I love bartering for stuff. I try and do a lot of print trades and things like that to collect my friends art and I certainly love trading photo work for tattoos. At least a quarter of my tattoos have come from trading photo work for them so when tattoo artist Amy Shapiro asked me to photograph her band for a tattoo I was totally psyched.

Unfortunately by the time Amy actually tattooed me she was no longer in the band. The tattoo also took much longer than the photo shoot did so I told her I owed her some more photos. A couple months ago Amy reached out to me saying she needed some press photos. I was working on my new “Arts” zine at the time and it seemed like a perfect reason to head over to Amy’s studio and get a portrait for my zine while at the same time helping Amy out with some press photos. Everyone wins.

I also though these photos would be a great opportunity to promote the Arts zine that Amy is in and all these other amazing artists are in and you should fucking order it right god damn now.

Also, you should go get a tattoo from Amy at Three Kings Tattoo because he rules and Three Kings rules and yeah.. do it.

Now click here to look at some photos of Amy Shapiro looking adorable as per always.

Last night I shot a new party for my friend Andrea Grant. She is a talented writer, total babe and gives me work a couple times a year so I am a big fan of her existence. She helped start an art, music and poetry collective called The Mixed Media Method and last night they threw their first event at Le Poisson Rouge.

Andrea got things started off with a poetry reading and then Canadian singer/songwriter Apryll Aileen played some songs that were real pretty and then this kinda great Russian band called Mad Meg played. I can’t really explain them but I was real into it. Kinda reminded me of some weird mix between Nick Cave and Gogol Bordello which maybe doesn’t make sense at all. Alycia Mayhew was the headliner and it was a CD release party for her new album “Letting Go”. I unfortunately had to go throw an event for a football team that got fucking embarrassed on national TV so I missed her performance but I showed up a bit early and took some shots of her sound checking and she sounded great.

On top of all the live music Ian Slarsky did blind contour portraits of people all night and DJ Ivan played music between bands. Between Ian and Ivan and Igor (me) there was a lot of name related confusion but we all did our jobs anyway. Rebecca Larson hosted the whole thing too so that’s important and stuff.

And thus ends another weird event write up. I think it’s time you go look at pictures.

Click here to see all the photos from the first ever The Mixed Media Method party at Le Poisson Rouge.

On November 7th the Zine Friends zine fair returns to Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn and this time I am gonna be part of it. I covered the last Zine Friends and this time they asked me to be a part of it. I had a great time and bought some cool stuff but I am a photographer and nearly everyone else involved is some sort of drawers or somethin’. I figured I would have to come up with something special for the fest.

So I bring you “Arts’ a zine about people who draw real good. I photographed nearly 20 of my artist friends on black and white 35mm film and then got them to send me art of theirs for my first really collaborative project. It’s got art and portraits from tattoo artists, graffiti artists, painters, illustrators and cartoonists. It was a lot of fun to shoot and put together.

The zine is limited to 150 copies and is only $10! It comes out at the fair on November 7th but you can pre-order it now. You can also get a copy with a 5″x7″ print of your choice of artists which might be cool if you were into one of these artists.

Also, unrelated to the zine I put together some grab bags on my Etsy store featuring a DBB tote bag, shot glass, some stickers and buttons and your choice of signed zines. So perhaps if you wanna get a copy of “Arts’ you could get a bunch more stuff for just $15 more.

Lastly, here’s a list of the artists:

Buff Monster, Molly Crabapple, Matt Crabe, DAZE, Day By Day, Blanda Eggenschwiler, ELLE, Erik Foss, Nicholas Gazin, Penelope Gazin, Lamour Supreme, Sheila Marcello, Eddy Segal, Amy Shapiro, Minka Sicklinger, SMURFO, Nate Turbow & Wizard Skull!

Now go get your hands on a copy!

When I was in Vegas for the AVN Awards back in January James Deen spent most of the time talking about kittens and showing people kittens on his phone and asking people to see photos of kittens on their phones. I am super allergic to cats so I don’t really love kittens but I did rescue some kittens nearly exactly five years ago. I did an adorable photo shoot with them before finding them homes. I told James I would send him a print of Maven hanging out with a 40oz of Miller Highlife and when I made the print I ended up making like 10 of them because the internet loves cats and maybe the internet would give me money in exchange for cats.

Then of course I forgot about all of that and these kitty prints sat in a print drawer. Then this really fun thing happened where I remembered I owe the state of Delaware some money since my business is registered there because all businesses are registered there cause their taxes rule. Anyway, I figured this was as good of reason as any to sell you some cats.

I also had some prints of Annalee Belle left over from the fundraiser for my sold out Route 66 book “Get Your Kicks”. I decided I would put them up as well. I also lowered the price on prints of Veruca James in a swimming pool and my friend Tine when I stopped by Charlotte, NC a few years ago on a road trip. Plus I added the option to buy any of the prints in 16″x”20 although that will take a little longer because I would have to get them printed.

So yeah, there are now four $40 prints in my Etsy shop, plus a bunch of newish Polaroids and my books and zines and other fun stuff. There’s only one more copy of Fuck LA signed by April O’Neil so you might wanna get on that ASAP.

Long story short, give me some money so I can give it to Delaware. Thanks!

I don’t know about you guys but had a zine filled weekend. The Brooklyn Zine Fest was in town and thanks to Wizard Skull and Killer Acid there was another fest to take place the same weekend called Zine Friends at Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn.

I went to Zine Friends Saturday and the Brooklyn Zine Fest Sunday. The plan was to shoot them both for a Village Voice story that my partner in crime Pinky Guest was working on but I was honestly more excited about the Brooklyn Zine Fest because I collect primarily photo books and zines and Zine Friends was mostly cartoonists and illustrators. That being said it featured a bunch of artist that I really dig like Wizard Skull, Matt Crabe, Jennifer Calandra and my buddy Nick Gazin’s talented sister Penelope.

It ended up being infinitely better than the Brooklyn Zine Fest which was a depressing collection of overly earnest political zines including zines about how make your zine more sensitive when dealing with race/gender issues. There were about five tables with Black Lives Matter signs on them but I think the only actual black person I saw was running the black lesbian zine table. I saw about 7 zines about menstruation from all different authors. Not that all these things don’t have a place in the world, I just didn’t trek all the way out Brooklyn Heights to get lectured.

So in the end I only ended up shooting Zine Friends and I got zines from Wizard Skull, Matt Crabe and a split zine from Penelope Gazin and Tuesday Bassen. I also picked up a pretty cool zine at the Brooklyn Zine fest called Corroded about acid etched graffiti.

In related news you should buy one of MY zines! I only have a couple copies of Fuck LA left and Food Tattoos and Dinner With Igor both have less than 50 copies remaining. Get stuff now!

Now click here to see some photos from Zine Friends at Cotton Candy Machine!

This is by far my biggest post of SXSW! Get ready for a LOT of photos.

Sailor Jerry flipped the scrip on South By Southwest this year by abandoning their yearly takeover of the Gypsy Lounge and decided to do stuff completely differently. Everyone has a million bands playing at SXSW every year but not everyone has priceless original Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins art work to show off.

Sailor Jerry took over an art gallery and over a four day period showed off original paintings, stencils and drawings from the most legendary tattoo artist of all time. I have been a fan of his art and have worked for the company that shares his name for years and I have never seen more than a handful original pieces and most of them were just stencils.  This collection had never been show in the US and it was amazing.

Aside from showing off the art during the day, in the evening Sailor Jerry turned the space into a private invite only lounge featuring free cocktails that changed every night. Instead of having a bunch of bands play, they had a bunch of bands DJ and it kept the thing way more mellow and a way to relax and get away from all the madness for a bit. The DJs included members of Thee Oh Sees, Spits, Ice Age, Lust For Youth plus Cheetah Chrome, Andy Animal, Al Lover and a bunch more.

You could tell the parties went really well because you could find editors of major music blogs hanging out drinking booze in the air conditioning instead of catching the new hip buzz band. Plus the homie Hannibal Buress came there straight from his Jimmy Kimmel appearance and came back the next day as soon as we opened. You know it’s a good time when the spot is bumping from the moment it opens until the weird after parties we had back at the Sailor Jerry house!

Anyway this gallery is MASSIVE and it features four nights of partying plus some day time shots of the gallery. It’s worth the click through. But the real question is how am I going to pick just 5-7 images to represent the whole week? I guess we are about to find out…

Click here to see all the photos from The Sailor Jerry Gallery at 2015 SXSW.

If you know me at all you would probably agree that I am not the most exuberant of humans. I tend to be monotonous and often pessimistic. I live a pretty great life and while I appreciate it, there are few things that really bring me joy. If you were to ask me what makes me the most happy in life I would immediately answer the Miami Dolphins winning a game, but that happens pretty rarely. My second answer would be when I open the first box of something I have created.

When I was 15 I started a magazine and a record label and assembling that first box of records was one of the greatest moments of my life. Since then I have made all manor of media and merch and it always brings me great pleasure. Recently I have produced four photo books/zines/albums and I brought them all to the LA Art Book Fair and it was the best thing to happen in ages despite spending the previous week photographing naked porn stars.

I have been to the NY Art Book Fair a bunch of times and it’s always great but thanks to PaperWork NYC this was the first time I have ever sold anything at an art book fair. I had copies of my new book Dinner With Igor, the zine Food Tattoos, my expensive Vegas photo album and the special Fuck LA zine and print I made just for the fair.

I actually sold a ton of stuff. I got back less than 10 Dinner With Igor’s and I had Dana DeArmond sign five of those. I got back about 15 of the 50 Fuck LA’s that I made and I had April O’Neil sign five of those. I even sold one of the Vegas albums even though I mostly brought them for display. I have sold more than 10 of them but they have all been to fans of my work, not just people who picked it up randomly at the book fair. I got a ton of Food Tattoos back but I brought a ton of them too but still I think I have less than 100 of the 300 I originally printed. All good news.

Aside from selling stuff I also bought a ton of stuff and met a few of my favorite artists. I bought Ed and Deanna Templeton’s out of print zine collection and I finally got to meet Ed. I ran into Tony Stamolis who I love as an artist and have been friends with via the internet for years. He loved Fuck LA so I traded him one for a print which actually came in the mail today. I met Tom Neely of Henry and Glenn Forever fame and got him to sign a copy of the first book. I also got to meet Bill Daniel an old punk rock photographer who I have bought several photos from over the years (including photos of Henry Rollins & Glenn Danzig oddly enough) and got a photo he shot of Glen E. Friedman who I also own a photo (and many books) by. I probably spent another $200 on top of that so I probably didn’t make quite as much money as I could have, but I have no complaints. Pretty epic weekend.

I took a handful of black and white photos and a few snapshots at the book fair and a few at the Love//War show. I figured they made sense together as a small 35mm gallery you guys might enjoy.

So click here to see my 35mm shots from the 2015 LA Art Book Fair at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA! (Very mildly NSFW)

And click here to see my recently updated Etsy store featuring all my books, zines and other photography items perfect for Valentines Day or Presidents Day or some other holiday that you could justify spending money on my arts.

I have been back from LA for nearly a week and I think by tomorrow I will be caught up on life. I still have a pretty serious Gmail inbox problem but I hope to bang all that shit out tomorrow. The catching up process continues with the photos from the Love//War art show at MAMA Gallery that I was in exactly one week ago today. I posted about it on the Road Trip blog but here’s a better write up.

I was really blown away when I saw the artists in this show and saw my name listed as one of them. Photo legends? Check: Ed Templeton and Boogie. Friends I respect and love as artists? Check: Slutlust, Erik Foss, Mike Krim & Sean Maung. People who are famous for other shit that you can name check? Check: Norman Reedus and Leo Fitzpatrick. Babes that make rad art? Check: Rachel Roze and Natalie Krim. Grafitti artists selling artwork for five figure prices? Check: Mint&Serf and Skullphone.

The show was curated by Mint&Serf and Mike Krim’s Paperwork NYC and those dudes did one hell of a job. The show was about conflict: love vs war, New York vs LA, sex vs violence, street art vs contemporary art. They packed MAMA Gallery with art and then with people. Supposedly over 2000 people made it out to the opening. When the gallery first got really packed I looked down at my watch and it was 7:03pm. The show started at 7. It was packed all night and when it was over there were still probably 100 people in the streets hanging out front.

It was an amazing event and I didn’t do a great job of capturing it because I was too busy hanging out with friends and trying to avoid talking to anyone about my “art”. Speaking of my art, my two pieces in the show were nice and fucked up. I don’t actually know that they didn’t sell but I am going to assume no one wanted to spend $750 to hang a photo of a dead fighting cock or a crack head getting arrested on their wall. I sent those dudes probably 40 photos and they chose the two least sellable images of all time and I am totally fine with that. It was nice to watch people make their way around to my images, look up, recoil and move to the next works as quickly as possible.

Next up the show is coming to NYC and then a book is apparently coming. I can’t wait for all that shit. I spend a grand and a week of my life going to Puerto Rico to do a story on cockfighting that was never published so it’s pretty awesome to see my dead rooster make it’s way around the country.

Before I get to the photos I should mention one thing… photographer Pretty Puke was supposed to be in the show but never got his shit together. Sadly two days after the show he got badly injured in a car accident. He of course doesn’t have health insurance and needs your help. I am tragically broke right now so I could only throw in $25 but if I get a couple of you guys to throw in too it would be awesome. I really wanted to talk to the guy about doing some project together and I hope that can still happen one day. Donate to Pretty Puke’s medical fund now.

Now after that depressing news, click here to see all my photos from Love//War at MAMA Gallery in LA.

Bonus coverage of the event: Purple – Bullett – Live Fast

I got the copies of my new book Dinner With Igor on Friday. They were supposed to come today so that was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately there was a small print error which and I had to get the books reprinted. Fortunately my printer MGX Copy was great about it and put a rush order on the reprint and the books will be in my hands on Thursday.

On top of that, I will also be getting my 36 page zine “Food Tattoos” from MGX the same day. I am pretty excited about both projects and I can’t wait until you get your hands on them. If you were one of my Kickstarter backers your books will ship Friday, Saturday Monday and Tuesday (hopefully I will get them all done by Tuesday)!

Because of the holidays I am pushing my book release party to January but you can still preorder both Dinner With Igor and Food Tattoos at my Etsy store!

You can get signed versions of them both at a discount if you click right here!

Lastly, I should mention that I am giving a 10 minute talk about the books and some other projects on Wednesday as part of the monthly Bushwick Art Crit Group session. I truly hate talking about my work especially around actual fine artists, but for some reason I agreed to do it, so it should be interesting at the very least. Plus Wizard Skull is talking right after me and that guy spends his days ruining your childhood and that’s worth the price of admission alone (it’s free). So if anyone is bored in Brooklyn on Wednesday come hang out!