The Bodmod Squad

What do Angelina Jolie, hair-metal bands, and frat boys have in common? A perverse love of video games? Warm. A secret stash of black nail polish? Getting warmer. A whole lotta love for tattoos? You got it, bro.

Once the purview of Maori tribesmen, pirates, and sailors on leave, tattoos are blowin' up all over the place, including Phoenix, especially when Durb Morrison of Stained Skin takes his inked-up show on the road for the inaugural Hell City Tattoo Tour convention, the most anticipated tattoo gathering around. "It's our first try with a tour, and Phoenix made sense. There's a large modification community here, and I love the landscape," says Morrison, a Columbus, Ohio, resident who picked the Arizona Biltmore to host the three-day fest. "How perfect is that? Great tattoo art in the middle of the Frank Lloyd Wright Ballroom. I think he'd appreciate it."

This Lollapalooza for the tatted set includes educational seminars, a tattoo museum, art-fusion experiments, a fine-art gallery sponsored by downtown's Perihelion Arts, and a film festival featuring, uh, well, skin flicks. Even the kiddies can get inked -- temporarily, of course -- at the Heck City Kids Booth.