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Bob Log III Bob Log III's shit is perfect and he's rested, ready and touring, heading back to Adelaide just to show us how perfect his shit really is. If you've never had the pleasure of witnessing Bob Log's act in full swing, imagine this: a man with a kick drum at his right foot and a cymbal attached to a kick at his left foot, playing slide guitar like the devil is coming for his soul. He's wearing a cannonball man, extra-tight jumpsuit, and an old motorcycle helmet with a microphone made from a telephone attached to the front. He's not just a one-man band but a one-man slide guitar party. Dressed thus, you might expect a similar stunt-like approach to his music, but says the man himself: "I'm not afraid of it, it's a little bit of a wrestling match sometimes. I treat my guitar like a drum and sometimes it fights back. I ask for people to sit on me and sometimes that doesn't end so good. Sometimes I put a boat on a bunch of people and jump in it and hope for the best." Don't begin to think that Bob Log is no more than a side show attraction, though - he's the real thing, having toured alongside such greats as R. L Burnside, John Spencer Blues Explosion and, more recently, Franz Ferdinand. His skill and ability on stage are never in question, however he was told "no fucking way!" by Franz Ferdinand's management when the band wanted to ride in his car. How could the management know that he's never late for a show? A lot of attention has been given to Bob Log by the right people. "I get lucky sometimes. A lot of bands bring me on tour cause they see me play somewhere, whatever. It's like 'hey here's this guy in a car who does whatever the hell he wants to, whenever he wants to, including when he plays a song'. So, I don't know if that's what it is but a lot of bands will bring me on tour even if their label - you know if they're on a big label or something, and their label will say, 'hey, take this other band on our label and we'll pay you guys thirty grand'... So it's very cool when that happens. I feel the love from other musicians. Not all of them, of course, 'cause not all of them have taken me on tour yet, so I'm just waiting for the rest of them to call." Bob Log's new album is 'My Shit Is Perfect'. He's still hitting all the right notes, just a little faster with a lot more good time thrown into the mix. "Jesus, this whole record is like an award and not necessarily to me! I mean I'm proud of it, there's not one mistake I didn't do on purpose on this record. The rest of it... if you do something good and you buy yourself a beer, that's what this record is. You do something good, you can put this record on and you can jump around - it's like you've just given yourself a cape." From the first songs there is some kind of magic in his music. Your foot will start tapping or perhaps your body will start to sway. Either way, you'll feel his music deep down inside, you can't escape it. He grew up listening Bo Diddley and Screaming Jay Hawkins, which has left its mark, however Bob Log treads his own path. "You take the blues, turn it into a party and then you kind of make it a little bit weird. And the ladies smile and sweat and there you go." Despite heralding from Tucson, Arizona, Bob Log seems to turn up quite often in Australia. This is partly due to him being jointly based in Melbourne and Tucson, but he is quite the fan of Adelaide too. "There is sort of a connection between Tucson and Adelaide. You know, maybe you don't move quite as fast as some of the other bigger cities but everyone smiles just a little bit more and it's not so hard to find a place to park." At this point Mr Log made some comments unfit to be repeated in print, but rest assured he appreciates what Adelaide has to offer. He even enacted the worlds first Boob Pie Floater (instead of his usual Boob Scotch) with a young lady invited on stage here at Jive. "The next day my amp was covered in those green peas." Ross McNaughtan |