Bob Log III puts on a show that incorporates all of the body’s senses. Known for being a one-man band featuring Log in a full Evel Knievel-type jumpsuit with a helmet housing a telephone microphone, Log plays his guitar fast and hard and takes no prisoners in his quest to stir up his audiences while keeping the beat with his feet on his drum kit.
“I’ve always enjoyed making a room full of people crazy and that is basically the point of all of my songs,” says Log while driving through Kentucky on his almost endless 20,000-mile tour, which began in May.
Bob Log III will stop in Houston on Saturday, September 26 for a special performance at the Orange Show for Visionary Arts, a fitting venue for his out-of-this-world performance.
“I’m trying to rile you up,” he says adding with a laugh, “I’m gonna make you lose a shoe! I realize when I’ve done a really good job because the floor is all wet, there’s toast everywhere and there’s one shoe.”
Log is known for pulling the audience into his performances by having them help carry him over the crowd in a dinghy, requesting volunteers to place their boobs, male or female, into his scotch and having people put toast in their mouths while they sit on his lap as he plays.
“That stuff is easy to talk about,” he says, making the comparison with the challenge of talking about actual music. “It’s like trying to describe a painting and saying ‘There’s this lady and she’s kinda smiling.’ That doesn’t tell you what the Mona Lisa is, and music is the same way. I’m not just talking about my music, I’m talking about anybody’s music. There’s no way to put it in words that does it justice, you’ve got to see it, hear it or be in the room with it.”
The transference of energy between Log and the crowd is undeniable and one of the main reasons he continues to return to the U.S. to tour, despite calling Melbourne, Australia, home for over the past 20 years. He plans on sitting down to make a new album when he finally gets back home next month.
When asked if all the hours alone in his car can start to affect his mind, he agrees it can. “That’s what I’m aiming for,” he says laughing. “If you’re doing a tour like this I’ve learned over the years you’ve gotta go a little bit nuts then you ride that little bit nuts. You can’t go too nuts and you can’t go no nuts, you gotta be right in the middle and then ride that wave and then you’re fine. I’m a super professional at riding the nut wave.”
Log became a solo artist by accident when his former bandmate in the duo Doo Rag left during a tour supporting Ween in the ‘90s. Instead of ending the tour, Log called the band and let them know he could still be there but in a different way. He used the six-hour drive to Chicago to practice his new drumming technique and see what he could do.
“It was one of the few times I was actually nervous because I’d played guitar and sung but I was figuring out the drums on the fly. The show went absolutely insane and it made me really want to do it again the next day and that has basically never stopped.”
Seven studio albums and two live records later, Log is still chasing that effervescent feeling. He describes how all his songs start with guitar parts so fun he wants to play them forever and then adding drums and lyrics and finally shenanigans.
“It’s a little bit different than your normal type of music or musician,” he says of his unconventional approach. “There’s this place you can go as a musician, and I think all musicians know what I’m talking about here, it’s when you’re playing music and now you’re not thinking about the future or the past, you’re completely in the moment. It’s like a state of mind where there’s nothing else happening, you’re just totally focused. I do think a lot of musicians get there eventually but for me when I’m playing drums and guitar and singing at the same time, I go there instantly,” he says, likening the experience to the focus required of boxers to survive.
When Log plays, there is a strong sense of the classic fingerpicking style of roots music combined with the high energy of rock and roll. “You can see how it’s all connected,” he says, referring to the musical lineage that inspires him. “All the way from Mississippi Fred McDowell all the way to AC/DC, it’s a guitar party somehow that is still connected even though they are very different things.”
Taking the concept of music back to the beginning of time, Log likens it to “loud math” and uses his approach to create sounds in a nonlinear way since it’s all up to him. “I like to turn the time into a rubber band where it goes fast and slow. I get to turn it into something that almost nobody could play along with. When you’re in charge of all those things it’s like a whole nother world of fun opens up and that’s what I’m chasing every night. At the end of that drive I get to turn time into a rubber band, I get to take time and feed it a piece of cake.”
His party of one approach to making music has served him well and his mind seems to work as fast as his body on and off the stage where laughter is a major part of his existence. “If you can make music by yourself then you’re always ready to go, you don’t have to wait for someone else to show up. It’s just like an instant party!”
His independent approach to music connects to a quote from his great-grandmother via his father about the complications of shared responsibility “one boy is a boy, two boys is half a boy and three boys is no boys at all.”
The notion of a one-man band is rooted in the earliest forms of live music, evoking thoughts of buskers and minstrels. It’s the type of art that easily lends itself to the kind of dynamic performances Log is all about.
“The way I do it is so physical that it’s almost half sport. It’s like I’m playing a basketball game every night except it’s not basketball. I call it noise ball where I make a whole bunch of noise and throw that noise ball at all this room full of happy people and they take this noise ball and do something ridiculous to what I’m doing to them and then they throw that back at me and then that makes me want to make another noise ball and by the end of the night I’m limping a little, I’m covered in sweat but I’m smiling so much my face hurts.”
Bob Log III will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, September 26 at The Orange Show For Visionary Arts, 2334 Gulf Terminal. For more information, visit orangeshow.org $32.
