Rock'n'Roll Tattoos

Ongoing History of New Music

The human body is a remarkably good piece of construction…it has its quirks and shortcomings, but for the most part is a pretty cool thing: functional, durable, and to other humans, attractive…

But there’s always room for improvements and modifications and decorations…archeologists have found mummified remains that are thousands and thousands of years old that’s sport tattoos…

There’s a guy named Otzl that was found in the Swiss Alps when a glacier melted…he’d been there for over 5,000 years—and the dude had 61 tattoos…

Egyptian mummies plus pacific islanders, members of ancient African communities, bodies dating to iron age Britain, early Japanese societies, and the Indigenous people of North and South America have all engaged in this kind of body art…

Tattoos have also been used to identify prisoners and slaves, to display religious connections, and associations with armies, navies, bikers, and criminal gangs…and for many people tattoos still carry some kind of stigma…only deviants and weirdos got tattoos…

But that’s changed a lot in the last 60 years—especially since the beginning of the 21st century…tattoos have long gone mainstream…in fact, in some circles, if you don’t have any ink, you’re the outsider and the weirdo…

This brings me to the world of rock’n’roll…tattoos are everywhere…and almost no one stops with one or two…the last time anyone counted, Travis Barker of Blink-182 has 117 different and distinct tattoos from the top of his head right down to his toes…

We’ll get to Travis in a bit…but let’s begin with a look at the history—the whole phenomenon—of rock’n’roll tattoos…

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