foray into the eclectic TCB tattoo parlour

I feel like I’ve walked into someone’s personal sanctuary and the green plastic demon-like bunny creature is staring at me accusingly from across the room. He’s smoking a cigar and his eyes seem to say, “what the fuck are you doing in a tattoo parlour, you wanker?”

In truth I just wanted to witness a pin-pricking experience for the first time, and so I accompanied my friend Matti, to TCB Tattoo Parlour on 618 Queen St. West.

This was my first time in a tattoo shop, and I was struck by how each artist’s work station resembles an eccentric dorm room, with walls plastered in strange odds and ends. Each space seems to be as personal, eclectic and cluttered as the art that adorns each artist’s bodies. I happen to be seated across from a collection of dead mounted critters and antlers. By the time Matti’s tattoos are finished, I’ve become acquainted with the smoking demon-bunny and his owner, Wes Dix, who is willing to answer my stream of queries, including those involving his taxidermy trophies. It’s impressive that he can colour in purple clouds on Matti’s arm while simultaneously satisfying my curiosity.

Wes has worked at TCB for about a year and a half, but he’s tattooed at his fair share of parlours in Toronto (the random guy in this picture is not Wes). This is a real tattoo shop, he says, unlike the commercial shops he’s worked at in the past. Here he can be a dick, so to speak. At a commercial joint you have to be nice to everyone, he says, whether they deserve it or not. Somehow it’s hard for me to imagine the guy sharing his peanut M&M’s with us being churlish with customers, but apparently it happens. “Tattooing is not a glamorous job,” he explains. “You have to tattoo a lot of gross, unsavoury people.” He quickly adds, “Not you,” to my friend. We both crack up.

There is a yellow and black checkerboard floor underneath us, classic rock blasting on the speakers, and a bald artist with a client in the work station to the left of us who has taken a very revealing seat. Revealing because I am now have a very clear view of the green and blue talon design spread across his right ass cheek. What a pinch. His client is a wavy-haired blonde in a red skull emblazoned tank top. Today he is extending the already elaborate skeleton themed tattoo which winds around her upper arm. The process has already taken 6 months, and it’s obvious that she has developed a friendship with the artist piercing her skin. “I like to give him a hard time,” she says laughing. The atmosphere is relaxed, as Wes and his co-worker discuss their enjoyment of Project Runway, and the fight they witnessed on ecstasy. You can meet a lot of friends in this profession, says Wes, “I’ve been the best man at a couple of weddings.”

Maybe experiencing something that is both painful and transformational with someone inevitably leads to some kind of bond. There is also a certain intimacy that comes with the contact of tattooing, and the fact that you are altering someone in a significant way.

A few work stations away sit a set of rock’em sock’em robots, and a majestic sailing ship figurine atop a shelf. Matti is taking the pain like a champ, and proof of his battle wounds are visible as he turns over on the table, leaving blood stains on the paper sheet cover. He says that on a scale of 1-10, he’s experiencing a pain factor of about six. When I ask Wes what his experiences are like with female tattoo virgins he says it depends on how he reacts to the situation. “If you feed into the drama it can get fucking out of control. They start whining, stopping every second, crying and shit,” he explains.


TCB has two tattoo artists who are women, and I was able to witness one complete a particularly painful looking tattoo on the inside of a man’s lip. Aside from the advantage of gazing into a pretty face Wes feels that, “you get a lot more business if you got boobs, I tell you that. Boobs business. A lot of guys will get a tattoo just to get one from a girl.” Personally he would rather worry about the quality of the tattoo on his skin than the sex of the artist creating it, “If you’re a good tattooer then it doesn’t matter what kind of plumbing you got.”

By the end of the tattoo session Wes is used to my constant scribbling, and takes my interrogation with good humour. So when a co-worker offers to get coffee, and Wes places his order, he anticipates what I’ll jot down about him next. “Likes muffins.”

He wonders if the impression I got from watching shows like TLC’s Miami Ink has changed since visiting a real shop like TCB. I replied that even though famous tattoo artists may own night clubs and expensive watches, the common factor is that they are all just guys, underneath the big bank accounts. Even though Wes’s paycheque is smaller, he’s still doing what he loves, what he’s wanted to do since high school. Plus he has the freedom to be a dick, but if you bring a muffin he’s sure to go easy on you.