Markus Cuff

Markus grew up in suburban Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. After drumming in several area bands he turned down an offer from Roy Buchanan to join his first touring band; shortly thereafter though, he auditioned for Emmylou Harris and helped her assemble her first band- Angel Band. Emmylou’s stage introductions usually referred to Markus as ‘The Shuffle King.’ You can hear Angel Band on several tracks on Emmylou’s debut ‘Pieces of The Sky’, and Markus in particular on ‘Queen of The Silver Dollar.' After Emmylou decamped to Los Angeles Markus followed a few years later and found himself in the exploding punk/new wave milieu and quickly joined Kathy Valentine and Carla Olson to form The Textones.

While drumming for the Textones and managing Let It Rock- the premiere rock’n roll clothing and shoe shop on the then iconic Melrose Avenue- he began studying photography at Santa Monica College, graduating from the photo program and assisting several photographers around Los Angeles before going solo.

Publications that have featured Markus’ work included Guitar World, Guitar School, Easyriders, American Iron, Tattoo, Tattoo Flash, Rolling Stone’s celebrity tattoo book [Bullfinch] ‘TATTOO NATION Portraits of Celebrity Body Art’, and his hardcover art book ‘TORSO’ a compendium of outstanding tattooed torsos in black and white by prominent inkslingers from around the U.S. and Canada. Besides his music photography he retains a world class archive of tattoo imagery of approximately 125,000 photos and a smaller select group of American antique motorcycles that begins in 1899.