Bob Log III

One-man acts are a lot like power chords: Just when you think they’re getting a little old, you realize that you’ve still got a long way to go before you get sick of them. Tucson’s Bob Log III is certainly not above resorting to gimmick. After all, the man dons a blue, sometimes ass-less running suit and a helmet that makes him look like a big scrawny bug, and early press releases from his label, Fat Possum, claimed that Log lost one of his hands as a child and had it replaced with a monkey paw (a story that is, of course, false). Log’s brand of raggedy-ass rock ‘n’ roll barely holds together between his guitar strumming and the bass-drum beat he keeps with his feet. He sings through a modified telephone mic and asks female audience members to sit on his lap and stir his Scotch with their nipples while he plays. Predictably, Log is a purist, citing AC/DC as one of his biggest influences and dismissing pretty much anything else that doesn’t conform to the strict codes of rock ‘n’ roll. And yet, as always, there’s something reassuring in familiarity. You can almost picture Log taking a page out of Francis Ford Coppola’s book and saying, “My act does not aspire to rock ‘n’ roll . . . it is rock ‘n’ roll.” And, well, goddamn it, he’d be right.