BOB LOG III / THOMAS TRUAX | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Tue 20 Mar
Parachuted in fairly last minute to fill a weirdo-shaped support hole, Thomas Truax has once again turned up in your town to open his suitcase of homemade instruments and noisemaking playthings. An old hand and a usual headliner, Truax may be coming to resemble Harry Dean Stanton more with each year, but his schtick remains evergreen: the wide-eyed travelling salesman and emissary from Wowtown, wandering around the venue and being far too loveable. So there is Mother Superior, a revolving beatmaker made of spokes and knitting needles, and the Hornicator, a kind of modified gramophone horn made for banging, plucking and shouting into. There are more, but even when Truax is using a guitar torch to simulate a full moon on the ceiling, all this jazz feels symbiotic to the music, rather than a substitution or overcompensation. And the music – crooned and barked oddness fit for romantic Twin Peaks moments – is satisfying and addictively great.
Bob Log resembles an action figure of himself, which is about the only thing not for sale on his merch stall (skip the fidget spinner and shell out for the special BLIII chili sauce, we say). The jumpsuit and astronaut helmet have been upgraded to gold, but the magic trick remains: taking potentially the hoariest of all ‘real music’ – trad blues – and getting it drunk and silly and splattering it around maniacally until it drips down from people’s grinning faces. Bob is a truly excellent showman and let’s not think too much about what the same songs would sound like played by a middle-aged bloke in jeans and t-shirt.
The songs holler past in a blur of fretboard mangling and distorted vocals, feet smacking the drums to keep time, punctuated by Bob’s Greatest Hits Of Stagecraft, cos every Bob Log set is a greatest hits set. Cheap bucks fizz is drunk from a dog bowl and an inflatable duck. Members of the audience are invited to take turns sitting on Bob’s knee for one song, and a man who looks like Jesus is booed for hogging it. And Bob surfs the crowd atop a rubber dinghy, guitar skills never failing despite being one drop away from faceplanting into various puddles of budget booze.
It gets everyone loose, which is rock’n’roll mission accomplished. Old dogs, old tricks, guaranteed results, every time.
words WILL STEEN photos CLAIRE VAUGHAN