Bob Log III
Encyclopedia
Bob Log III is an American
slide guitar
one-man band
. During performances, he plays old Silvertone
archtop guitar
s, wears a full body human cannonball suit, and a pilot's helmet wired to a telephone receiver, which allows him to devote his hands and feet to guitar and drums. The spectacle has been described as a guitar dance party.
He tours over 150 shows a year in more than 30 countries. Bob Log's version of quick Delta blues
is a continuation of the sound that Bob Log and Thermos pioneered in the duo Doo Rag
. The major differences are: greater emphasis on guitar showmanship, fingerpicking, and one-man-band-style drumming with his feet. Based in Tucson
, Arizona
, and Melbourne, Australia, he has made tours of North America
, Europe
, Japan
and Australia
, Mexico
, and Iceland
.
Bob Log III was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Arizona. Growing up, Log listened to musical artists such as AC/DC
, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Bo Diddley
, Hasil Adkins
and Chuck Berry
, later commenting that "That's what rock'n'roll is to me. You take a guitar, turn it up, make the ladies dance, and have a good time." Bob Log got his first guitar at the age of 11, and by the age of 16 he had moved to slide guitar, playing Delta blues
, modeling his slide guitar style on that of Mississippi Fred McDowell
. Log began his music career recording and touring with Mondo Guano, a four-piece slide guitar
, blues
, home-made percussion band based in Tucson, Arizona. Upon leaving Mondo Guano, Log went on to perform as one half of the Delta blues rock duo, Doo Rag
, with bandmate Thermos Malling.
After six years of making music with Doo Rag, Bob began a solo career, warming up audiences for R. L. Burnside
, Blues Explosion, Ween
, Franz Ferdinand
, and Ani Difranco
among others.
Over time, Log acquired a kick-drum and a homemade foot cymbal which he custom-outfitted with a kick pedal of its own. These instruments, combined with his slide guitar work, telephone microphone vocals, and drum machine accompaniment, form the framework on which Bob Log constructs his songs. Log describes his on-stage setup in the song "One Man Band Boom", introducing himself to the audience as, "Bob Log the third, one-man band, Tucson, Arizona. Heyeeeh! Lemme introduce the band to ya. On cymbals, left foot. Over here on the bass drum
we got right foot. Shut up! This is my left hand that does all the slide work, right hand does the pickin'. My mouth hole does most of the talkin'. And you're looking at my finger. My finger is an asshole."
accident. It was soon replaced with a monkey paw, and a new guitar style was born. 'It's my own personal style, see,' Log says, 'the paw moves much quicker than a normal hand, so my real hand has to flop around a lot to compensate.'" When asked to explain Fat Possum's insistence that his right hand is a monkey’s paw, Log replied to an interviewer that, "My hand is just hairy. Very, very hairy. It is NOT a paw. Fat Possum was drunk." Log further clarified the monkey paw myth in an interview with Bizarre Magazine: "I've got all my limbs. It's just that when I'm playing my guitar my hand moves so fast it looks like a monkey paw, a hairy paw. My hand moves really fast. Faster than a normal human hand."
Eventually, Bob Log added a wireless set-up to his guitar in order to allow him to take part in more active antics about the venues in which he is playing. On a number of occasions, Bob has set sail atop his audience in an inflatable dingy or played portions of his set from the women's washroom. During various shows on his September 2009 UK tour Bob Log would enter/exit the stage whilst playing guitar sitting on top of the shoulders of Russell Gray, lead singer of Russell and The Wolves.
Bob Log III often invites audience members to 'make' a Boob Scotch, asking them onstage to dip their breast in his scotch (usually ordered for him by a fan) after which he lifts his helmet slightly and downs the drink. Log has been known to dip his own breast in his scotch, especially in Japan, a modest nation and usually not willing to expose their 'boob'.
:
"And then there's this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He's this little kid — nobody ever knows how old he is — wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can't see his face, and plays slide guitar. It's just the loudest strangest stuff you've ever heard. You don’t understand one word he's saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That's what I aspire to basically."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
one-man band
One-man band
A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of musical instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical contraptions. The simplest type of "one-man band" — a singer accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar and harmonica mounted in a metal "harp rack" below the...
. During performances, he plays old Silvertone
Silvertone (instruments)
Silvertone was the brand name used by Sears, Roebuck and Company for its line of sound equipment from 1915 to 1972. A hand-cranked phonograph was introduced under the Silvertone brand by Sears in 1915...
archtop guitar
Archtop guitar
An archtop guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with blues and jazz players.Typically, an archtop guitar has:* 6 strings...
s, wears a full body human cannonball suit, and a pilot's helmet wired to a telephone receiver, which allows him to devote his hands and feet to guitar and drums. The spectacle has been described as a guitar dance party.
He tours over 150 shows a year in more than 30 countries. Bob Log's version of quick Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
is a continuation of the sound that Bob Log and Thermos pioneered in the duo Doo Rag
Doo rag
Doo rag may refer to:*an alternate spelling of do-rag, a simple piece of cloth tied at the back, used to cover the head*Doo Rag , a Lo-fi music punk/blues band from Tucson, Arizona, active in the mid 90s....
. The major differences are: greater emphasis on guitar showmanship, fingerpicking, and one-man-band-style drumming with his feet. Based in Tucson
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, and Melbourne, Australia, he has made tours of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
History
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
, Hasil Adkins
Hasil Adkins
Hasil Adkins was an Appalachian country, rock and roll, and blues musician, though he was frequently considered rockabilly and sometimes primitive jazz...
and Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, later commenting that "That's what rock'n'roll is to me. You take a guitar, turn it up, make the ladies dance, and have a good time." Bob Log got his first guitar at the age of 11, and by the age of 16 he had moved to slide guitar, playing Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
, modeling his slide guitar style on that of Mississippi Fred McDowell
Mississippi Fred McDowell
Fred McDowell known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.-Career:...
. Log began his music career recording and touring with Mondo Guano, a four-piece slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, home-made percussion band based in Tucson, Arizona. Upon leaving Mondo Guano, Log went on to perform as one half of the Delta blues rock duo, Doo Rag
Doo Rag (band)
Doo Rag was an American lo-fi blues band duo from Tucson, Arizona, USA. The band consisted of Bob Log III and Thermos Malling. By the time of their breakup, they had supported a number of artists on tour, most notably Sonic Youth and Beck.-History:...
, with bandmate Thermos Malling.
After six years of making music with Doo Rag, Bob began a solo career, warming up audiences for R. L. Burnside
R. L. Burnside
Not to be confused with R. H. Burnside, stage director.R. L. Burnside , born Robert Lee Burnside, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention...
, Blues Explosion, Ween
Ween
Ween is an American alternative rock group. They formed in 1984 in New Hope, Pennsylvania when central members Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo met in an eighth grade typing class. Ween has a large cult underground fanbase despite being generally unknown in American pop music...
, Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand (band)
Franz Ferdinand are a Scottish post-punk revival band formed in Glasgow in 2002. The band is composed of Alex Kapranos , Bob Hardy , Nick McCarthy , and Paul Thomson .The band first experienced chart success when their second single, "Take Me Out", reached #3 in...
, and Ani Difranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
among others.
Over time, Log acquired a kick-drum and a homemade foot cymbal which he custom-outfitted with a kick pedal of its own. These instruments, combined with his slide guitar work, telephone microphone vocals, and drum machine accompaniment, form the framework on which Bob Log constructs his songs. Log describes his on-stage setup in the song "One Man Band Boom", introducing himself to the audience as, "Bob Log the third, one-man band, Tucson, Arizona. Heyeeeh! Lemme introduce the band to ya. On cymbals, left foot. Over here on the bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
we got right foot. Shut up! This is my left hand that does all the slide work, right hand does the pickin'. My mouth hole does most of the talkin'. And you're looking at my finger. My finger is an asshole."
The monkey paw
An early press release from record label Fat Possum claimed Log had a monkey paw grafted on to his wrist after a boating accident as a child. According to Bob Log's artist page at Fat Possum Records: "When Bob Log III was a child, he lost his left hand in a boatingBoating
Boating is the leisurely activity of travelling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether powerboats, sailboats, or man-powered vessels , focused on the travel itself, as well as sports activities, such as fishing or water skiing...
accident. It was soon replaced with a monkey paw, and a new guitar style was born. 'It's my own personal style, see,' Log says, 'the paw moves much quicker than a normal hand, so my real hand has to flop around a lot to compensate.'" When asked to explain Fat Possum's insistence that his right hand is a monkey’s paw, Log replied to an interviewer that, "My hand is just hairy. Very, very hairy. It is NOT a paw. Fat Possum was drunk." Log further clarified the monkey paw myth in an interview with Bizarre Magazine: "I've got all my limbs. It's just that when I'm playing my guitar my hand moves so fast it looks like a monkey paw, a hairy paw. My hand moves really fast. Faster than a normal human hand."
Audience participation
During performances Bob Log will often call audience members (both male and female) on stage to sit on his knee while he plays. Log credits years of drumming with his feet for his ability to simultaneously drum and support the weight of multiple people: "My legs are huge now. Sometimes I can get a girl on each knee and bounce 'em along." Log has distinctively used breasts as a theme in his performance and hired two "professional women" to use their breasts as percussion instruments on his song "Clap Your Tits". Log is quick to point out that all of these acts are carried out between consenting adults and individuals familiar with his brand of humor, stating, "First of all, if you come to my show knowing I've got a song called "Boob Scotch" and you get offended, I'm sorry but I've got to say just get out."Eventually, Bob Log added a wireless set-up to his guitar in order to allow him to take part in more active antics about the venues in which he is playing. On a number of occasions, Bob has set sail atop his audience in an inflatable dingy or played portions of his set from the women's washroom. During various shows on his September 2009 UK tour Bob Log would enter/exit the stage whilst playing guitar sitting on top of the shoulders of Russell Gray, lead singer of Russell and The Wolves.
Boob Scotch
One of Bob Log III's more controversial antics is 'Boob Scotch', that is, scotch which has been stirred by a female (or male) breast. This practice was integrated into the song "Boob Scotch" from the album Log Bomb, in which Bob Log sings "I think we need to sit down and talk, put your boob in my scotch. Come on dip your tit in my drink, stir my scotch with something that's pink."Bob Log III often invites audience members to 'make' a Boob Scotch, asking them onstage to dip their breast in his scotch (usually ordered for him by a fan) after which he lifts his helmet slightly and downs the drink. Log has been known to dip his own breast in his scotch, especially in Japan, a modest nation and usually not willing to expose their 'boob'.
Lyrical quotes
- "I'm a professional, God damn it. I live in a car."
- "Ladies and gentlemen's... We've all got boobs people, look between your, your, non-boobs... what you're going to find is a nipple! No matter if you're a man or woman, OR an angry woman."
Quotes about Bob Log III
Tom WaitsTom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
:
"And then there's this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He's this little kid — nobody ever knows how old he is — wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can't see his face, and plays slide guitar. It's just the loudest strangest stuff you've ever heard. You don’t understand one word he's saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That's what I aspire to basically."
Albums
- School Bus (Fat Possum, 1998)
- Trike (Fat Possum, 1999)
- Live!!! Aloha from Japan (Bloat Records, 2000)
- Log Bomb (Fat Possum Records, 2003)
- My Shit is Perfect (Birdman, Voodoo Rhythm, Bloat Records, 2009)
- Hiram & Huddie Disc 1 - A Tribute to Hank Williams Sr" (Hillgrass Bluebilly Records 2009)
Singles
- "Daddy Log's Drive In Candy Hoppin Car Babes" (Sympathy for the Record Industry)
- "I Want Your Shit On My Leg" (Dropkick)
- "Bubble Strut" (Dropkick)
- "Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump Pow! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump, Baby! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump Pow! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump" (Munster)
Albums
- Chunked & Muddled LP/CD/CS (Bloat Records, 1994, BLT 10048)
- Barber Shop CS (Bloat Records, 1994, BLT #?)
- Doo Rag, What We Do LP/CD (Dependability, 1996, L 45649)
Singles
- "Hussy Bowler" 7" (Westworld, 1993, WW-7)
- "Trudge" 7" (In The Red, 1994, ITR 021)
- "Swampwater Mop Down" 7" (Drunken Fish Records, 1995, DFR-11)
- "Two Tones To Tune" 7" (Discos Alehop!, 1997, hop 014)