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From Tuesday until Saturday next week in Austin at SXSW, Sailor Jerry Rum (yum) is taking over the address at 1504 East Sixth Street, opening up two pop-up tattoo shops for the inking pleasure of festival goers, with one featuring legendary tattoo artist Oliver Peck, from TV's Ink Master, on board once again as the resident artist.
Here's the kicker.
One shop will be for anyone at SXSW who wants to throw a dart at a dart board and get whatever it lands on tattooed on his body. A bulls-eye scores you whatever you want on the board. If you miss the board, well, maybe you aren't meant to have a tattoo.
This excites me immensely. Some people get tattoo work done simply by pointing at a piece of flash on a wall. With the dart board you only have fate to blame.
The other one will be a Peck private sesh for assembled press and artists, where he will be able to freestyle and work off of Sailor Jerry flash collections.
Last year, Peck was inside a classic Airstream at a venue in East Austin. The stories I collected from Peck while he worked on me helped make for a great afternoon in a metal can at a music festival, and the strange trappings melted away and we could have been in one of Peck's own shops. Peck inked a pirate ship on my leg. He's a salty, cool cat, and fun to be spend an hour with.
He happens to also hold the Guinness World Record for most tattoos done in 24 hours, laying down 415 pieces of his favorite subject, the number 13, in human skin.
My tiny ship took a little less than an hour to finish, which was lengthened by Peck and I talking about the tattoo industry. Titans like Richard Stell, Chris Trevino, and the late, great Mike Malone informed his work, with Peck going off on his own path years back.
In addition to the tattoo shops, Sailor Jerry is also hosting music on Friday and Saturday afternoons, since that is what you do at SXSW after all, drink and see bands. Acts like King Tuff, White Lung, Hanni El Khatib, The Spits, Nobunny, and Night Beats will be making the rounds. On Saturday night, Thrasher is supposed to be throwing a kick-ass party too.