It’s a bird. No, it’s a plane. No wait, it’s Bob Log III in an inflatable raft – crowd-rafting at the Larimer Lounge! Photos by .
There’s nothing quite like a one-man band to show off the perfect marriage of ingenuity and simplicity. The genre has, of course, evolved over the years, with the never-ending addition of sound altering gadgets, machines and tools available to the creative soundsmith. The showcased a few of the wilder, punkier one-man acts around last Wednesday night. Sadly, I got to the show after Left Lane Cruiser had already played, but heard they were a worthy liftoff for the two one-man acts that followed: and .
Scott H. Biram labels himself “The Dirty Old One-Man-Band from Texas,” and he fits the bill exactly. In between songs, Scott spewed long chains of verbal abuse on the crowd, who were happy to screech responses in kind. Biram’s sound seemed to pull straight from a backwoods juke joint in many a nightmare, recalling a David Lynch mood. Wielding his slide across his guitar strings like a lathe, Biram played a punk-blues-metal hybrid that could only come out of some mythical supergroup jam session featuring members of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth — along with Robert Johnson and Leadbelly.
He throws in a healthy dose of hillbilly and Texas boogie to sweeten the mix, resulting in a soundscape that’s both creepy and irresistible. In addition to his well-worn electric guitar and a few old-fashioned microphones, Scott has a board of effects pedals to be reckoned with, and he uses them like a scientist in a sound lab. I counted no less than 18 buttons on the board — there may have been more — and Scott showed some damn fancy footwork in getting just the right sound for his guitar while he screamed his bluesy guts out. All the while he kept promising he was not going to get drunk. Nope, not this time (as he swallowed one of the many tall glasses of whiskey various audience members kept buying for him).
After Scott’s stage set was cleared, the lights in the Lounge dimmed, and in from the back of the house strolled Bob Log III. Uncharacteristically, Log was dressed in an actual shirt-and-pants combo, while completely characteristically fully helmeted and slinging his guitar. After one screaming punk-blues-slide maelstrom, Log tore off the pedestrian outfit he started out in, and we were comforted to see his traditional one-piece blue jumpsuit. Just like Biram, Log laces together a wicked loop-and-slide guitar mess into a frenzy of sound that comes together just right, again and again. Log’s sound has a little more deep South blues to it than Biram’s, played as fast as lightning and twice as loud.
Unforgettable highlights included Bob adding his own twist to crowd surfing. He actually brought his own inflatable five-foot raft and climbed into it after placing it on top of the crowd. The audience proceeded to pass Bob in his raft above their heads for an entire song as he continued to play. That moment went down in my own journal as my first-ever sighting of “crowd rafting.” It also left a tiny (and creepy) taste of “Deliverance” in the room.
Bob then treated us to renditions of his crowd pleasers – “Clap Your Tits,” “I Want Your S–t On My Leg” and the infamous “Boob Scotch.” The last song included the infamous ritual (reportedly started in this very town, years ago) on the stage, where one of the girls from the audience appeared on stage topless, and dipped her breast into a glass of scotch, which Bob then swallowed. She continued to bump and grind next to Bob amidst hoots from the crowd until the song ended. The ritual is a classic! It’s enticing and just a little bit weird, but 100% Bob Log III. Log’s musical onslaught lasted another 45 minutes, and he left the Larimer crowd satisfied — and maybe just a little bit dirty.
Billy Theime is a Denver writer and a regular contributor to Reverb.
Sarah Slater is a Denver photographer and a regular contributor to Reverb.
More photos from the show, from Reverb’s Jason Claypool:
