MySpace a place for friends

Link To Johnson Tattoo Homepage I’VE CAPTURED THE ESSENCE OF DETROIT ON A T-SHIRT! I still have sizes M thru XXL of the T-Shirts I designed for the 2008 Chopper Show event that was on Saturday, August 9th outside the Corktown Tavern, downtown. $15 for front / back print, as depicted below. No postage if you want to pick one up at the shop; add $5 postage anywhere in North America or Canada. (Elsewhere, inquire) They're expertly screen-printed on premium-quality black shirts. Contact Roscoe at Johnson Tattoo if you want one - I can even accept Paypal, if that works for you. Limited quantities!

MY DAD LIVED THE HELL OUT OF THE '70's AND SURVIVED! HIS NAME IS GARY E. JOHNSON. HE'D BEEN TATTOOING FOR 5 YEARS WHEN HE OPENED HIS FIRST TATTOO SHOP IN 1969 WITH PARTNER G.H. IN JUDGE BRADLEY'S OLD COURTHOUSE IN WESTLAND. I WOULD HAVE BEEN 8 YRS OLD. G.H. WAS DOING SOME FUNKY SIDE BUSINESS OUT OF THE BACK PARKING LOT, AND SUDDENLY DROPPED OUT OF CIRCULATION WHEN MY DAD TOOK A WEEK OFF. WHEN DAD GOT BACK, HIS NEW PARTNER WAS IN G.H.'S OFFICE, READY TO LEARN THE TATTOO BUSINESS; G.H. HAD SOLD HIS HALF OF THE BUSINESS TO A MEMBER OF THE SCORPIONS MOTORCYCLE CLUB, WITH ABSOLUTELY NO NOTICE! DAD WAS DETERMINED TO MAKE THE BEST OF THE SITUATION, AND FORGED AHEAD. IF YOU'VE SEEN ANY OF THOSE '70's BIKER EXPLOITATION MOVIES, THEY WERE LIVING IN A REAL-LIFE VERSION OF ONE OF THOSE (I mean LITERALLY: see the cult film, Northville Cemetery Massacre, starring the Scorpions M.C. of the early '70's). THE MOST EXCITING STORIES DAD HAS TO RECOUNT ABOUT THAT ERA CAN'T EVEN BE PUT INTO WRITING UNTIL ALL THE OLD-TIMERS HAVE SAFELY MADE THEIR FINAL ROAD-TRIP INTO THE AFTERLIFE ! I CAN SAY THAT THE SHOP SEEMED TO BE UNDER 24 HOUR SURVEILLANCE, AND THE BIKER CRAZINESS EVENTUALLY GOT TOO HAIRY FOR EVEN MY DAD (WHO COULD PARTY WITH THE BEST OF 'EM). HE GAVE UP HIS SHARE OF THE BUSINESS & MOVED TO TEXAS FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS AT THE WARNING OF HARD-BOILED WAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF DETECTIVE JOHNNY JOHNSON, A HARD-DRINKIN' KOREAN WAR VET WHO HAD TAKEN CHARGE OF LOCAL OUTLAW BIKER INVESTIGATIONS. DOES DETECTIVE JOHNNY'S LAST NAME SOUND FAMILIAR? OH, RIGHT - HE HAPPENED TO BE MY GRANDPA. WHEN DAD REALIZED THAT A PAIR OF DICK TRACY'S WERE TAILING HIM ALL THE WAY TO TEXAS, SUSPECTING SOME KIND OF INTERSTATE MISCHIEF, HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF AND BOUGHT THEM A BEER TO DIFFUSE THE MISUNDERSTANDING ... ANYWAY, DON'T LET THESE ANECTDOTES WEIRD-YOU-OUT! MANY OF THE OLDEST TATTOO SHOPS IN THE USA HAVE THEIR ROOTS IN ASPECTS OF THE BIKER SUBCULTURE. DAD & MY BROTHER JOHN LATER OPENED "TATTOOING BY JOHNSON" ACROSS TOWN IN OUR CURRENT TAYLOR LOCATION, BUT THIS TIME THEY WERE DETERMINED TO MAINTAIN A MODERN, PROFESSIONAL ATMOSPHERE YOU'D BE COMFORTABLE BRINGING YOUR FAMILY TO.---- ROSCOE

Forget everything you've seen on Tattoo Reality TV. We're a working-class shop that doesn't suck-up to celebrities or exude so much attitude that you'd be uncomfortable coming in. Our boobs are 100% Real! We don't have obnoxious music blaring so loud that you can't hear yourself think. Our shop doesn't look like the inside of Hot Topic or like some kind of gothic Halloween dungeon. No skateboard ramps or band logos painted on the walls. We don't have dyed-black hair and so much metal in our faces that we look like we fell face-first into somebody's tackle-box. We focus on doing artistic tattoo work and safe body piercing for you at a price you can afford - in a clean, down-to-earth environment. Take advantage of it before we get all Hollywood on ya!

What follows is a brief shop history, to stress that we're not one of the new shops that have recently jumped on the latest body art bandwagon with the dawn of "Reality TV." My Dad paid his dues and I'm getting there.

The shop history goes back over 40 years ago to my ornery old dad, Gary Eugene Johnson. He was born to Ruby Riley on Oct. 25, 1942 in East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1946, the family moved to the Wayne-Westland area just outside Detroit, Michigan, where Ruby began to notice her son's artistic inclinations. By the age of 15 or 16, Gary had charmed some of his schoolmates' parents by hand-picking small tattoos on their kids’ pristine hide with a home-made needle/thread/eraser rig he says he still has somewhere. Grandma should have smelled trouble by then, right?

Not yet fully realizing his ink aspirations, Dad got work driving a truck for the local incinerator in Inkster, and married a pretty local girl named Sharon Hedger he'd met at Palmer Road Baptist Church in Westland. Together they produced 2 boys - Gary Roscoe Johnson and John Clarence Johnson, both of whom would eventually follow Gary into the tattoo trade.

Dad got his first “professional” tattoo at a little shop outside Ft. Wood, Missouri during basic training for the US Army. His enlistment didn't pan-out, but getting that crude $6 heart and dagger tat was enough to convince him he wanted to follow the INK. But it was 1965, and the 23 year old found that it wasn't that easy to get into the tattooing trade; his persistence paid off, though, as he began to acquire equipment, develop his tattooing skills and network with suppliers, other artists, and build his artistic reputation.

By 1969, he was able to open his first tattoo shop in the Detroit area, Westland's House of Tattooing. He would later pass "House" on to partner Marty, and continue to ink elsewhere in Michigan. My brother John was more enthusiastic than me to learn the trade, but went on an enlistment in the Navy after doing so. His enlistment finished a few years later, he worked as a welder, before combining resources with Gary to open Tattooing by Johnson, located in nearby Taylor.

I'd done some hobby tattooing as far back as 1981, when dad gave me my first tattoo machine, and had also begun to perform an occasional basic body piercing, when pressured. By the time I decided to focus professionally on tattooing and piercing at Johnson, I’d done a couple of years Commercial Design at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, survived an enlistment in the Army, and had done graphic slave labor all over Toronto for about 10 years.

If you want the truth, I was not exactly keen at first to skewer human flesh body-piercing style. Tattooing seemed much less intrusive - a kind of inky “controlled abrasion.” I seemed to be getting positive feedback on the body piercings though, so I got over the queasy initial impulses and worked to improve my technique up to professional standards by taking courses through the Association of Professional Piercers.

In all humility, God Bless all who endure a tattooist’s or piercer’s early experiments.

John and Gary had apprenticed our cousin Tammy Hubbard, so she was brought in after John moved to his private studio, Cherokee Creek, in nearby Garden City. Tammy retired, got married, then returned at John's shop after we'd brought in her apprentice, Tony Edmonds. My cousin Nick Johnson also apprenticed and laid much quality ink at Johnson before opening his own shop in Jackson - Precision Tattoo.

Anyway, that's how we got to our current state of affairs. Today Roscoe, Tony, and Melanie maintain independent contracts under the Johnson name, and are proud to carry on the tradition of fine ink that Gary started over 40 years ago.