Bob Log III, performing Friday on Fountain Square as a part of the free MidPoint Indie Summer Series, is a Delta Blues mash-up of Hasil Adkins and Super Dave Osborne. He’s a hyperkinetic one-man band who uses his hands to scorch through razor-sharp slide-guitar licks like the second coming of Mississippi Fred McDowell, his feet to play a pedal-outfitted bass drum/cymbal set-up with the fury of an armless Keith Moon and his chased-by-a-hellhound voice which is filtered through the telephone mouthpiece mic in his ever present crash helmet to howl over the musical racket he’s making on any given stage.
Like a late-night Ginsu knife television offer, that would be enough, but wait ... there’s more.
Log’s songs are the disgustingly thick icing on an already great cake, with titles like “Boob Scotch” (which is about, uh, stirring your scotch with boobs), “Clap Your Tits" (which is about, uh, clapping your tits) and “I Want Your Shit on My Leg” (man, do I have to explain everything?). Put it all together, and it’s the inimitable force of nature known as Bob Log III.
Log began his career with the Tucson-based Blues quartet Mondo Guano and then shifted in the early ’90s to the duo Doo Rag with drummer Thermos Malling. The pair’s six-year run ended in 1998 when Log, presumably tired of splitting the take with Malling, went completely solo, figuring out the whole-body solo system that he employs to this day. Log has a half-dozen albums to his credit as a solo performer, the last two released in 2009 (My Shit Is PerfectHiram & Huddie Disc 1-A Tribute to Hank Williams Sr.). Log — who has opened for Ween, Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion and Ani Di Franco — has been known to balance a woman on each leg and maintain a steady rhythm while playing the aforementioned “I Want Your Shit on My Leg” and it’s not entirely implausible for him to surf the crowd in an inflatable raft.
Prepare yourself, because nothing can prepare you for the raucous reality of Bob Log III, the one-man perpetual motion Blues machine.
(Bob Log III plays at 9 p.m. Friday, preceded by Darlene at 7 and Cotton Jones at 8; Eat Sugar headlines the evening beginning at 10 p.m. Get event and Fountain Square details here.)
