By Jessica Suarez
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday September 5, 2002
Bob Log's back in town, so bust a move. Fathers, first hide your daughters and then lock up all your liquor cabinets.
Ladies, clap your tits. Really. Take a minute to fish them out and slap them together. Bob Log demands nothing less from his fans at his shows, and his next one is this Sunday at Club Congress, so you'd better get practicing.
Don't worry, Log deserves your applause. First of all, he wears a motorcycle helmet on stage and sings through a telephone microphone. Second, he tours a good eight months out of the year, all over Europe, Japan and the United States. Third, he plays slide guitar Delta blues at bruiser speed, and provides his own percussion with live drums and drum machines that he triggers with his feet. It's blues punk you can nod your head to, dance to ö or, hell, even clap your tits to.
But for his third album, Log Bomb, he has "a new song, a new dance, and a new drink" all rolled up into one. He calls it "Boob Scotch."
On the last day of his last American tour, two things happened: A horse died right in front of him at the racetrack, and Log received the bad news that a friend of his was "sick in the testicles."
"This all happened at once," he said. "I was talking to these girls about it, and one of them put their boob in my drink, and it made me feel better." Right there in Denver, a new song and drink were created.
"There's a part of the song where everyone has to buy me a drink and stick their boob in it," he said, adding, "You know what the best combination is? 25-year old boob and 12-year old scotch."
The track is the second on his album, "Log Bomb," which he recorded in his bathroom. But he's happy with the results.
"It's amazing. It's the fattest sounding thing. I don't know what the hell it is; I don't think it's me," he said. Some of the song titles include, "One man band," "Wigglin' room," "Make you say wow," "Bubble strut," "Slide guitar ride" ("Where people sit on me," he says) and "Wag your tail like a dog in the back of a truck," a song that he says is about his being "too damn happy."
"There weren't too many boob songs, but then there was "Boob Scotch" and now it's all boob. I almost had a record I could give to my grandma," he said.
Log also describes the album as sounding like it was made by a whole room full of people. While not as full, Log's live performances also seem like the product of a full band instead of just one guy, a slide guitar, some drums and a telephone. Log's idea for his one-man-band was more accidental than planned.While opening for Ween with his last group Doo Rag, with Thermos Malling, Malling unexpectedly left the tour, forcing Log to improvise a solo act for remaining tour dates. The helmet was originally his way of deflecting anything the audience might throw at him during the tour. He also has other reasons for hiding.
"I don't want my beautiful face to distract from my music. Faces are distracting, completely distracting," he said. "I'm also hiding from a girl."
But the girls don't hide from him. On his last tour, which included 28 cities, he had audience participation on every tour stop during his song, "I want your shit on my leg," a song in which he invites two girls to sit on his knees while he plays. Sadly enough, no tour dates featured the clapping of tits.
"One girl in Austin bit my neck with her boobs out, but that wasn't clapping," he said. "It's really rare. It's happened maybe 30 times since the song came out. I was really upset about it. I thought everyone would be clapping their tits." He also says that it's happened in Tucson more than anywhere else.
The idea for the song, which is on his second album, Trike, came after he opened on tour forösurprisingly enough, Ani DiFranco ö who requested him herself.
"There were 3,000 young girls who were in front of me, and from what I heard, most of them were lesbians. In the middle of a song, I had an idea that we could clap our tits for every song. It's like ÎBoob Scotch', sometimes you just get hit with an idea."
Though Log enjoys participation, sometimes it's not what he's expecting.
"There was an old man in Fargo, N.D. (clapping his tits). Sometimes it would be better if you just didn't do anything. But usually when it happens, it's like, ÎWow I've never seen that before.' I know they're going home and trying it later. Just give Îem a push together," he said.
But, don't worry, boys ö you can participate.
"Oh yeah, guys can clap against their friends. Guys can clap just as long as it's tit to tit. The sound doesn't come from hands, it comes from tits," he said.
By the time he comes back, Log is hoping "Boob Scotch" will have caught on.
"'Clap Your Tits' is old; now it's ÎBoob Scotch,'" he said.
"This is the song that's gonna make it. Pretty soon you're gonna have to talk to my people."