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Facial Hair: Where would it be without music?

The story of my life

Let's face it. Rock and roll has been and always will be about looks. Not exactly pretty versus ugly, but rather, cool versus lame. That homeless-looking guy you see at Wal-Mart could be part of the working poor or he could be Doug Martsh from Built To Spill picking up a family-size bag of Funyuns. When did the idea of looking dirty become related to creativity and artistic sense?

Young Elvis showed us how to wear sideburns and fat Elvis made sporting huge mutton chops manly. Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top made three foot long gray beards hip before we were even able to read about Gandalf. Jimi Hendrix was one of four people to make moustaches cool (and one of the remaining three wasn't the mustachioed guy in Hall and Oates). Rick Nielsen single-handedly turned braided beards and five neck guitars into the bee's knees. Most of the lame guys in The Killers even have facial hair.

So I'm sure you're wondering "okay, where are you going with this?" I'll go ahead and let you in on the secret. Without rock, facial hair would show that you were either lazy, poor, or single; or a combination of all three. Let me demonstrate. A plain-looking man in a t-shirt reading comic books with an unkempt beard we might call a nerd, dork, dweeb, etc. The same lad strumming an acoustic guitar would be Sam Beam from Iron & Wine. A guy with a soul patch, a fedora, and a dirty sport coat hanging out in a dark alley equals one creepy old guy. Put that guy behind a microphone and you get Tom Waits. Thanks to musicians men can bare facial hair and be thought of as artistic! While this is a positive for me (a man who enjoys not shaving for months at a time), this is terrible for women like my fiance (who thinks I look like a bum).

To my knowledge there has been only one major casualty in the facial hair battle. Guys who cannot or will not grow facial hair run the risk of falling into a quite detestable category: emo. I do not know why this is the case, but on behalf of the non-shaving crowd I would like to thank musicians everywhere for turning dirty into cool. To those young men who are being pigeon-holed into the emo group, I apologize.

That being said, we've wrangled together a list of the greatest individuals who epitomize the major facial hair categories.

Soul Patch - Steve Vai. This guitar god beats out Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani in this category simply because he sports a soul patch and they don't. Oh yeah, he also plays terrible guitar music faster than you can. Sure, Surfing With the Alien had the Silver Surfer on the cover, but Satriani is bald and facial hairless.

Runner up - Nikki Sixx . He was technically dead for a couple minutes after a heroin overdose. Motley Crue's badboy bass player is no zombie, he's simply a rock legend with a goofy soul patch.

Full Beard - ZZ Top. Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons certainly have the best rock beards ever. I don't know which one is which, but they both have killer beards. Ironically, Frank Beard, the band's drummer, has no beard -- just a moustache. Sometimes Billy Gibbons chooses using a peso over a guitar pick, and that's mighty cool in my book.

Runner up - Bearded John Lennon. John didn't mess around. His beard was all business. All business.

Goatee - Goatees have single-handedly bastardized facial hair (dude from Nickelback, I'm looking at you).

Runner up - Not on my watch.

Chin Strap - Abraham Lincoln. This is non-music related, but he did help win the civil war and abolish slavery. Plus, he wrote the Gettysburg Address. If you don't want to give him mad props I kinda feel sorry for you.

Runner up - Jesus. I am aware that he probably didn't have a chin strap. I just wanted to include a religious figure on the list. He is, after all, considered the son of God. Plus, I'll bet he would have had a chin strap if he ever saw honest Abe.

Huge Chops - Henrik Ibsen. Good lord! If you have never seen Ibsen before take a look. This Norwegian playwright had side burns that put Elvis' to shame. Go read A Doll's House. Seriously, go read it right now. If you don't his mutton chops will strangle you from the grave.

Runner up - Elvis. His sideburns were able to adapt over the years into many different forms. This is one of the many reasons he is referred to as "The King".

Second runner up - Shaq Diesel, baby. For a short time Shaq had no hair on his head, yet he was sporting side burns. They weren't huge chops, but it was still a huge statement. When is Shaq releasing another rap album?

Weird Beard - Lenny Kilmister. He once was in Hawkwind, then he got booted after he got busted with coke. Kilmister said screw your crazy prog-rock junk and formed Motorhead. What else can I say? His beard is indeed, weird.

Runner up - Bob Marley. His facial hair wasn't exactly weird, but it was sideburns, a moustache, and chin hair that was never really connected. It wasn't full and it wasn't a goatee, so I will put it as weird runner-up.

Posted by Greg Herald on Sep 03, 2007 @ 12:00 am