Dave Slack. (Patreon)

At the 2017 Association of Professional Piercers annual conference, I was asked if I knew anything about the model in a 1970s Charles Gatewood photo; simply titled David, (with the description David with pierced nipples) the image cut the subject off at the neck so it wasn't a lot to go on. 

In time, I narrowed it down to Dave Slack; a tattoo artist from NYC who was a friend of Charles Gatewood, Spider Webb, and Sailor Sid Diller. There are photos of Sid and Larry from his place on 75th and West Central Park- circa 1975- in my archives, but none of Dave himself. 

I reached out to NYC Tattoo historian Mike McCabe, who came back with this:

“Slack worked around the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and also in Manhattan. Slack was Angelo's competition when he started tattooing in the Bronx. Angelo said that Slack was known for his unique use of color. He used purple and orange combinations. He highlighted with yellows. His tattoos were dark and he used the oranges and yellows in an interesting graphic way to make them bright. But very original looking.”

Retired tattoo artist and trucker erotica publisher JD had this to say:

"Good lord, I met Dave in the late 1960s at what was Keller's Bar on West Street in Manhattan.  One of the original leather bars.  He was operating a shop (illegally back then) on the East Side in Alphabet City area.  Have no idea where he is if he's even still alive. (35 years -/+)  He'd have to be older than me, and that's between 40 and death."

Years passed and I didn't really think too much about Dave, but in the last few weeks he's popped up several times in private conversations and research requests; photos of him in Goldstein's SCREW magazine, casual snapshots with Spider, and, earlier today, a request to ID a tattooer working in the 1970s gay adult film New York City Inferno (1) that turned out to be Slack. 

We're working on tracking down the Screw issue Dave appeared in, and have a line out from Paul King of the BPA on Dave's later years. It's always fun to fall down a rabbit hole, finding out more and more information until a mystery is solved.

(1) New York City Inferno is directed by Scandelari, who also wrote the film's screenplay based on a concept by Elliott Stein.

The tattoo flash in the slides from NYCI have been identified as Cliff Raven flash.