Cut Your Hair (and Your Losses)

If you needed further convincing on just how reprehensible Iron & Wine frontman Samuel Beam really is, take a moment to let your eardrums get raped by this. Iron & Wine's hemp seed granola persona has been inching ever closer to the early-70's era of shaggy hair and even shaggier music tastes, but now he's crossed a very long-haired, lice-infested line. Little Feat is one of those bands which we should be thankful has bit the dust--our lives are more enriched now that they're no longer on the charts and only brought up in conversation by Over Sixties who still think Lowell George was some sort of music icon. But with the legion of Iron & Wine fans growing each year, I worry that we'll soon be seeing a Little Feat resurgence thanks to this faux-folkie who resembles Jesus Christ but with none of the sex appeal. Are you going to tell me that all these years Beam has been secretly harboring a love of this funky-bluesy-funk/blues? Where does this slippery slope end? Will he next release a one-off single covering Firefall? Is he going to spearhead a tribute album to Barefoot Jerry? Is the next step a collaborative folk-cycle album with Gilbert O'Sullivan? For pete's sake, Sam, let the lunacy end.