I'm obsessed by hair. Perhaps cutting one's long locks, as I recently did, can cause Hitchcockian-level neuroses.

I am obsessing, too, because of what's on my coffee table -- Bad Hair, a book of what Bloomsbury Publishing calls "hairstyles so bad you can't look away."

Yet, rather than grow weak with worry about winding up a page in a book of "follicular atrocities" -- a rat-tail, a helmet, a psycho-bob-mullet -- the trim rendered unto me by After Hours owner Scott Chestnut has empowered me by giving me what I'd I like to think is my "Union of the Snake"/Lux Interior look -- equal doses Duran Duran and The Cramps: new rock hair with that perfectly retro groove, so now it's then.

Ask rock star stylist/hairdresser Machele Alessandrine and massage artist Lezlee Vitarelli, the 27-year-old owners of Le Bomb Chele Hair and Body Boutique, the Italian Market's new salon for all hipster needs.

It may also be the first way-affordable salon to neighbor garlic stands, live chicken coops, pizza palaces, a kitty-kat-painted thrift store and several gun and archery shops with shooting ranges. You can't miss Bomb Chele's window. It's the one lined with Crazy Eyes big shoes and bald, silver mannequins wearing tees made by Lyndsey Cone, handbags by

Nicole Stranko, pink and red panties and fuzzy Italian scarves that double as wack dickies.

"I love this neighborhood," says Alessandrine, a tall, short-haired blonde whose bracelets constantly jangle, as she prepares for a Sunday afternoon shoot at South Street's TLA with buds Melanie Campbell and Dimitri Coats -- otherwise known as Burning Brides -- for their video of "Arctic Snow." "The chickens and the geese squawking may freak me out. But neighbors check in on us and give me presents." As if on cue, the woman who owns next door's thrift shop ducks her head in.

LBC is simple: a wide white front room with ceiling fans, vintage leather couches and three chairs, and a back room dotted with musculature posters and massage equipment.

It's the little things that give away LBC's status as a new home for rock hair. There's the fact that Vitarelli bartends at the neighboring Low, or that, by appointment, LBC will stay open 'til 3 a.m. if the customer requires. "I just don't want to get up early," Alessandrine says.

Other rockist giveaways are the leopard-print sheets that cover the massage tables, the ball-bearing-lined mirrors, the paintings and photos from rocker pals and the roster of clients that Alessandrine's known from her days on South Street cutting hair at The Chop Shop and at Cream Chargers/TLA sound manager Dean Rosenzweig's personal studio on Bainbridge.

"Between those two places, I developed a clientele of over 300 people," says Alessandrine, who estimates that two-thirds of those devotees still come regularly. "The other ones have to find out."

South Street linked her quickly and easily to the best of indie-alterna-locals like Sugar Skulls, Plastic Eaters and 13 Even, whom she often felt funny charging. She'll get over that. "I used to apologize all the time for having to charge people -- even the nationals I used to do for cheap," she says with a laugh. "But I think I'm reasonable." At $50 an hour for video sessions and a slate of affordable services, her clients agree. Beyond the locals, it was the Cream Chargers connection and her friendship with Bryan Dilworth (Curt Flood Booking/Burning Brides manager) that hooked her up with nationals like Good Charlotte, Sugar Ray, Filter and Zen Guerrilla. She has no horror stories or tales of lousy tips. "I'm so inexpensive, the nationals who pay me tip extraordinarily well." The only celeb she gets flustered talking about -- especially now -- is the late Joe Strummer, whose hair she trimmed the last time he played the TLA. Her only regret about the Strummer session was that she accidentally left behind the lock of hair she had snagged. "Joe was the sweetest man."

It's Burning Brides' Campbell and Coats who seem to be the models of Alessandrine's definition of rock style: "For men, jeans, T-shirt, dirty, longer hair, not well kept. For girls, tight jeans, smoky eyes, shag haircut, stiletto boots, big belts."

"The Brides look great all the time. I like little garage bands like the Strokes but I also like Britney's look," she laughs. "Overall I like hair and style that doesn't look like someone meant it -- clothes should look just pulled out of closets, hair should look like it's just been woken up." Though she says Brendan Gallagher of Cream Chargers has the worst hair, she also states that it's the one 'do she'd love to get her hands on. "I would so give him the best makeover."