Newt's rock 'n' roll weekend planner, Vancouver edition, June 12 to 14

The blues rules in Metro Vancouver this weekend.

Just ask David and David.

And Bob.

Bob Log III kicks thing off at the Cobalt on Friday, and this dude out of Tucson, Arizona is somethin' else. He's a one-man band who performs in a human-cannonball suit, with a motorcycle helmet on his head that's wired to a telephone receiver.

All the wacky outfits and bizarre headgear in the world don't amount to jack without the music to back them up, but Mr. Log cranks out some seriously kick-ass, lo-fi Delta blues, featuring wicked slide on an old Silvertone archtop guitar.

What could be better than that? Honestly. What could be better?

Another bluesmeister who doesn't take his art too seriously is David Wilcox, who you may recall from such early-'80s tunes as "Do the Bearcat", "Bad Apple", and "That Hypnotizin’ Boogie".

Not to be confused with the American folk singer-songwriter of the same name, Wilcox is a Montreal-born guitarist who—for all you Canuck music historians out there—replaced Amos Garrett in Ian and Sylvia Tyson's band, Great Speckled Bird.

He brings his lighthearted, time-tested boogie 'n' blues to the River Rock Show Theatre on Friday, and from the look of this clip he's still got some tasty Telecaster action goin' on.

The third and final blues-rock option for Friday night is Nanaimo's own David Gogo, who's at Blue Frog Studios in White Rock. I've been a fan of Gogo ever since the early '90s, when he'd play the hallowed Town Pump—or maybe the Commodore, which is where I interviewed him in '91.

I always got along good with Gogo, because we shared the same taste in music. For one thing, we both think Jeff Beck is tops. That mutual understanding was set in stone after we saw Beck play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre back in 1999.

“He’s the best guitarist in the world,” Gogo told me a couple of years after that gig. “That show at the Queen E just fucked me right up! It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve actually been kinda tongue-tied around someone—because he was just so good! But it was cool, because I probably only spoke to the guy for a minute and a half, but the photo looks like we’re good old buddies, so what the hell.”

I'm not sure if Gogo's got a photo of himself with one of Jeff Beck's favourite guitarists, Buddy Guy, but he actually went one better by cowriting a song that was included on Guy's latest album, Rhythm and Blues. As far as his own discs go, Gogo's got a new one coming out soon that features guest appearances by Shawn Hall from the Harpoonist And The Axe Murderer and Kim Simmonds from Savoy Brown.

Gogo will no doubt preview tunes from the new album at Bluefrog, and I wouldn't be surprised if he dedicated a tune to his old friend, the late B.B. King, another guy he hasn't minded posing for photos with.

A couple years ago Gogo opened for B.B. in his hometown of Nanaimo, and sent me a little writeup about his relationship with the most lovable of blues legends. Who knows, maybe at his White Rock show he'll work something up around "The Thrill is Gone" for old times' sake.

That would be pretty sweet, I gotta say.

And speaking of B.B. King, as most fans know, he was a prominent spokesman for Type 2 diabetes, which he lived with for over 20 years before passing away last month at the age of 89. My mom recently turned 86, and she's been suffering from Type 1 diabetes for over 50 years.

Diabetes is a scary disease. I've seen my mom go into diabetic shock in the middle of the night and have to be forcefed glucose to be brought around while we waited for the paramedics to arrive. 

But it's also a manageable disease, or mom wouldn't have made it this long.

A great way to end the rock 'n' roll weekend on a hopeful note is to take part in the annual Telus Walk for Diabetes, this Sunday at Stanley Park's Lumberman's Arch. Proceeds benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

B.B. King would definitely approve. And so would my mom.