Bob Log III on Munster records

It's no secret I love Doo Rag and these days that means Bob Log...what is he up to you ask? Still putting out singles....and on Spanish labels.
Still wearing a motorcycle helmet with a microphone duct taped inside, still stomping on the kick drum pedal through some combination of ho-down, messed up out of tune bluegrass? It's some reinterpretation of classic material. It's like taking the entire cannon of this style, and just forgetting it. To be aware of this era, and instruments and then working like you're from the year 2009. It's reworked. he loves this sound, he has forever...way before there even was low-fi ther was Bob, making his own god damn instruments.
Doo Rag was great. I'm going to go listen to those singles tonight. i really think he's responsible for my left turn into the full blown blues...I got some Robert Johnson and then was stuck on drinking and blues for months and months.
In one track on the myspace it sounds like he may have even electronic high hat? That's a first for Bob, but makes perfect sense, he's only one man god dammit, and he's already drumming and stomping...what , is his other foot going to run the high hat? Give me a break....computer, git over hea'. Robot, git on dat hi heat.
He probably talks like that....when he's drunk.

From Munster records:

Limited edition Spanish import 7", comes with colour picture sleeve. Bob Log III is a one man band who wears a space helmet with old telephone receiver and Cannonball man overalls. He plays distorted steel guitar & two acoustic drums [bass, hi-hat] & basic lo/fi digital drums at the same time. Blues/core. Break/blues.

The Dodo's at Spiegeltent 9-29-08

Photo Courtesy EduardoO

There are still tickets available? I was watching the Speigeltent site for weeks hoping I'd catch when these were listed and I'm completely shocked there are still tickets the night of the show for this under 100 capacity venue.
It's really the best space, I know tickets are probably a lot but it weeds out the casual fans, and you have a better show. I don't know, I don't like paying that much generally...it's like madison sq garden or something, but really at the end of the day you have to pay for the people that didn't show up....or in this case they didn't promote this as much? Either way you can literally stand on this pier in the east river next to a huge yacht parked within earshot of the show. I would see anyone here.

The thing that struck me most hearing them performing was the difference from their show at Siren. This time it was just Meric and Logan side by side on the stage creating the tracks from Visiter. For some weird reason I really felt like it was a bit like seeing Doo Rag. It was the same set up. One guy with an acoustic guitar and a mic, or in this case two, and someone on non traditional percussion. The amount of sound created. The magic of a duo that has put in an amazing amount of time working with each other and know the intricacies of changing the chorus ever so slightly, extending parts. They had none of the repetition or burnout from coming up with this energy practically single handed every night. Granted this was the second performance on this tour but right now they are clearly still in love with their songs.

That's the amazing thing, the pathetically little they are working with in the end. Drums and acoustic guitar. As many times as I think that can't be done a new way, you're proved wrong. I was reading about Logan Kroeber studying african drumming and it shows on the full length and live. Recorded they are coming from all kinds of far away places, like they were individually mic-ed in all kinds of rooms. The kick drum is cavernous and there's all kinds of clicks and metallic hits on high hat stands, every part of the kit is used. I just like that mentality, the subtlety of coming up with these rhythms. The beats are so counter intuitive to pop and defy catchy it's all tom and bass, no crashes...to Meric's credit he's adding the perfect amount of restraint and melody to this dense percussion. There's no fighting for attention. The two mics I thought were just for some kind of stereo ended up being for the end of a verse he'd switch over the right mic and it had all the effects on it, repeating a line with all chorus for the yelp. There's clearly a blues background in Meric's playing, it goes from a bent plucking to all hand strumming...but at the same time I'm kind of questioning it, it's not obvious...the melody as soon as it appears turns frantic. Not to forget their second drummer, Joe Haener who was standing on a riser in the back with xylophone and an even more extensive kit, adding to the yelling choruses and hitting opposite Logan. It turns into that Animal Collective feel of bordering on almost too much, but you couldn't imagine a single thing missing.

Doo Rag - Gone but Not Forgotten

A little while back I won a Doo Rag 7" on ebay that I had never seen before "Trudge / Breakin' Straw", immediately after Sam emailed me, a huge Doo Rag fan, asking if I'd be willing to sell it to him, he had been trying to track down every Doo Rag track and one of these wasn't available anywhere else. I felt bad...I didn't want to part with this amazing single I've never seen listed before, let alone heard. I said I'd make MP3's out of them and post them so he'd be one step closer on his quest...and I promised if I ever came across this 7" anywhere I'd have to pick it up for him.
We exchanged a bunch of emails back and forth, how I had seen them at CBGB's, probably around 1995 or so with Thermos on drums/boxes, and how I was so amazed at their unique sound. Sam was kind enough to break down their entire discography and share his experience hanging out with Bob himself a few months ago:

First, here's Trudge and Breakin' Straw

From Sam:
This in a nutshell is the history of Doo Rag and best I can tell of order in which the Doo Rag discography shakes down (the history and some information was handed down to me from Bob Log III himself in OKC, OK 2007, and through my own research)...
1990 Bob Log is playing a house party in Tucson,Az covering Fred McDowell songs Bob @ this time plays guitar w/snare drum bolted on to it, a friend jumps in, Thermos Malling(Brad Denboer) and starts to bang on a cheese grater w/a spoon, Doo Rag is born...
1993: 7" hussy bowler/grease & all
1994: barber shop (cassette only,almost impossible to find,2 years later 5 of 6 total trax all of would later make their way onto the lp & cd "what we do":1996, except for 1 trax "barn porn star")
1994: 7" trudge/breakin' straw
1995: Chucked & Muddled(cassette, lp available only on tour,later a cd issued containing 4 extra trax, not available on cassette:these 4 trax where taken from the wmfu radio sessions and john peel bbc radio sessions,doo rag did two of these for peel,1 of which was done over the telephone)
1995: 7" swapwater mop down/engine bread
1996: What we do lp & cd
1996: Thermos plays on 2 trax for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion lp "Now I Got Worry"
1996: While on tour,in support of Ween, Thermos quits,after 6 years of playing together Doo Rag Dies, a few remaining trax are later released there are:
1997: 7" Two tones to tune
1998: 7" x2 split ep Doo Rag/20 miles Sinful Tunes & Spirituals
2000: Thermos Malling along w/(girlfriend, wife, sweetheart ,whatever known) only as

"Walter" release an lp under the name "Coin Architects of Character", it is very, very difficult to find...
2006: Doo Rag reunites in Tucson,Az for the 21st Birthday of the Congress Hotel (Club Congress as it was known, one of the earliest venus in which they played)...
I met bob log recently in oklahoma city (Oct.2007), we drank beer together, smoked grass and then I asked him to explain to me what happened w/Thermos and why he quit, a gentlemen to the end, Bob would not bad mouth his x-band mate, he told me simply too much time on the
road and 1 nite of too much tequila is to blame for the death of Doo Rag...

Bob Log III is really Robert Reynolds III,the III is symbolic, 3rd times a charm. Robert adopted the name Bob Log w/1st band Mondo Guano, 2nd Doo Rag. 3rd, I guess I don't have to explain any further...

Interesting side note, there are 3 trax that Doo Rag performed: Barely Bi-Pedal, Head Cheese & Skolliwoll they came along as an extra cd w/purchase of various artist "yeah but it's a dry heat...(a tucson music comp.) However I have never actually seen this or found anyone who has it, so I can't say one way or the other if it really exists... if it does, rest assured, SAM WILL FIND IT...
God, I wish I could have seen them myself...Consider yourself a "Lucky Bastard" Jason Dean...
I wish you all the best in the future...
---------- sam

Thanks Sam.

Bob Log

I saw Doo Rag once at CBGB's, sometime around 97, and Thermos was still on drums at that point. I don't remember it being crowded but I was psyched, I listened to the hussy bowler 7" a million times and my friend had the full length which I might have even taped on an actual cassette. My friend Aaron must have pointed out they were playing in the Voice, so we randomly decided to go. I was in school and didn't see too many live shows at the time, but there always something good. I tried not to look too much in the paper, but I had to see Doo Rag, I knew it would be amazing. Aaron was getting me into all kinds of blues at the time and then Beck's One foot in the Grave seemed to be all about the same stuff, so Doo Rag with their helmet mounted microphones and cardboard box drum kit seemed perfect.

It really was...the songs all ran into one another with Bob alternating from megaphone to helmet/mic all running through a crazy old amplifier. I don't think they used the PA system. The songs were different live, there was no 'old time' filter applied to every track, there was a clash of new and old, the sound could have been from some weird alternate past, but he was wearing a motorcycle helmet.
This was one of those bands that was so crazy, they couldn't pull it off for long, I'm glad I got to see them. I remember Aaron talking to them outside afterwords, they were drinking 40's of bud so they became best friends.

I stumbled across bob log's website the other day and had to order this seven inch.
'Wag your tail like a dog in the back of a truck.'

It looks like it's on blue vinyl? And I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have a sleeve. Bob is one of a kind. And weirdly the hussy bowler 7" is still available from this weird punk store for 5 bucks.