 "NO PAIN NO GAIN" What do you get if you cross a blonde bombshell, a good strong cup of Yorkshire Tea and a world record attempt? You get Maximum Image Tattoo in Farnham, the most warm-hearted studio in the South. AT sat down with the notorious Beki Blade for a natter.  How did you get into tattooing? I used to draw on people at school! I used to decorate absolutely everything- I was always drawing on myself and my stuff! I did Henna tattoos for years, and then eventually progressed onto the real thing. I did an Illustration degree at Art College, so that was a massive help. I just fell into it really! How did you and Max meet? I just came into the shop one day for a tattoo, and Max saw my design and suggested that I look into tattooing. I had actually been practicing on myself already, so I started working here and it went really well. Now we both own half the shop! What’s the best thing about the job? I reckon the best thing about the job is when you do a tattoo and the customer is really, really chuffed with it. You never really expect that to happen when you start tattooing, so it’s a really nice surprise. Even if you don’t personally like the design that much, if the customer leaves with a smile on their face that makes your day!  What’s the worst thing about the job? The worst thing about the job, I suppose, is doing an enormous tattoo of a design you don’t particularly like, and the customer is writhing around in pain. It takes ages!! Some people need to stop every five minutes! You just wonder why anyone would sit through it if they were in that much discomfort! Often though, a good cup of tea will get you both through it! We’re famous for our tea! What’s different about Maximum Image? Apart from the tea addiction?! I’d say we take pride in the fact that we’re happy to do anything. We like our customers to show us their ideas- we’re happy to work on an amazing custom design rather than having people choose designs off a sheet. Also we’re doing our £10 tattoos ‘Christmas Sale’ at the moment, so we’re a Credit Crunch Busting Tattooist as well! Tell us about Tattoos For Troops? Tattoos for Troops was an idea we had last Christmas. We wanted to do something to raise money for Charity, and Max had the idea of doing a 24 hour tattoo ‘marathon.’ We’d heard that Kat Von D was doing something similar and were keen to give it a go! It grew from there, really- we’ve got a lot of friends who are ex-forces, so we wanted to do something for them. Also, there was so much coverage of the Help for Heroes campaign that we wanted to support their efforts. We eventually settled on our poppy design, and it all fell together. On the day we tattooed 311 people- it was definitely a very busy day!! We missed our world record attempt for a three colour tattoo by just a few, so we’re going to keep doing it throughout the year and re-attempt the world record next Summer. Max’s first poppy took four minutes and was inked onto the skin of local Taxi Driver and British Legion member Roger Brown, but 15 hours into the attempt he was getting quicker and quicker- his fastest one only took 1 minute 53 seconds, so we’re definitely hopeful his new found speed can smash the record next year! The best thing about it was the total variety of people we had in- we had people having their first tattoo, we had people in their 60’s and loads of army wives! Max has been tattooing for thirty years and even he hasn’t seen so much variety before!! The Tattoos for Troops poppy costs £30 and all proceeds go towards The British Legion and the Army Benevolent Fund. Facebook Group id=29875059260 http://www.tattoosfortroops.com |
  If you don’t frequent rock clubs you’d be forgiven for thinking that the majority of them are poorly lit basements with those black light bulbs that show up the dust on your clothes, the remnants of last Halloween’s faux cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and a bar serving what appears to be either paint stripper or moonshine…you can’t quite tell. Right? Well actually you’re wrong. You might be a newbie to the Guildford scene, or maybe you’re a hardened rock club goer, who’s been stuck by the soles of your shoes to more drink-covered club floors than you’d care to remember…whichever category you fall into, you’d be doing yourself a serious disservice if you missed out on the newest addition to the plethora of Surrey rock clubs…OBLIVION. Held on the third Tuesday of every month at The Legion, ‘Oblivion’ is a classier, sexier version of everything you love about rock clubs. Yeah you’ve got your drinks deals (you can get yourself filthy drunk for about a tenner) but if you prefer the finer things in life they’ve got a magnificent bar with more variety than Mike Patton’s CV. We wandered into a packed out Legion, with three resident DJ’s; the infamous DJ Rex (Turbulent Soundscape, Full Tilt London, Perversion LA, Batcave NYC) and DJ’s Rezident & Epicenter, all assaulting our ears with the very best rock, metal, punk, alternative and indie across two floors. It was busy this time, but next month Oblivion is breaking the mould again to bring us Guildford’s first Zombie Ball! Ghouls and boys dress up and get £1 shots! Be there early to beat the queue, sink some drink, and leave at the end of the night very, very grateful dead. See what I did there? Check out www.turbulentsoundscape.net for more details, or befriend them at www.myspace.com/oblivion_ts. |
 Click here for Essex club listings LONDON! Click here for London club listings SURREY & BERKS! Click here for Surrey/Berkshire club listings  THE ROBIN HOOD GUILDFORD SAT 27TH DECEMBER, 9PM FREE GIG MAN 100 CLUB LONDON SAT 27TH DECEMBER, 6PM ROUGH JUSTICE THE DOG AND PARTRIDGE STAINES SUNDAY 28TH DECEMBER, 6PM FREE GIG ELIJAH WOLF THE BAG CLUB LONDON WED 17TH JANUARY, 7PM MOLLOY THE WILMINGTON ARMS LONDON SAT 10TH JANUARY, 8:30PM KARN8 THE BALLROOM STOCKWELL WED 17TH JANUARY, 7PM LIVE BANDS THE PHOENIX STAINES EVERY SUNDAY   Kenelis rock the Remix Friday 12th December If you're looking for something a little different to brighten your music collection, look no further than Kenelis. The fearsome fivesome from Farnborough (ha! Put that in your pipe and smoke it) rocked the Remix in Woking this month with their brand new single, Drained. This is the second single released by the band on indie label 'Black Grass Records' and the bands growing popularity certainly showed as they played to a packed out remix with support from Draven and PilotX. Frontwoman Mel Sanson reminded everyone to support the band and the local music scene by getting onto iTunes and purchasing the single. You can find out more at http://www.kenelis.com. If you want to try before you buy, you can pop along to YouTube, just type Kenelis for a taster! Next gig: 23rd January, West End Centre, Aldershot. |