Kottke gives great acoustic set

At the end of a two-hour set Saturday, folk musician Leo Kottke brought a packed house at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater to thunderous applause.\nOn the surface, it's hard to see why people would be so roused.\nKottke cuts a fairly unassuming figure, decked out in faded jeans and a blue dress shirt with a wave of dusty brown hair. Though he was born in Atlanta, he looks as Midwestern as a sea of grain.\nAnd his husky baritone is better suited to talking than singing.\nHardly oblivious to the fact, Kottke has described his voice as akin to "geese farts on a muggy day."\nBut his new album ' his first one since his last, as the ads put it ' isn't titled One Guitar, No Vocals without reason. Kottke simply lets his nimble fingers do the talking, dazzling audiences with his virtuosity on the 12-string slide guitar.\nHe's also an unlikely musician, having hearing impediments in both ears from a stint in the Navy and a firecracker accident when he was young. Yet, Kottke weaves breath-taking, intricate melodies providing his own percussion with rhythmic licks. His refined skill has allowed him to collaborate with acts as diverse as country legend Emmylou Harris and alternative rock band Big Head Todd and the Monsters. \nHe performed several songs from his new album Saturday, such as the Carribean-flavored "Snorkel." But with more than 20 full-length albums in his storied 30-year career, it was often difficult to sift the new from the old.\nHaving spent most of his life on the road after he dropped out of college, Kottke always has a lot of stories to tell, like a sort of folk rock Jack Kerouac. Talking about everything from the sappiness of Christmas albums to Joseph Conrad, he amused the crowd with his rambling as he tinkered with his tuning.\nAt one point, he declared the only thing he "has in common with Ludwig Von Beethoven" is a shared love of macaroni and cheese.\nAs odd as the comment might seem, it's dead-on.