There is a whole community of One Man Band folks. A good friend of mine, Paul Moore from Israel is a great one man band. Check out his site here:
http://www.paulmooremusic.com

He also hosts the Yahoo one mand band group here:
onemanbandmusic@yahoogroups.com

I'm pretty sure the Mudcatter that you are thinking of in the Seattle area is Reggie Miles.
http://www.geocities.com/nobro2/

Another great one man band is Robert "One-Man" Johnson:
http://www.housedogmusic.com/
Then there's Richard Johnston:
http://www.richardjohnston.com/

And the king of punk and outlaw blues one man bands is currently John Lowe, "Johnny Lowebow", from Memphis:
http://geocities.com/lowebow/
The thing about one man bands and their rigs is that there is no "thing". Each person builds and sets them up in their own unique way.

Gutbucketeer