My buddy Emily and I also went to see Fleet Foxes play at New York’s Webster Hall on Sunday night. After procuring two Bud Lights (because we’re classy), I developed a fun consuming online game: Every time we saw some guy with a bushy beard, we’d just take a gulp; for a bearded man in buffalo-check flannel, two gulps.
I’m however nursing a hangover.
Adequate with the lumberjacks!
Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, My day Jacket, Bon Iver, and small Mouse all reveal some signs and symptoms of the problem. I’m uncertain who’s the culprit. Element of myself wants to pin this on Mary Kate Olsen, just who paired an oversize plaid flannel with thin black jeans couple of years ago, causing countless celebrity towels to praise the woman revolutionary “lumberjack chic.” I understand that’s insane: Jim James is perhaps not using fashion advice from Comprehensive House’s Michelle Tanner. And, besides, M-K’s look ended up being much more grunge. This option are performing full-on Paul Bunyan: flannels, worn out jeans, heavy boots, rat’s-nest beards, even suspenders. Suspenders! What’s next — a hip flask of Old Grandad inside straight back pocket? A blacked-out enamel or two?
At Webster Hall, three for the five members of Fleet Foxes was emulating Brawny, the russet-headed he-man cartoon mascot of paper bath towel fame. Maybe they’ve a good reason. Possibly they spent my youth seeing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers — one of the greatest movie-musicals ever sold and, I’m fairly specific, the only one about a brood of lumberjacks — and had been inspired to guide a life one of the woods.
Not.
I possibly could have overlooked their militantly woodsy ensembles — they’re from the Pacific Northwest, all things considered — if 50 % of the viewers hadn’t been rocking similar look. It appeared like a joke, like one of those Improv every-where missions. A flash mob: Lumbercon! Plus a way we can’t help but be angry at Fleet Foxes and folks like Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon for inspiring countless “hipster lumberjacks.” (understand what’s a lot more appalling? The term “hipster lumberjack. I’m however nursing a hangover ” arises on Google 239 times!)
I’m sure, I understand, it is just one single more hipster uniform, a 2008 form of the emo hoodie-and-eyeliner combination. In some methods, it’s just an artful reiteration associated with grunge appearance — perhaps with a far more atavistic gloss. Also it’s just one single even more version of the blue-collar drag many times donned by postcollegiates trying to obscure traces of privileged beginnings with authenticity-imputing garb (see trucker hats, wallet chains, etc.).
But come on.
And so I provide a modest little advice: younger university grad of processed musical tastes, you’re perhaps not a lumberjack. Whenever may be the final time you’ve climbed a tree, let alone chopped someone straight down? Hence’s fine. Simply keep the buffalo-check flannel shirts and Biblical beards to guys whom know the difference between an Alaska Fir and a Mountain Paper Birch. Discover another working-class hero appearance. I do believe “tugboat captain” may be readily available.