So what’s the deal with the fake mustaches? Is this some sort of trend? First Dallas Good, the lanky, chain-smoking guitarist from Neko Case‘s backing band (and frontman for Toronto’s the Sadies), wears a Charles Bronson model at the Showbox two weeks back. Then Isaac Brock shows up—an hour late—for his appearance as Ugly Casanova at Graceland last Friday sporting a faux-furry upper lip.

The Gnome can only hope that Hollywood shill Tom Hanks was joining the movement at the Golden Globe awards Sunday night, where the Cast Away star appeared with a shabby pseudo-‘stache. Boy, did he look like a dork. And let’s not even discuss Keanu Reeves’ patchwork beard, except to say his face looked like a monkey who’d gotten on an alpha male’s bad side. For what passes as Hollywood’s elite, most of the celebrities looked nasty on the TV broadcast, with the notable exception of sometime-Seattle couple Cameron Crowe and Nancy Wilson. The Heart chanteuse and her film-directing hubby dressed sharp, kept their hair under control, and smiled on cue when Crowe snagged a Globe for Almost Famous. Way to represent!

Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan, so he can look however he wants, but the man who accepted the award for Best Song in a Movie has changed dramatically since his younger days. The photos of Dylan in the new Experience Music Project exhibition “Artist to Icon,” taken between 1964 and 1965 by Daniel Kramer, capture a budding genius at work and play. EMP kicked off the exhibition with a bash last Thursday, allowing members and guests the opportunity to mingle with the shutterbugs who shot Dylan, the Beatles, and Elvis Presley during these legends’ formative phases (for a review of “Artist to Icon,” see page 24). It’s a powerful exhibition, and the first real sign that that wacky building at Seattle Center can recontextualize music as a visual art form. Yes, that means the Funk Blast doesn’t quite live up. . . .

For a real funk blast, you’d have had to be among the stylish crew packed into the Baltic Room Saturday night for the Ming and FS show. True to their word (as told to Seattle Weekly‘s Kurt B. Reighley in last week’s issue), the New York DJs known for their drum-and-bass records have widened their scope. Ming and FS trotted out jungle warhorses like Roni Size but slipped gleefully into hip-hop anthems from Public Enemy and Run-DMC. It wasn’t all smooth: They flubbed a shoulda-been-rousing “Tainted Love” by fiddling with the mix, first evoking a screeching high-end that nearly broke glass, then exiling the bass to a speaker in a galaxy far, far away, where men wear real mustaches. You betcha!

You can reach the Metro Gnome at metrognome@seattleweekly.com.