*Photography: Sharom Shapira & Lior Kraisler

What are Tattoos?

The word tattoo evolves from the Tahitian "tatu" which means "to mark something." It has been arguably claimed that tattoos have been existing for the past 12,000 years. A tattoo is a deep puncture made on your skin using ink. Tattoo inks are made of pigments like carbon, calcium, lithium and others which are mixed with solvents like alcohol or water.

The ink is injected in the second layer of your skin is called as the dermis. The dermis cells are stable and this makes the tattoo a permanent mark and last longer. It does hurt but not much. It feels not much different to an injection shot.

So after the short introduction to put us on the same track let me explain what we are going to talk about: we are going to talk about the third Israeli Tattoo convention. Read on to find out what this has at all to do with Metal Music.

Probably all of my lawful readers either has a tattoo or know people who do; I myself have 9 tattoos and in the middle of completing my sleeve tattoo. I will jump a bit in time and tell you that in the 50's tattoos were related to Rock n Roll music and from that point music and tattoos become inseparable. How? Look at the 60's and 70's period; in the psychedelic period more and more people started to get tattoos, however I think that the biggest boom was in the 80's that came with the Glam Metal movement. Most of the band members in the band then had tattoos and fans started to mimic the bands. You probably remember the movie about the period, I'm talking about the movie Airheads when Brendan Fraser is a Glam Metal band member and he is talking about the tattoos he got because he is playing metal music.
 

I suppose I would like to try and explain the connection between metal music and tattoos; let's start with the Tattoos artist and studio attending this massive convention

Sioux Tattoo & Body Piercing, Vision Tattoo, Psycho Tattoo, Zvoov Tattoo, Inkdentity Tattoo by Anat Nimni, Kaakouizem, Liav Tattoo, Bari Tattoo, Art & Soul Tattoo, Pentagram Tattoo, Yaad Kedem Tatttoo, Chen Tattoo, Moreno Tattoo, Fetish Tattoo, Ninyo Tattoo, Jaffa Tattoo, Hanan Tattoo, Guy Levin Tattoo, Dynamo Tattoo & Sonia, Tattoo Lady, KC Tattoo, Sorry Mama Tattoo, Black Ink Tattoo, O.D Tattoo, Piercing & Art, Slon Tattoo, Nico Tattoo Studio, Club Ink Tattoo , Next Tattoo, Spring Tattoo, Koi Tattoo, Underground Tattoo, Eran Art Tattoo, Reaper Tattoo, Noam Tattoo, Yoni Tattoo, Talpu Tattoo, RL Tattoo & Yossi Krudo, Ofer Ben Lulu Tattoo, Michael, Litovkin Tattoo, Mithra Tattoo, Rlkuba Tatoo, Art Megic Tattoo
 

If you are shocked, don't be; Israel's tattoo business is booming these days , very similar to the metal community in Israel that is surely getting bigge, the convention was in the well-known metal and Electro music club  Haoman 17 in Tel Aviv. When I was walking to the club for the tattoo convention I couldn't comprehend the number of people that are were waiting to get in, however scanning the crowd I could see that the number of metal heads was about 75 percent of the entire crowd. Entering the site I had some great surprise to see many young Tattoo artist not only trying to show their work in tattoo mystery however I tried to see some sketches that they did, mostly in the form of free hand, some impressive drawing.
 

The list of the tattoo artist is big however you only understand the magnitude by walking from both to both and seeing them in action; yes, all tattoo artists did tattoos live in the show, looking carefully on the people in the convention I could see many Metal and Rock related tattoos. That strengthened my understanding that Tattoos and Music are related, however if you talk about Metal and Rock the relationship is very close.
 

However walking all the way to the end of the club, I saw the most amazing thing; I saw a big contraption that was made to hang people, a very fast inquiry I found out that it was body suspension by Suicide Team - Israel suspension crew. An amazing and terrifying site, to see people hanged from hooks that are inserted into their body. Sublime and terrifying.
 

I almost forget to write about one of the most important thing that was part of the convention, the live shows, the number of bands that come and go to the Haomen stage was staggering, I also had a chance to see three.

The issue with this kind of conventions is that you had to be there and see in order to appreciate, so next time I urge you to just come.