The Tour Boulevard

The Tooth Has To Go…

thetourboulevard — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:22:32 +0000

Two Months? I haven’t posted for two months??? I should really kill myself. Well I’m somewhat happy to say it isn’t all my fault, thanks to a shitty economy and every asshole on the planet now thinking he or she is a tattoo artist, work hasn’t exactly been coming in the door. It is sadder to say that I am not the only one feeling the hurt, friends around the country too have been slow. It is a bit of a comfort to know I’m not alone (and that people aren’t coming in because they don’t have the money and not because they don’t like my work) but in the same sense it sucks that hard working top notch artists are getting passed by for the scratcher shops who will give “the Deal”… Now I myself have done some price gouging too, but that is not to say that I’ve cut the throats of fellow artists and friends. I have never gone below our shop minimum (Friday the 13th excluded) to give a deal (and I’d say with much certainty that 90-95% of those people getting tattooed on Friday the 13th’s are all clients and or friends) I don’t feel bad having a fun day of tattooing fun things on friends and not charging the shop min. (I do thank god it doesn’t happen often) But this bullshit of tattooing for pennies is fucking retarded. There are shops in every town that do it, and we all know who they are, yet we do nothing, we write on our blogs and our facebooks and myspace page how this guy or that guy is an asshole piece of shit, yet we do nothing…How can we take back our industry? how can we force out the scratchers and the hacks? the pieces of shits that have 2 and 3 apprentices…I’d really like to know… we are losing a battle and good art and good people are getting fucked over and idiots are taking their business to fools… Time was we’d just say “Fuck It” “they’ll come around” or “we’ll just charge em more to cover their hack job” well time has come that people just go to the next joke shop to get a deal on the fix, and it just gets worse and worse…Well I would love some feedback on this, and any ideas how we can take it back… I hope 2010 is a good and prosperous year for those of you my friends and fellow artists, let’s not fall farther back this year… Good luck to you all…

And now I’ll leave you with what I have been doing to keep myself busy with, my 7 sheet 2010 flash set, enjoy…

neglect…

thetourboulevard — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:10:10 +0000

So yes it’s been about a month or so since my last update, it has not been for lack of work (well not entirely) but as you’ll see i do have a few pics to show off, some Korean tiger paintings, some sweet zapps and a couple Friday the 13th Tatts (yeah some people have a problem with people doing them and say its a gimmick or its hipster or whatever, well fuck you!!! It seems to have become tradition and i say we aren’t taking anything from Oliver by doing it, but saying hey man look at what you started, i think it’s pretty crazy that it’s done all over the country and the world for that matter, so to Oliver Peck i say thanks, i had a blast on Friday and i would like to go to Dallas sometime and tattoo at elm street on a 13th, So Bubba if you read this make it happen, hahaha)We as a shop did 50 (i hear Steve Byrne did 30 by himself at Rock of ages) Bastard!!! hahaha i only did 19… Anyway i hope you readers (all 3 of you) enjoy the new pics and feel free to comment good or bad i like the feedback…

ACL/Avett Brothers, A Birthday and a lot of fun tattoos

thetourboulevard — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:03:28 +0000

So again it has been a crazy couple weeks. to start things off I’ve put a couple pics of my Friday at ACL (that’s Austin City Limits to those that don’t know) I normally don’t A: Go to festivals and B: get the time off to even attend the local events such as ACL or SXSW here in Austin, but the boss was kind enough to let me away for the day. Well the start of the day had me enjoying The Avett Brothers (of which I’ve been trying/wanting to see live for quite some time now) and I must say, it was well worth the wait, as they did not dissappoint at all and they played a good hour set so i was pleased. The first pic is from their set. the second pic is a guy that I met while waiting to go see Daniel Johnson, I totally forget the guys name but he got me super high and talked me into stickin around and watching a band called Phoenix (I guess they are French) (now I’ve heard these guys on commercials and elsewhere but didn’t know of them, but played a very good set) (and being stoned outta my mind probably didn’t hurt) (thanks again for the “POT” of Gold kind sir”) the third pic is of Kings of Leon, They played a hell of a set and were very fun to watch. ACL (as much of a pain in the ass that you are, i really had a pretty good time)

Now let’s get to the good stuff. Last week and this week had me Tattin my ass off, last week I did the zombie doll on an old friend of mine, and it’s not something that I usually like doing or even do very well, but i was very happy with the way it came out. Also last week had me Tattooing my very first “Rat Bones” (this is a tat that i myself would/should get and am surprised i never hand poked one in myself years ago)anyway it’s on a friend and was super stoked that she asked me to do the tattoo on her.

This week has had me busy doin some fun Tattoos as well, the “Mercy Cross/Swallow” was done on my friend Jon, the Indian and the Skull were on some friends of T.C’s (Paco’s apprentice/great friend) and all were part of the Sailor Jerry Stimulis Package… Finally The crazy tiger/leopard was done on my friend Jordan. Jordan said he wanted a Tiger head and gave me the freedom to do what i wanted, Well after tattooing a Korean Tiger on my friend Zeth (see my first post) a couple weeks ago I decided to do another take on the fabled beast. Well I was super happy to get to do something as fun as it and to have it turn out the way it did, well that there is gold my friends… anyway, yesterday had me turning 32 years of age (yeah I’m an old fart) and I had an enjoyable dinner with some friends (thanks to everyone that called texted or messaged me) I hope that the rest of the month has more fun tattoos in store and we shall see how crazy Halloween gets. hope to update again next week, untill then take care and please feel free to share my blog with friends…

Sailor Jerry Stimulus Package

thetourboulevard — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:40:40 +0000

So The last couple weeks have been pretty god awful, doing only two tattoos the week before last I decided to have a little fun. With an idea from my good friend Julian I decided to do a $60 Sailor Jerry Flash Tattoo Draw. I went through the two Jerry flash books and photocopied all the great stuff, cut them down and threw them into a box, started emailing,texting and posting buletins on myspace to let people know of the great oppertunity for all included. The chance to get a tattoo worth $80-$120 bucks is a steal, and it allows me to do some fun tattooing. Here are a couple examples from the first two days.

All in all it was fun, and since people are feeling the recession i think it was and is a pretty cool/fun idea and I plan to keep up with “The Draw” as long as its slower around here, and as long as it stays fun… Besides there is a ton of really cool pieces in the box that i still want to do…

Heads,holes,hospitals,horses and hues

thetourboulevard — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:00:19 +0000

It’s been a wild week to say the very least. Not going to go into details but thank god it’s my Friday. Anyway managed to do the horse painting that you’ll see below and I did my very first coquille piece, which will be in the upcoming book Coquille or be Killed I should have a link to the site on the side of the page (soonish I guess) and finally the dragon and the sexy girl were done by Mr. David Parker (also for the coquille book) (his website is on my friends that tattoo link list) check him out…

From Zion With Love

thetourboulevard — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:28:42 +0000

Got back a couple days ago, did some really fun tattoos on family and friends. decided i might try my hand at this blog thing so lets see how she works…

Well, there we have it, the first (of hopefully many) posts…

the last tattoo was on a friend of mine (zeth) Julian, myself and Zeth hung out in the shop till about 3am that night and i tattooed both of them, Julian got a great skull with fedora that i did using a rotary machine (first time) but i did not get a photo. (maybe soon)