Ink-N-Iron promoter Trace Edwards has another festival in the works: the Showcase of Kustoms & Motorama, which he estimates should bring more than 15,000 custom car fans to the Long Beach Arena, Marina Green Park, and the Rainbow Lagoon, the weekend of Sept. 24-26, 2010.

Scott H. Biram’s one-man band

PHOTO by BRIAN JACKSON
When the White Stripes and the Black Keys grabbed attention beyond the shores of their Great Lakes, audiences marveled at the primitive strut blasting from a set of drums and a fuzzed-out guitar. These bands could tour in a sedan and rock the hell out of any-sized stage, [...]

You’ll try strychnine someday with the Sonics

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
The Sonics came out fighting in 1965 under the looming shadow of notorious Pacific Northwest garage vanguards like the Kingsmen, the Wailers (no relation to the Marley rhythm section) and the Artesians, even sharing the occasional member in the first two. And while their predecessors split [...]

Introducing the finalists of our second annual tattoo contest

PHOTO by JOHN GILHOOLEY
For our second annual tattoo contest, District judges Terri Morgan of SoCal Tattoo, Outer Limits owner Kari Barba and Ink-N-Iron festival organizer Trace Edwards had more than a few favorites in mind as they looked through the submissions. Among them were the Dali-inspired pieces [...]

Ink-man Rick Walters looks back on a 44-year career that began at Hawthorne High and shows no signs of slowing

PHOTO by JEFF GOULD
The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but on a slow day at Bert Grimm’s World Famous Tattoo, your first sight of longtime manager Rick Walters may have been the soles [...]

Positive vibrations with the Black Angels

PHOTO by BRIANA PURSER
There is that lonesome, crazy, almost-poisonous sound that was there in American music almost as soon as they began recording it—what B.B. King said came from breaking the verbs in the blues, and what Wayne McGuire’s lonely essay found in “Sister Ray.” It was the drone, the [...]