The 'Stache #1: Neil Peart

Think you can handle this moustache? I don't think so.

I think it is my duty as Grand Purveyor of All Things Seventies to establish a series of posts on the symbol of the decade: The Mustache.  Like all my regular features, I will drag it out over a number of years, and wrap things up when the Mayan Calendar comes to a close.

The seventies were the decade of manliness and machismo.  Baby Boomers were in their prime, and now it was time to start broadcasting their virility via tight pants and mighty womb brooms.  These were beacons of manliness the way a stag's rack and a lion's mane are signals of their raw manhood.

Mind you, the homosexual community took it up a notch, so I can't lay all the credit to hetero seventies swingers.  But none - I repeat, NONE will ever top the feather duster that adorned the upper lip of the great Neil Peart.

Don't let the Adidas and Geddy's grandma pants distract you from that goddamn amazing mustache

I know there have been other great mustaches in rock: Frank Zappa and Freddie Mercury spring to mind. But none can compare to Peart's gargantuan thigh tickler. It's almost unfair that he could be the undisputed king of both drums AND moustachemanship.  Indeed, how many other musicians do you know that have a Facebook page devoted to their facial hair?