According to the Fat Possum website, there is a monkey running around some third world jungle missing a paw. Each time this monkey, forgetting its missing limb, swings out for a hard to reach branch and falls flat on its face it has one man to blame, Bob Log III.

During a boating accident as a boy, Log lost his left hand. His parents decided to forgo prosthetics, opting instead to engage in a bit of weird science.

As the story goes, Bob never bothered to check the local Tucson Zoo for the primate that made him that handy donation, nor did it occur to him that instead of being his donor limb, the paw could have ended up as part of some medicinal stew in Pingxiang, China.

If you believe that poppycock, then you’ll also believe Bob Log III when he says his only concern is “the paw moves much quicker than a normal hand, so my real hand has to flop around a lot to compensate.”

The rumored paw-handed musician bore a new style of playing slide guitar, and music for that matter. The music he makes with that monkey paw is nothing short of muddy water magnificence.

Bob Log III is the lead singer of his one-man band that shares the same name. On ‘One Man Boom’ from the album ‘Log Bomb’ you have the pleasure of having Bob introduce the band to you:

“Hey,” he starts with a yell, “I’m Bob Log the third, one-man band, Tucson, Arizona. Heyeeeh! Lemme introduce the band to ya. On cymbals, left foot. Over here on the bass drum we got right foot. Shut up! This is my left hand that does all the slide work, right hand does the pickin’. My mouth hole does most ‘o the talkin’. And your looking at my finger.” Then in true Log form he adds, “Don’t talk to my finger, my finger is an asshole. Wahooo!”

What you don’t get from the introduction, though the muffled delivery suggests it, is that Log exclusively wears a motorcycle helmet whenever he records or performs. The helmet is outfitted with a tinted visor and an inlayed microphone. Some say it’s to conceal his identity, other’s say he’s just afraid of the flying bottles the drunk and rowdy fans usually throw at his shows, while Bob simply asks “What helmet?”

“…there’s this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him?” Tom Waits once asked a Time Out London interviewer. “He’s this little kid - nobody ever knows how old he is - wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can’t see his face, and plays slide guitar. It’s just the loudest strangest stuff you’ve ever heard. You don’t understand one word he’s saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That’s what I aspire to basically.”

It takes a special kind of person to be a Bob Log III fan. The music he makes is decidedly not for everyone. You had to have grown up with a pa blind in one eye because ma, soused on shine, thought he was a grizzly and gouged it out; be an eccentric Japanese Harajuku school girl lacking a proper grasp of the English language in order to fully understand what the lyrics in songs like ‘Boob Scotch’ or ‘Clap Your Tits’ mean; or then again, like most of his fans, you could just be a soccer mom seeking refuge from the daily task of baby wrangling.

To cut through all the wiggle-waggle, the helmeted, monkey-handed man himself was contacted for a short online interview:

El Blogatisto: Have you ever considered having a more-than-one-man band?
Bob Log III: Done that before. It’s fun, but I like to kick my own shit better.

Define your sound?
Messy, messy guitar party.

How is it possible for you to balance a woman on your knee, play five instruments, and sip boob scotch all at the same time?
I don’t actually sip the boob scotch while bouncing women. That is a different song. But as for the rest, basically I am panicking, like a mother lifting a bus off of her baby.

Is there a Bob Log the first and second?
The answer is yes. I am supposed to make a 4th, but I am lazy.

What’s your affiliation with the Posture Pal link on your website?
Don’t have one, women work better for sore muscles.

Please explain the monkey paw referenced on the Fat Possum [Bob Log III’s Record Label] website.
My hand is just hairy. Very, very hairy. It is NOT a PAW. Fat Possum was drunk.

The monkey business surrounding Bob Log’s paw got him into trouble when he toured Europe. Apparently, a major newspaper in the Czeck Republic believed the story and printed an article on the artist detailing his non-human hand. This led to scores of fans with prosthetics buying tickets for the show, then subsequently being pissed off when they realized that it was all just an elaborate rumor gone awry.

Log’s booking agent, Stephan, had to host a press conference apologizing for the humorous mix-up on live television and radio.

“As of yet I don’t know if the people of the Czeck Republic have accepted the apology.” Says Log III. “It is entirely possible that the next time I go to Prague I might be chased through the main square by an angry mob who wants to beat me on the head with all their prosthetic limbs because of the fact that I do not have a monkey paw. But I am not worried. Not at all. Because I know I can outrun anybody with my newly acquired quicker than human monkey legs. They will never catch me.”

Since he’s already “conquering the world”, Bob Log III isn’t recording any new music right now. He’s been busy in his basement trying to figure out a moderately safe way to swap his human brain with a monkey’s. Fortunately for the curious, his entire discography is available for purchase at the Fat Possum Records online store.

Buy Log Bomb by Bob Log III

+ also published on the Pixel Surgeon website