Can’t Come to Work, I’m on Beard Leave

My goatee is something I’m rather fond of. Unfortunately, accidental facial hair makeovers are common in my life.

It could be my blindness in one eye, but whenever I step in front of the mirror, it seems I get a little overzealous when tidying up my whiskers. Usually, I misjudge my shaving and become convinced that my goatee has become lopsided. What begins as a small touch-up generally results in an accidental drastic trim.

Beards are something I’ve flirted with in the past, but I secretly enjoy my ongoing goatee-and-eyebrow-piercing tribute to the 90s. Seeing as I’m about to take a few weeks off work to recover from an operation, it seems like the perfect opportunity to grow a beard and do away with this imbalanced goatee problem completely.

After recounting my plans to Bruce recently, he informed me that there’s a technical term for such a process: taking a fortnight of “beard leave” from work. Fascinated, I demanded to know more, and he directed me to the band who came up with the term. It’s a band that’s changed my life overnight: The Beards.

Tapping into the highly neglected crowd of fur-face enthusiasts, The Beards are a ragtag band of Adelaide blokes who sing exclusively about how awesome beards are. This sounds awfully like a painful novelty act, but it turns out they’re bloody good. Their debut album features such corkers as “Who Told You to Shave Off Your Beard”, “A Wizard Needs a Beard” and the epic “Tale of the Amish Boy (and His Beard)” – and they’re all genuinely good, catchy rock songs!

There’s a Beards gig in Melbourne coming up in October, and I fear I may not be permitted to enter the hotel unless my beard’s of appropriate length by that stage, so I better get cracking with the hair lotion. In the meantime, we can look forward to the band’s upcoming single: “If Your Dad Doesn’t Have a Beard, You Have Two Mums” (I’m not joking).

The Beards Links:
Triple J Unearthed
iTunes
MySpace

Tagged as: Facial Hair, Really old posts, Rock