Stevie's Tombstone blues
By lee smith Saturday November 18, 2000 12:04 AM EST
I've had tattoos since way before they were cool, says Stevie Tombstone, aka Stevie T., the heavily-inked former frontman of the bone-rattlin', blues-rockin' Tombstones.
Since the Tombstones' demise in '93, Stevie says, he's been playing a lot of biker hangouts and blue-collar bars and his growing fanbase has included a number of tattooed men and women. "As I've gained a larger audience, it seems that the people that go to the tattoo conventions are a big part of that community."
Stevie, who boasts some heavily-decorated arms of his own, decided to fully embrace his crowd by recording his performance at this year's Atlanta Tattoo Arts Festival gig. The result is the four-song CD, Acoustica, an eerie collection of murder ballads that showcase Tombstone in stripped-down mode — accompanied only by his own guitar and Tony Fox on violin and sax. The disc, available at shows and on his website (www.steviet.com), is a chilling blast of autumn air. Including three songs from his Tombstones days as well as one more recent composition, Acoustica serves as a marker of his past and present, as well as a prelude to a new full-length coming next spring.
Tombstone, who's been spending much of his time in Austin recently while keeping his Atlanta base, will bring his stark songs home to the Star Bar when he takes part in a writers-in-the-round set this week with Slim Chance, Anna Kramer and Joel Burkhardt of Bully. "It's the first time I've done a show like this in Atlanta. Joel and Anna are great and I've known Slim since I booked the White Dot on Ponce back in the '80s."
Following the Atlanta Tattoo Arts gig, Tombstone embarked on a national tour of tattoo gatherings. The convention-goers, he says, "like what I do and, more importantly, they understand what I do, because they have all been through it, too."
In other words, they feel his pain.
Stevie Tombstone's CD release party is Thurs., Nov. 16, at the Star Bar.