Jump to content
  • entries
    46
  • comments
    237
  • views
    5,831

first one fucker


Scott Sylvia

2,857 views

I don't know how many of you know me or my history of growing up in tattooing so i will start in the beginning with my first machine. I started tattooing in late 1989 with Aaron Cane he was responsible for me getting my fist job in tattooing. We had gone to school with each other since the 6th grade and he had done my first tattoo on his couch when i was 14?. my second when i was 16.

My first job tattooing was working for a guy named miller cotton who didn't know much in the way of art but knew how to hustle people which is half the game in tattooing back then. when i started at the shop i tattooed grapefruits for one day. my self the next and the guy they fired for me to have a job. the fourth day i was released on the public and told to tell them i had been tattooing for four years?...which i did till i had been for five. in that shop everything was Spaulding and Rodgers which was not really uncommon at the time and place. monterey was not the tattoo meka. When i started i was not allowed to have my own equipment as a way to keep reliant on him. but when i got my first personal machines they were a Spaulding supreme and puma for a shader.

By this time Aaron had been fired for going to the record store......in santa cruz? with my car ha-ha. If you know him you will understand. Anyways he started hanging out with the only person in the county who knew anything he worked at a place called gold coast and i cant for the life of me remember his name but he had Polynesian tattoos and back then that was fucking cool i remember thinking it was tire tread. So this man with a name i have no idea what it was had been showing aaron about machines he taught him how to make a cut back mad bee. and he made me one.

It is the second machine he ever made and my first liner. Check out the sweet engraving i think it rules especially how crazy that shit he does now is. Yes the wrap on the coils is a brown paper bag pretty classy and the upside down capacitor is real nice as well.

11 Comments


Recommended Comments

WOW. this is great! it's awesome that you have this after all these years. i wish i had my first machines...a set of spaulding pumas. i do have a couple of frames that were my second liner and second shader. thanks for sharing!

Link to comment

Curiously i find the machine stuff really interesting ,not the mechanics of them but the different models and history .I guess its like a sports persons affinity for the equiptment in a really traditional ,specialised way I guess sort of akin to hand made crafting of cricket bats from English willow .Strange metaphor i guess -perhaps i should just shut my mouth !

Link to comment

i like the brown paper bag....

my first machine was a national swingate right out of the box, i remember it came with one super skinny brass tube already set up in it. that was my liner, if i needed a shader, i had to borrow one from someone else.

i remember aaron had a supreme that didn't look too far off from yours when he came to work with us.

my first shader was a really ugly contraption seth put together for me when he was still just selling them to friends for the most part. i have a pic of it somewhere.

Link to comment

Great story Scott! I'm loving that Ace of Spades engraving on the machine. I remember back in those days in crafts class (Mr. Mole?? or some shit) a lot of Aaron's crazy drawings had the Ace of Spades in them. So awesome.

Link to comment

i dont use it primarily because i use machines i build for people mostly, as for aaron and the spade it was his first tattoo done by pote it was the pushead one i believe.haha ill put up the pumas next one is at my warehouse and the other is in my drawer i use it alot. glad you guys like this ill try to keep up on it lord knows i have enough of them.

Link to comment

Sweet story...Miller passed away a couple years back, had a heart attack while tattooing....his wife dropped by the other day to tell she was closing down the shop.....

Link to comment

When Jeff and I were starting out and had just met Aaron and you(Scott) for that matter, he made us our first machines while giving us a tutorial. He made me my first machine and it was supreme based.....unfortunately that got 'disappeared' about 18 years ago and has yet to re-surface. Scott can you believe that was over 20yrs ago now??????

Link to comment

thanks for sharing some of the jems in that box with me while i was there. I would've stayed and talked machines all night but my lady friend was hungry and i was pretty tapped out after that sitting. Can't wait till you share all the other jems.

Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...