street Music & Tattoo Fest in Dallas, TX.

On Friday night I stopped by Three Kings Tattoo in Greenpoint to check out the art benefit they were doing for Warriors Fund. The Warriors Fund is a charity set up to raise money for the Wounded Knee School District in South Dakota. The money goes to “stock the school’s food pantry and fund specialized counselor training for suicide prevention”. You can read more about the artists involved, the charity and what it does here.

A bunch of great tattooers had art in the show and the event was packed pretty much all night despite the storm. I am not sure how much they raised but I know a ton of the art sold and people were buying raffle tickets all night. I had a ton of fun and I also am getting a tattoo out of the deal so I am pretty psyched about that. Great event all around. Thanks for having me out!

Click here to see all the photos from the Warriors Fund art benefit at Three Kings Tattoo.

I have been friends with Eddy Segal for a really long time and pretty much that entire time I have been trying to take photos of her. I did shoot her for collaborative zine ARTS, but it’s been a mostly failed venture but I texted her to invite her to my LA Instaxxx book launch and she ended up coming out. We talked for a bit and she told me that if we made the photo shoot about her artwork she would shoot finally with me.

That was perfect for me me because I love shooting people in their environments. I had this idea in my head about shooting her while she was painting in her underwear or something, but since some of her artwork is wearable we ended up shooting her in her mom’s old wedding dress that she painted, a wearable collage and ended the shoot with a dress she was still working on. In between we shot her in her underwear with some paintings and then with another fabric piece. It ended up being a really cool shoot. Oh, I should mention that Eddy’s spot in Malibu is fucking amazing.

This shoot is noticeably not naked, which is disappointing for everyone of course, but we did shoot a couple nude shots that I might use for book projects in the future. Plus she let me include one and a half nudes on Girls of Driven By Boredom which is what I am trying to convince you to sign up for this week and if seeing Eddy’s butt isn’t worth $7 I don’t know what the fuck is.

Plus! Eddy’s friend Miracle was at the house when we were taking photos and ended up jumping into the shoot. I posted an exclusive set of her to Girls of Driven By Boredom as well. That set has more photos of Eddy in it too because I am a wonderful human.

In conclusion, go look at Eddy’s art, sign up for Girls of DBB, go buy my fucking book and then you can look at photos.

Click here to see all the photos of Eddy Segal with her artwork.

Just figured I would do a post about the LA book release party. It’s essentially just the email I sent to my book’s Kickstarter backers but I got shit to do so sorry for being repetitive…

The party is on Friday at Superchief LA. 7-10pm although we will probably go a bit late. Should be a hell of a party.

Once again all three DJs are in the book. Porn babes Carter Cruise and Joseline Kelly probably make more music than they do porn and my friend Ivy Diamond is gonna be opening the night. I actually once shot her at the very location we’re having the party.

We also have a special set from Kate Mo$$ which should probably be insane. Just google them and look at the pictures and be prepared from some wild shit.

We are once again doing an Instax photo booth and I got Charlotte Sartre and Riley Nixon there to take naked photos with. Oddly I haven’t figured out a photographer yet but that should be pretty easy.

The party is free and there is free beer and it should be a lot of fun. Hope to see some of you soon! Here’s the flyer. The end.

Last night my book Instaxxx finally was born into the world. It was pretty exciting because this is by far the biggest project I have done. My last two books were about a third of the size of Instaxxx and every part of this required way more time, money and effort than all of my other books or art shows and I still have a lot to do. I am starting to ship books out today but I have nearly 500 packages to send out. Plus there’s the release party in LA on July 14th. Should be an interesting couple of weeks…

Anyway, last night was a blast. The night started off slow but by 9pm Superchief NY was popping. It’s a massive space in Ridgewood, Queens but it actually filled up pretty nicely. I sold some books, took some photos and we ran out of beer 30 minutes before the party ended which is honestly pretty well timed. Huge thanks to Pabst Blue Ribbon for all the cases!

I of course have to thank the DJs OHAILEIGH, Cat Lady and Francesca Darling for not only DJing the party but for posing for the book. I assume it’s gotta have been the first time any of you guys DJed with naked photos of yourselves projected on the wall in front of you right? Thanks a ton!

Also thanks a bunch to Mel and her friend (and my buddy Sucklord’s girlfriend) Meg for running an insane photobooth. The idea was for Mel to take photos of people topless with Meg but they both ended up topless all night and no one seemed to mind. I feel like it was a solid idea and hopefully the LA version will work out even better. Naked friends in LA let me know if anyone wants to volunteer…

It’s at this point I should mention that I get so fucking stressed out at events like this that I do a completely terrible job of taking photos. I meant to like Instagram live and like Tweet out photos and things and I did none of that. I also took some of the worst party photos I have ever taken. If I had hired someone to shoot a party for me and they came back with these I would fire myself. Still, at least you get some sort of idea of what the party was like and you can see people drinking that cold refreshing PBR…. Gotta get those sponsor shots!

Lastly, thanks to everyone who came out and helped out with this book and this party especially everyone at Superchief. I just hope that the party at Superchief LA goes as well as last night!

Now go check out these photos and given that more than a dozen people who were in the book showed up this gallery is fairly NSFW even if the photos are not very good.

Click here to see all the photos from the NYC Instaxxx book release party at Superchief NY!

Ps. Get your copy of Instaxxx here! Oh and you can get my new zine NOT SAFE here.

My book Instaxxx is finally here! I start shipping it on Friday which is going to be a fucking insane undertaking given that I have 450 packages to send out but before I even get there I have to throw a big party.

If you live in NYC come out! We are going to be at the new Superchief spot in Ridgewood. It’s 1628 Jefferson Ave – right by the Myrtle-Wyckoff L and M trains. The party is from 8-11 and it’s gonna be a good time.

All three DJs spinning modeled in the book and my friend Mel is doing an Instax photo booth which should be interesting even though I am not 100% sure I have models locked down for it. But fuck it. Let’s party.

The event is free and the book will be on sale for the $30 pre-order price. We will have my new zine Not Safe on sell as well. Speaking of pre-orders, you have until the time I wake up tomorrow to get Instaxxx for the pre-order price before it goes up to $40.

Lastly I should mention that I am doing an LA release party as well. That will be July 14th at the Superchief LA space. Details to come soon!

Last night I shot a benefit for Best Friends Animal Society at 8 of Swords Tattoo. They had an art auction to raise money for the animal welfare organization. Best Friends runs a no kill sanctuary in Utah as well as helps find people to foster and adopt rescued animals. If nothing else their website is worth checking out for all the adorable photos & videos.

I was promised puppies and tiny cats if I came to the event but sadly I got there late and the puppy was already gone and the kittens were being taken away right as I got there. It was a nightmare. I only took one photo of a one eyed cat kitty which was cute but I am allergic to cats so I didn’t even get to touch it. Tragedy all around.

What was not tragic was that we raised a ton of money of Best Friends and when I say we I am including myself because my photo of Maven (one of the kittens I rescued) ended up selling for $80 which is twice as much as I sell it for on my internets. Pretty much everything in the auction sold and the few things that didn’t were eventually sold via guilt trip to the assembled crowd.

All and all it was a solid night and I met some cool people and got to hang out with some old friends. I should also mention their was free Sailor Jerry rum because they are my favorite client and I want them to hire me for a party at SXSW next week. Just saying…

Now click here to see all the pictures from the Best Friends benefit at 8 of Swords!

Last week my friend and absurdly awesome artist Buff Monster had his first ever sculpture show at the pop up space 168 Bowery. This was actually the first art show in the space but I sort of have a feeling more people will try and use the spot for art after Buff’s successful show.

Buff made a ton of these little concrete sculptures of his iconic “Mister Melty” ice cream monster and then there was a big one that he told me that he had been working on for over a year. I wanna see the next one made out of bronze.

The show also featured some paintings and free booze from Soto Sake. They weren’t paying me but to be honest I do so much sponsored event branding stuff I feel like I have to mention it anyway.

Really I was just there to hang out and check out Buff’s new work. Ran into a bunch of friends including Ellen Stagg who has a book release that I am shooting in early March, Sucklord who I am hopefully going to be making toys with and Matty (and Alex) from Three Kings who did my Buff Monster tattoo.

Anyway, fun event and glad I finally got the photos up. I gotta leave for LA for a week tomorrow so wanted to make sure I gave you this stuff before I left. Gonna try and get another update ready before I leave so I have something else to post this week but now I gotta scan some more Instax and pack.

Now click here to see the photos from Buff Monster’s sculpture show Melt With Me.

Last week I had some art in the third annual Get Summered Valentine’s Day erotic art show. It was at Tender Trap and I sold a photo of Heather Vahn and then it turned out the buyer never came back to pay and so I guess I didn’t actually sell it but the party was fun.

I took my friend Holly Beth who kinda pretended to be my Valentine despite the fact that we weren’t actually on a date but she did let me take a few photos of her topless so that’s important.

Kinda the highlight of this gallery is the pole dancing from “Incredipole” which is kinda an incredipole name for a crew of pole dancers honestly.

Also there was another naked babe at the end who I have no idea who she is but I wanna take more photos of her so if anyone knows her let me know.

This gallery is way late so I am just gonna end this write up here but shout out to everyone who put this on and all my friends in the show, Smurfo, Insuh, Myles & Diana. Was cool being in a show with you guys. Also Nakid sponsored the show and I just shot something for them, so that’s cool too. Now let’s get on to the photos.

Now click here to see the (NSFW!) photos from Dirty at Tender Trap.