If Bob Log III has yet to beam in before you and freak out from his alternate-punk universe, I guarantee you haven't seen nothin' like him before. He's kinda touched in the head, but not in that discreetly-eating-glue-in-the-back-of-the-class kinda way. No, Log has been smacked upside the skull with a ferocity that inspires greatness; his cracked-punk genius forces you to grin/gawk all giddy-like, until you think, "Damn--that's some great fucking noise."

Musically, Log's idea is nothing too brand new--strip the blues down from the sickening red tide of Eric Clapton- worshipping geeks to something that's as primal as getting it on in the backseat of your best friend's Chevy. He plays grimy Delta blues (like the Immortal Lee County Killers, another example of touched genius) on a guitar sizzling with such scuzziness, it sounds like he's frantically sliding razor blades across live wires.

But Log doesn't stop with the slide guitar. The former member of punk-blues duo Doo Rag uses his hands to spread ricocheting guitar rhythms and his feet to slam down some caveman beats on a bass drum. On his 1999 record, Trike, he tried out a couple "guitar & tit duets," a trick that uses what I assume to be porn-star-sized jugs to set down some "natural rhythms." On songs like "Booby Trap #1," the claps sound like the loud fleshy smacks of two people fucking, only adding to the record's whole "this has gotta come from the bowels of someone's basement" primitive production vibe.

I've never seen Log's clappers onstage, but that doesn't mean the man is short on theatrics. He steps up to the spotlight sporting a motorcycle helmet with a telephone microphone shoved through the headpiece, distorting the fuck out of his lyrics; and he once donned a shiny aerobics-looking suit for good measure. When he walks onstage, Log becomes this multi-operational alien deity, existing in a world of his own creation, an indecipherable blues maniac who coats a thick layer of raw-knuckled savagery onto his hip-seizuring racket.