Seattle Music News

I’m sure this will make me hugely uncool orwhateverthefuck, but I cannot stomach inner-lip tattoos. This occurred to me last week when, for about the umpteenth time, I stumbled upon someone’s my space page where a dizzy, faux-punk chick was bearing the inner-lip tattoo of her favorite band and imploring them to play her town (some bland Californian locale, no doubt). Why I seem to only see girls doing it is beyond me ‘cause I know dudes do it too, but the ladies seem compelled to ‘show and tell’ a bit more.

And the showing and telling is DISTURBING, my friends. X and Y chromosome carriers pulling down their veiny lower lip to reveal all sorts of revelations like, “ALONE,” “pain,” “Loser,” “NUTTER” and, most prominently I find, “(Insert band here).” Actually, that would be killer if it actually said “(insert band here)” instead of the name of some band, because that would suggest that these folks were bright enough to manage double entendre. It’d be like punk rock Shakespeare or somethin’. Alas, it is NOT. It’s mostly, I find, chicks writing the name of some dude’s band in her mouth. Ew.
Now, I know that the tender, inner-lip real estate is not solely reserved for bands, but it seems to be du jour amongst a certain group of female tattooees. As a feminist it’s disappointing. The statement is: “Please can I pay money to be BRANDED with the name of a band that has no fucking idea who I am and who, if they did, would no doubt shag me (if I’m really lucky), drink my beer, crash at mine and then never call?” Getting tattooed can be a tuff, affecting and/or empowering statement, but dressed up like this it’s simply idol worship. Easy on the riotgrrl, heavy on the suckergrrl. Ladies, at least see if you can get out of paying the cover the next time the band goes thru town. That way you don’t get totally fucked. But maybe getting fucked is the point.
Or maybe I’m just square and missing some sort of punk/hardcore cultural boat cause I play in pop bands . Tell me, punk , emo and hardcore types: Is this a turn on or cool for you lot? Is that why it’s proliferating so? Please, someone, educate me and relieve me of my snobbery. ‘Cause right now, as far as I can tell, it’s a big step below getting your boyfriend’s name tattooed on your bod. At least in the case of the latter, you are publicly stating that you only want to fuck one guy, rather than the former, which suggests you’d get down with several - as long as they were in the right band.