Anja's Tattoo - A Brother and Sister Find Common Ground

Anja was visiting New York City from Denmark earlier this fall, when she ran into me in Penn Station. Of course, I was thrilled when she agreed to share this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday:

This tattoo on Anja's calf is based on the cover art from Es ist soweit, a 1990 album from a German band called Böhse Onkelz.

This record has significant meaning for Anja because it helped bring her and her brother together. She explained that they lived apart and didn't talk much, growing up in separate households. She was living with her grandmother, and came to visit her father and she was walking past her brother's room and heard him listening to this record.

The music brought them together, as she stopped to talk to him about it, learned that he had been listening to Böhse Onkelz longer than her, and this common ground broke the ice. Whereas before they had very little to talk about, Anja credits the band and this album with helping establish ties with her brother.

The top of the tattoo starts a lyric

and ends with

The lyric in question, "Let's forever be that Rebel Monster" is actually from a song by Volbeat, a Danish rock band, on their first album The Strength/The Sound/The Songs. The date below, "29-07-19--" is her brother's birth date.

This cool, meaningful tattoo was inked in Denmark by an artist named Dennis Wehler. I love how the words seem to be carved in her flesh.

Thanks to Anja for sharing this wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

As a bonus, here's a little "Rebel Monster" from Volbeat:

Two Rocking Tattoos from Joe

I met Joe last month outside of Penn Station and he shared two tattoos with us.

First is this hellcat:

Why this cat? It's a design, Joe says, inspired by the band Rancid, whose music appears on Hellcat Records.

Not to mention, he likes cats. Need he have more reasons? That's on his upper left arm.

I'm more excited to share this photo, which actually is a rare Tattoosday shot in which one can see the contributor's face. I could have cropped it out, but I think it's a cool shot.

This tattoo arose out of Joe's desire to have some body art made with red ink. The design is based on the album art for a disbanded musical act out of Washington called Isa.

The two tattoos are among five Joe has in total and were done by Milton Sillas at Tattoo Royale in the Pacific Beach section of  San Diego, California.

Thanks to Joe for sharing his ink with us here on Tattoosday and for waiting so patiently for me to get to his tattoos. The summer backlog is both a bane and a blessing.

As a postscript, readers familiar with the site will notice that I've watermarked these photos. I've grown tired of seeing Tattoosday content appropriated elsewhere on the web, without attribution. This is an attempt to maintain credit of our content here at Tattoosday.