The Lady Pimp of Tattoos: Annette LaRue

stay off mama on you kids this is for you armadillos so this is my favorite shotgun this is the Dilla Killa a long time got in New Orleans at a gun show [Music] people love Annette she's the center of attention I'm 6 foot tall woman tattooer with fangs and you know flaming hair they're gonna remember me and that is a total Street shop tattoo era people don't want art and they especially don't like your art they want tattoos really good businesswomen but sort of mildly insane and that won't take no for an answer she's just a force to be reckoned with they walk in that door they got money in their pocket that money's mine that's the boss lady you don't like it then don't quit her if you like it jump on for the ride and so take care of you and make sure everything's right [Music] one of the most important things when you're doing tattoos you got to have your rate pipe this is what makes a great tattooer pure marijuana oil oh I'm inside I shouldn't be smoking it's alright I know the boss okay there's basic color is there nothing special no okra no 37 colors are green I don't profess to be the most artistic person I don't really do anything real flashy or special but I do good solid tattoos for working class people just regular tattoos she's classic American traditional with a little bit of what I would say is 90s New Orleans style they might not be like perfect if you want to dissect them but they still have the flavor all right little line first you ready I'm gonna go kind of fast okay my first memories of tattoos were kind of you know of course rebellious when I was younger I definitely didn't wanna be considered normal or anything like that what can you really do to be bad get a tattoo so as soon as I found somebody to give me one I got it I only was aware of her story after we got together and hooked up and that was a badass chick I started hanging out with these bikers and I got the biggest thrill and the biggest high off that no one I could like repel the straights you know because I really did not want to be one of those kind of people I knew I would have a lot of tattoos at some point in the back of like some of the biker magazines like biker lifestyle they would have a little section for tattoos and I always stared every person and every picture and memorized all the artists and everything Schatzi royboy Keri Barbra some of the New York people like spiderweb and then some of the floor two people were in there too the ink Smiths and I thought they were the I did this tattoo on him a long time ago it's healed and hairy for me the leg always always hurts really bad back in the day we used to go to Bike Week every year that time in Florida you could not tattoo in Daytona because they outlawed tattooing they did have the Daytona tattoo underground there I used to watch Gil Monte tattoo behind the Boot Hill saloon in Daytona on a picnic table with no gloves outside in the courtyard and they would let me hang around as long as I kind of didn't get you in the way I was like why can't I be a tattooer and they're like I should oh get in your way or whatever you know there weren't many women at the time tattooing there were a few but they were all kind of somebody's old lady back then and in fact the lady that taught me had learned from a biker guy and he went to prison so she really needed help she offered me an apprenticeship I worked with her for about a year and a half and then I went to Miami and worked it tattoos by loose tattoos by Lou is loose cabarrus he was the boss when he walked in a room all eyes were on him he always said you know act like you're a freaking star always carry a lot of money and dress like a million bucks because if you dress like a million they'll pay a million I thought wow that's pimping you know like you're something special because you're a tattooer I was always kind of a character anyway I was always kind of wild and loud so perfect job for me and what kind of that did you do if you tattooed in that area you did JD Crowe and you weren't a real tattoo her every tattoo shop in the 90s had this stuff they were great designs the public loved them it helped every tattooer than that era I learned a tattoo on his stuff I still think it's awesome there you go nice rows for you pretty tell all the girls you got a flower for him get one on your wiener you like I got a flower for you girl [Music] oh I miss New Orleans so bad isn't it me you can you could paint your house any color here they don't care there's no rules when you move to New Orleans you can become anyone you want to be was kind of like a dream city for me to live in 91 I got the job with Jacqueline how's it going pretty good so how you been all right it looks great the older you get the better you look how did you do that smoke and mirrors Mogens something Jackie Gresham started one of the first modern tattoo shops in New Orleans and she's been there over 40 years now and in 1976 when I started women weren't really tattooing at all and I was not allowed to buy the building because I'm in the south remember the south and 76 no no the shop looks great I like your colors they've always been bright colors you know that I'm always bright I need something break I wake up color huh I know how many people you got working now I think I got six which is amazing and if they don't straighten up I'm gonna be back here working I'm gonna have five more left they don't understand I can tattoo this is not somebody who only just owns a shop Jackson wasn't some woman who was somebody's old lady trying to tattoo she really did it and did it on her own there weren't that many women like that when I think of Jackie shop I think of like names like that's a really big thing in New Orleans you'll see like grandma's that have like their kids names and it's like this really specific style of script that you'll see and you'll be like that came from Jackie's shop as long as our letters look like yours you better look like mine cuz I was on a brand page about that and they got it to everybody got it my style is if you made a mistake I showed you where your mistake was I think that's what made Annette grow much faster oh here's the little paper you like so much we've had to do letters the right way we'd get yelled at you would say you did a hundred-dollar tattoo but you did nickle lettering so the tattoo sucks was a good good education after much training in beatings Jackie got me letter and go yeah want to do a little one on me where you want it I don't know I don't have a lot of space but I'll give you what I got all right and what we do like no fleur-de-lis how did I know that I'd only have three on me okay we need to draw something on your right yeah everybody uses them down stencils for everything and I hate that way I remember when you came to me you hadn't been tattooing a year I don't believe about a year and that oh I was green I tried to bluff like I knew what I was doing you did no you caught me doing some I got yelled at when she came to us she was just basic you picked a design off the wall and you stuck it on BAM that's it get him and get him out it was just such a challenge when I was here we weren't allowed to use a copy machine you know or a thermal copier we didn't because that made us have to draw everything twice we were all kind of young tattooers so you know at the time it was like goddammit oh we just prayed nobody wanted to change his size but looking back it's like that's the way to learn like just from repetition I was learning everyday she was so ambitious and enthusiastic I mean that girl I think she worked her ass off she had the piercing end of the business and I basically just let her have that that was hers and she drew flashing and she also tattooed that Jackie's she really concentrated on us being better artists as well as tattooers she would make us go to conventions to meet new people she always said meet as many people as you can get tattooed by them pick their brains watch what they're doing you go and you ask them a bunch of questions and you give them money BAM in your life the first convention she took us to was in Newark New Jersey and I got tattooed by Eddie Deutsch their heart with the tribal on my chest very 90s tattoo and he drew it and did it and I thought wow there is a different world besides these biker tattoos and that was kind of the first time I realized wow that's really good advice to get tattooed by these big shots and make friends with them and watch what they do don't hurt me Jackie don't hurt me they tell me I'm pretty light handed and and it has been in the past so let's see when you tell the people I did this you remember to tell them I was old when I did it oh don't tell him I did it ain't nobody gonna even see it nobody looks at my legs perfect the people who tattooed me were the best in the business at the time my first tattoo was done by Hardy my second tattoo was Jack Rudy I have a Grey Gardens piece I have a Paul riders piece and all my pieces flow together they're not hitting miss I don't have no mess on me thank you so much no problem that's really means a lot to me well you got it before a croaked anyway wall of fame or shame this is my old house hobo's used to sleep over here and I would score them with the HOS had a lot of good times yeah the hot tub parties after the conventions naked hot tub no I actually own this house I'm the one that painted at this color I'm Annette Lareau so there it is twenty-something years this is kind of a big part of my life most of my tattoo career was here it was my dream to have a shop in New Orleans the so it kind of came true Ernie Goss and all he's also known as Ernie the hat he had a shop in a neighborhood called Gert town and his wife they had gotten robbed a couple times up in that neighborhood and got really freaked out and wanted to go back home to Seattle told me what they wanted for the place and I said yeah but hell yeah it was kind of a working-class neighborhood but really a rough neighborhood as long as you were you know we're hard enough to deal with the clients you know there wasn't no pretension or you know everyone was just real people you know just came in they didn't have a lot of money but they wanted something nice that clientele was about 99% uptown black people I guess a lot of people didn't want to tattoo dark-skinned at that time well I worked for Jackie she taught me how to tattoo dark skin so we got well known for that we'd had a half urban half traditional take on tattooing we definitely did a lot of lot of letters a lot of names we had people from Xavier University and then we had thugs that stood on the corner all day and would come in and pay us with ones and fives I did tattoo silk and I tattooed c-murder begad the assassin who also sang for true master P actually got tattooed at that shop by Scott Harrison he did the three Kevin Miller portraits on masterpiece silk and see murder and the ice-cream man master P he did that tattoo on him too so Scott's very proud of that I want to make sure that he gets a shout out for tattooing the number-one rappers of the 90s it was the golden era I think I had such a great crew we'd hang out we party together so we were like a little family and that ran pretty tight ship I mean it was obvious that she cared about everybody and was just on your ass to make you do good well I bought another shop that was downtown right past the French Quarter on Frenchmen Street Frenchmen Street it's like Bourbon Street there's just people walking by all the time and getting tattooed and so it was pretty busy there like it was crazy all the time it was fun I'm Annette Lareau and this is my shop Electric Ladyland Electric Lady Anne was a busy street shop a shop like that has an energy and a vibe to it and you can just feel it when you go in there all the time Annette had it it was the best tattoo shop in the city the artwork that came out of there was superb and I think she kept it that way we started getting busier and busier the next thing you know it just took off it was just crazy they had the street shop tourist fleur de lis kind of souvenir type customers but then there was also custom work going on and great tattooers came through there to me electric lady 9 was kind of the best of both worlds the tattooers would make money customers would get great tattoos and everybody would have a ball was like wild and partying and you know it was awesome I loved it tattoos aren't necessarily always the most reliable people in the world they're gonna go out and get drunk or show up hungover or something like that it's New Orleans I think she ended up becoming kind of like a mamasan babysitter and that would drive anybody crazy she had a big old staff to manage all those people and guys too ah I think it was quite an adventure for Annette just kept getting harder and harder to run the shop it kept getting busier and busier and I got really tired of it and I just was like you know what I'm done [Applause] yeah I guess they took an uber or something out there electromagnetic is a working-class Street shop but that's definitely not the party vibe in there it's not the open pit to fall into on Frenchmen Street that shop is crazy I don't ever want to own another place like that here could some two or three man shop that's it that's all I can take Steve my boyfriend and I are the main artists he's great to work with to me he's the real deal tattooer do you walk in this shop you can ask for anything and Steve can do it we got a cast and crew of regulars that come in and sit in with us and help us out we also have a guy who helps us on the floor his name's Chris Williams and he's gonna be a great tattoo in one day this shop is like a working man shop there's a lot of military a lot of shipyard workers this was a perfect venue you know for the tattoos I like to do I do more the smaller tattoos I'm a little older now and I'm very unpatient these days the new breed of tattoo customers come in with their phone in their hand and I want this like the flowers you'll probably tweak the flowers a little bit yep and then I just want that black and white like the head and then I want something different in the middle like her I was just open to suggestion not a problem I think young kids are in the mindset that if it's not on the computer maybe it doesn't count but everything's online now so people don't realize that's already been done is a tattoo and it's on it's on Pinterest I enjoy doing walk-in so I want to put all my effort into it and I'm not gonna shortchange them we certainly try to show people that they can get something better steven is steal my show let's see how good he is as of right now the vast majority of our time spending in the tattoo shop make an electromagnetic our place and putting our tattoos out there and trying to build something some mom-and-pop tattoo shop it's just having the kind of shop that I always enjoyed working in I think it works out pretty good don't get too close I see a wrinkle I'm gonna find you she has strong suits and parts of the business that I don't I think we complement each other well but I also think we didn't start dating till she was in her 40s so I'm sure I got the slightly toned-down version of Annette but I don't know that it would all worked out the same if we were in our 20s she's way calmer now what a way more Jill now she's someplace where she feels like she's doing what she wants to do she's just doing her thing which I have a lot of respect for she's just doing the same thing all over again she got you know big name tattoo is coming through and doing guest boss it just goes to show you that even early in your career you meet these people they can make an impact on your life and then come back into your life later on so it kind of came full circle it's great to see her still tattooing it's like she's definitely made her mark and is still going I really don't mind it around here for me I like the slower pace our neighbors are really quiet that's nice we come home and we're tired and we want to be quiet too we do make a little noise with our motorcycles every now and then but most of the neighbors are pretty cool and don't mind so we kind of created our own little culture here and the way we like and with people we like we're gonna make a million bucks but we're gonna make a living doing our thing I mean that's the American dream right so our world I mean look at it all right that's enough of that huh [Applause] you

Channel: VICE

Views: 149,549

Rating: 4.8754387 out of 5

Keywords: vice_videos:premiere, japanese, new orleans, art, arts & culture, Tattoo, body modification, history, biker, Ink, traditional american, skin art, Annette LaRue, Electro-Magnetic, Electric Ladyland, Chesapeake, vice, journalism, documentary, videos, culture, interview, film, movies, underground, vice videos, lifestyle, independent, vice guide, exclusive, vice mag, vice magazine, vice.com, world, documentaries, short films, docs, yt:cc=on, APCLPWCL124153118

Id: 0hJfVQBS55I

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020