Super Furry Manimals

A tribute to Seattle music's finest beards and and staches.

Jesse Smith was slinging hash at the old Croc in 2007 when he told Seattle Weekly that “the chubby, hairy-guy thing is really going to blow up the music scene in ’07. Mark my words.”

Three years later, chubby-and-hairy has yet to go out of fashion, and Seattle beards have reached a wider audience. Thanks to diplomats like Fleet Foxes, who brought the fuzz to Saturday Night Live, and Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell, who flew his robin’s nest south, the world now knows what kind of quality to expect from the Seattle scene’s all-season facial hair.

In fact, as we celebrate the second annual Beard & Stache Fest this week—a competition among 100 of the city’s scruffiest—we’re reminded that the local music community puts on its own hirsute festival 365 nights a year. Here’s a look at some of the beards and ‘staches that have scratched the city’s sonic surface, before and after Smith’s prescient prediction.

ckornelis@seattleweekly.com

BEARD IDENTIFICATION

1. Lesbian 

2. Zach
Tillman, Pearly Gate Music 

3. Ben Bridwell, Band of Horses 


4. Shaun Libman, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head

5. Robin Pecknold, Fleet Foxes 

6. Sir Thomas Gray, Champagne Champagne

7. Macklemore 

8. Jeff Keenan, Feral Children  

9. Evan LeSure, sound engineer at Neumos 

10. Krist Novoselic 

11. David Bazan 

12. John Roderick 

13. Steve Turner, Mudhoney 

14. Chris Zasche, Maldives and Grand Hallways 

15. Jesse Lortz, The Dutchess and the Duke 

16. Ra Scion, Common Market 

17. Tim Seely 

18. Mat Brooke, Grand Archives 

19. Jesse Sykes with Rick Rubin’s beard 

20. Jared Price, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band 

21. Thomas Hunter, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground 

22. Kim Thayil, Soundgarden 

23. Peter Quirk, the Cave Singers 

24. J. Tillman 

25. Jimi Hendrix 

26. Eric Elbogen, Say Hi 

27. Morgan Henderson, Past Lives 

28. Ryan Devlin, the Whore Moans 

29. Reggie Watts 

30. Kevin Barrans, the Tallboys 

31. Seth Warren, the Maldives