Upper Lip Service

Get your mustache on at Stache Bash 2009

by Lauren F. Friedman

[ facial hair ]

On a fateful day in 2004, Jay Della Valle shaved his beard into a mustache, looked in the mirror and promptly started laughing hysterically. "Everyone had a problem with it, and no one liked it," says Della Valle, who soon trimmed the poorly received mustache even further, into a "molester 'stache," which he says looked like a caterpillar on his upper lip. But Della Valle was not one to shy from the attention or the insults. "The more people commented on it," he says, "the more I knew I liked it."

What began as a spontaneous facial hair decision has turned into a defining element of Della Valle's life. He created a documentary about men growing mustaches (The Glorius Mustache Challenge), became a major player in the American Mustache Institute (which "protects the rights of mustachios"), and has now organized the national tour of Stache Bash, a celebration of independent music and — of course — mustaches. (Stache Bash started last year in St. Louis — "home of the world's largest mustache — the St. Louis Arch.")

"I'm not obsessed with mustaches as much as the attitude a mustache brings," says Della Valle, pictured third from the left. "The attitude of the mustache man [is]: 'I do this for me, not for anybody else — I'm going to rock that 'stache and everyone's going to love it.'"

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At Stache Bash, everyone is invited to be a mustache man, even if for just one night. "I think all men should experiment and try a mustache," Della Valle says. "[Otherwise] you won't know the doors and perspectives that 'stache will open up for you." Still, for those with uncooperative facial hair, unsupportive partners, or — ahem — ovaries, you can always fake it. "It becomes a costume contest for the ladies," Della Valle says, describing a previous Stache Bash where "one girl came as Bristol Palin, with a mustache on her pregnant belly."

While there will be a host of prizes for best and worst mustaches, the Bash is not all about upper lip hair — it's also about music. In each city, Della Valle's eponymous band will play with a local group that he deems appropriately "pro-mustache," at least in some abstract sense. In Philly, they chose Long Walk Home, who rocked mustaches when dressed up as The Band for a Halloween show. "This is ... not necessarily the kind of show we would normally do," says Julian Booker of Long Walk Home, who shaved off his first and only mustache immediately after Halloween, "but it seemed too silly and too ridiculous to pass up."

Long Walk Home will shave their beards into mustaches again for the Bash ("We can't wear fake mustaches — that would be too much of cop-out," Booker says), but a "'stache" is not a requirement for entry — it's just highly recommended.

"Whether people have mustaches in their day-to-day lives or not — just get into it for the night," Della Valle suggests, before gently adding: "If they don't have a mustache, we're not going to stone them."

(lauren.friedman@citypaper.net)

Stache Bash 2009 | Mon., April 13, 7:30 p.m., $10, Doc Watson's Pub, 216 S. 11th St., 215-922-3427, stachebashevent.com