From a 1991 Tattoo Revue produced video shot at the National Tattoo Convention.
This video features Jeff Rassier (currently at Black Heart in SF) Dana Brunson (in Cincinnati at Tattoo Designs by Dana) Leo Zulueta and Greg Kulz.
I think it was either LA or San Diego.
It also reminds me that I have to get my ass to Cincinnati and get tattooed by Dana.
More Fred Corbin on VBS; episode two is now streaming.
FC2 at Vice.
The two Corbin episodes that have dropped have really played out like a loveletter to the culture of Tattooing; you can see in Fred’s eyes that he knows he’s one of the luckiest son’s a bitches in the world and that he’s thankful for everything tattooing has brought him. You can also see the respect his peers have for him in all of the interviews that accompany the piece.
It’s a bummer that we only have one Corbin episode left; the good news is the folks at Vice are finally calling this Season One….
The picture above is of Mr. Corbin and Daniel Higgs, showing their Ed Hardy back pieces. Fred is the Rock of Ages. So damned cool.
More from 1984’s ‘Signatures of the Soul’, this time featuring Bob Roberts and Leo Zulueta.
Another “pre-glove” classic. It’s so strange to watch folks tattoo without gloves on; especially considering that most artists were autoclaving their needles and tubes by then, but not wearing gloves, covering their clip chords, etc. I always wonder if I should add postscripts on the videos reminding people that gloves should always be worn, that this is archived from a different time and all that. Food for thought.
I’m not sure if the documentary is available anywhere for purchase, but if you can snag a copy anywhere, I highly recommend it. It’s a great primer for world tattoo traditions (American, Japanese, Samoan) and features great footage of some of the 80s best tattoo artists.
This one has been giving me trouble from the getgo.
No matter how much I adjust the audio, there’s still a considerable ‘hiss’ that I can’t get rid of. I’ve spent two days trying to get it uploaded via iMovie’s internal youtube bridge, seeing ERROR messages every time I get to ‘twenty minutes remaining’ and using youtube’s own uploader took me 5 hours and seems to have resized the opening title frame. Fun.
Still, you get a dream team of tattooers discussing tattooing and that trumps all the nerdy backstage stuff that it took to get online. Hardy, Salmon, Roberts, Eldridge, Salmon, Zulueta. When you think of the impact Hardy had on modern tattooing it’s astounding; some of the artists and styles he brought to Realistic must have been so far out at the time;.even now having an artist doing Oceanic handpoke work at a shop is a novelty- thirty years ago it must have been inconceivable.
Occult Vibrations 