Here’s fun: fill a reasonably sized cavern with angry wasps, wrap the whole thing in tinfoil, jam it through a PA system and play the resulting noise straight into the middle of your head, preferably using your teeth for added bass. That’s what a tattoo convention sounds like, only with added thrash metal bunged into the bargain.
Diceman knows this because he found himself in glorious Doncaster last weekend, at Tattoo Jam – apparently the largest convention in the UK. I’ll take their word for that, but it did seem pretty big. It was a weekend of firsts, really – first big tattoo convention, first time in Doncaster, first time I encountered Jodie Marsh…all very busy.
So, admittedly all I saw of Doncaster was the bit between the station and the racecourse, where the convention happened. Um, it’s…not a war zone? That’s fairly positive, I think. I suspect my view was clouded by the rain, and the fact it was Shuffling Weirdo Day the afternoon I arrived – the station seemed to be the mothership. But anyway, they have some very pretty floral sculptures (of sofas, oddly) on the roundabouts, so not all bad.
Now, a tattoo convention is just that. 300 artists set up shop and spend the weekend tatooing the masses, in public. It’s sort of like a big tattoo zoo, where you can go and point at the various bits of body on display and go ‘Oooh, horsey!’ or ‘nice Lotus flower,’ or, in one case, ‘what a nice realistic portrait of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen you have.’ Aren’t people wonderfully weird?
As you’d expect, some of the people doing their wanderings have faded bulldog tatts and beer guts that open doors for them; others might as well have the names of everyone they’ve ever headbutted inked onto their legs, for handy police reference. But! As Diceman quickly saw, there’s a lot of extraordinary art and talent to admire. The breadth of styles, techniques and themes is staggering – biomech, new school, trad jap, horror, anyone? Or how about hand-tapped Polynesian tattoos, where a muscled fellow literally hammers ink into your skin using what looks like a small rake? This is one of the earliest forms of tattoo, and the fact that it’s still popular shows the depth the artform holds, aesthetically or even as a kind of rite-of-passage – the chap I saw having it done was lying down, getting hit by a rake, for at least four hours. Now that’s a life experience you don’t take on lightly.
So Diceman wandered the rows, gradually getting used to the incessant tinwaspcavebuzz of the tattoo irons. It’s a very sensory experience, a tattoo convention: as well as picking up on the sheer air of concentration (and you’d hope people operating needles that oscillate hundreds of times a second would be concentrating), there are various smells, sights and sounds to contend with.
Tattoo ink, for example, has that ‘I like this but I shouldn’t’ smell, in the way that petrol does, or that gluey paint I used to use at primary school. It’s very distinctive. Plus, you’re in room with 300 electromagnets, people working under lamps, exposed flesh, pain-induced adrenaline, alcohol and more AC/DC t shirts than I’ve ever seen. At times, you’re not walking around; it feels like you’re wading.
But for all its zoo-ness – and let’s be honest, it takes a certain kind of person to strip and be permanently altered in front of hundreds of strangers – it’s definitely a gleeful, fun experience. People love to talk about their tattoos, so you hear everything from fashion-led origin stories to tales of new beginnings marked by new tattoos, chosen by those who have just come through difficult times. It does things to you after a while – it was all Diceman could do not to fling myself under the nearest needle shrieking ‘do what you want!’ (although I’d doubtless have ended up with a cupcake in a leotard on my ankle). That old festival thing applies, of losing sight of the real world when there’s nothing to anchor you – and coming back with ponchos and a CD of underwater jazz music, because that’s who you decided you were at that moment, in that field.
The difference, of course, is you can pack the poncho away and never play the CD. But the tattoo you got under the influence of Slayer and solvents won’t be going anywhere. Which is why Diceman was pleased to keep hands in pockets and simply windowshop, for now…but I do have a pic of Hannah Montana that might look great on my thigh.
(And yes, Jodie Marsh was there. But why spoil a nice story?)
