Days of yore: the old Vancouver clubs

[mimi]

After reading chevy's thread I got to reminiscing about the late seventies/early eighties when I was clubbing full swing.

I never had a chance to frequent Oil Can Harry's, but, here is a great link to some nostalgic chatter:

http://vancouverjazz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2381

I love dancing. A while back a friend and I tried to find a club, but, everywhere we went the crowd looked around 19 years old and the music sucked...I mean, you could fall asleep dancing to it. Nothing like the rush of good rock, or funk.

If I could dance every weekend I wouldn't have to think about a gym membership.

There was a club in Mt. Pleasant, (Vancouver 86?) and a fellow used to show up every weekend, (beard as long and grey as Methuselah), and he would dance by himself all night. I might have to resort to that!

Anyway, remembering some good clubs in Gastown that never asked for I.D. if you were a pretty 16 year old. Rubbed elbows with a lot of pimps and I don't remember ever buying my own drink...it was like a game, get in, get out alive

What clubs do you remember?

 

[Karl Blues]

There were some great culbs on Hornby St. Misty's, Sneaky Pete's/Take 5 come to mind.

 

[uncleg]

After reading chevy's thread I got to reminiscing about the late seventies/early eighties when I was clubbing full swing.

I never had a chance to frequent Oil Can Harry's, but, here is a great link to some nostalgic chatter:

http://vancouverjazz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2381

I love dancing. A while back a friend and I tried to find a club, but, everywhere we went the crowd looked around 19 years old and the music sucked...I mean, you could fall asleep dancing to it. Nothing like the rush of good rock, or funk.

If I could dance every weekend I wouldn't have to think about a gym membership.

There was a club in Mt. Pleasant, (Vancouver 86?) and a fellow used to show up every weekend, (beard as long and grey as Methuselah), and he would dance by himself all night. I might have to resort to that!

Anyway, remembering some good clubs in Gastown that never asked for I.D. if you were a pretty 16 year old. Rubbed elbows with a lot of pimps and I don't remember ever buying my own drink...it was like a game, get in, get out alive

What clubs do you remember?

Try further East.....Grandview..............Lasseter's Den.

 

[uncleg]

There were some great culbs on Hornby St. Misty's, Sneaky Pete's/Take 5 come to mind.

..............Pal's, Gary Taylor's, Cave, Sugar Daddy's, Top of The Marc......................actually renamed that portion of Hornby........Wasserman's Stroll.

 

[uncleg]

Systems on Richards Street.

Dick's on Dick's..........but those aren't the clubs of yore, it'll take a few more years for them to qualify for that title..........

 

[badbadboy]

Wow memory lane

I was too young at the time but talked my in to see Ike and Tiny Turner at Oil Cans.

The Cave, man what a place and the acts they got there! Motown, Philly Soul and Bay Area Funk; they had them all. Temptations, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Tower of Power just to name a few. It was in the days of brothers wearing their flashy pimp clothes too. What a scene.

 

[mimi]

Sugar Daddy's...that was North Vancouver right? Under the hotel that is now an apartment building?

What was the place called that was under the hotel on Burrard just up from the hospital? I can't even remember the name of the hotel

The one in Gastown, near the end towards Alexander, upstairs, turn to the left, lounge on the right, dance floor on the left...loads of very pretty men in tuxedos and cologne. Damn, can't remember the name and I spent every weekend there....a gangster club, lots of bad and exciting stuff for a bunch of 16 year old girls in heels and disco dresses.

It was still a club in the eighties and nineties but rock and then maybe comedy?

Not to be confused with the club in the same area that was split levels with the dance floor half way between upper and lower floors, which really sucked for sound.

 

[uncleg]

Sugar Daddy's...that was North Vancouver right? Under the hotel that is now an apartment building?

What was the place called that was under the hotel on Burrard just up from the hospital? I can't even remember the name of the hotel

The one in Gastown, near the end towards Alexander, upstairs, turn to the left, lounge on the right, dance floor on the left...loads of very pretty men in tuxedos and cologne. Damn, can't remember the name and I spent every weekend there....a gangster club, lots of bad and exciting stuff for a bunch of 16 year old girls in heels and disco dresses.

It was still a club in the eighties and nineties but rock and then maybe comedy?

Not to be confused with the club in the same area that was split levels with the dance floor half way between upper and lower floors, which really sucked for sound.

Nope.............Sugar Daddy's was on Hornby..................

Club Mardi Gras?

That's one of the names it went by, probably it's longest run....................

 

[mimi]

Fingers Cabaret!!!

That's the one that was in Gastown...very shady place. I remember my first time in there and it was almost full of black folks, and I hardly ever saw black people in Vancouver back then. I hung around with EI and Fijian girls, so they looooved this place. Most of the guys were from Seattle, it seemed, taking their yachts up to Vancouver to meet some nice women, so they said

Yeah, I remember Breakers, the 'border' crossing. Fram's of course. Close to home. The Avalon in North Van and the Coach House at the other end of North Van.

Annabel's at the Four Season. Very claaaasssy!

Club Mardis Gras sounds familiar, I think the hotel is next door to St. Paul's.

Twenty years after I used to frequent a bar on Burrard I came back in town and the bar tender remembered me...that was cool!

 

[hornyhunk]

http://www.sleazeroxx.com/wforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23160

 

[Oldfart]

I only went to the Cave once. Saw Dizzy Gillespie.

What was the name of the place near Park Royal with the Aston Martin out front and the Tiffany lamps inside? They had sing-alongs where you literally followed a bouncing ball.

 

[hornyhunk]

Frank Baker's ...

 

[PlayfulAlex]

Sugar Daddy's...that was North Vancouver right? Under the hotel that is now an apartment building?

What was the place called that was under the hotel on Burrard just up from the hospital? I can't even remember the name of the hotel

The one in Gastown, near the end towards Alexander, upstairs, turn to the left, lounge on the right, dance floor on the left...loads of very pretty men in tuxedos and cologne. Damn, can't remember the name and I spent every weekend there....a gangster club, lots of bad and exciting stuff for a bunch of 16 year old girls in heels and disco dresses.

It was still a club in the eighties and nineties but rock and then maybe comedy?

Not to be confused with the club in the same area that was split levels with the dance floor half way between upper and lower floors, which really sucked for sound.

Nope.............Sugar Daddy's was on Hornby..................



That's one of the names it went by, probably it's longest run....................

Level 5, the Side Door, Earthquake Annies, Franks Place, Rebar, there was a club by the Pacific (Truck) Border Crossing (cannot remember the name Smokin Turtle maybe) and the Ocean Beach - the last two were great for picking up American girls who where not of drinking age yet in the States.

Sugar Daddy's and Level 5 were both incarnations of the club now known as Brandy's, yeah on Hornby & Dunsmuir, 5th floor...

I believe the North Van club was Daddy Long Legs...anyone remember that?

What's left for the now-mature crowd (ouch)?

* Firefighters near Metrotown
* The Admiral Pub on Hastings
* Salsa (I don't think so!)

 

[tokugawa]

How about Luv Affair and Graceland?

 

[DavidMR]

Many of these old names, like Oil Cans and Lasseters, are familiar to me, though I don't think I was ever in any of them. Maybe once or twice, but I certainly heard about them on radio.

I wonder why there aren't any comparable places today? Have the condo developers bought up ALL the properties?

 

[Luvda_silicone_crinkle]

The Steel Monkey was the best on tuesdays

 

[uncleg]

Don't forget the Retinal Circus, the Oompapa, Smiling Buddha, Shanghai Junk................

 

[klamkracker]

How about Luv Affair and Graceland?

Yes! Weed and dancing on the speakers! Some sexxy Punk girls! Tugs on Tuesdays in North Vancouver after woman's night 8pm! Twilight Zone in Gastown. Many parties in the West End/Booze Cans after these places!

 

[mimi]

Frank Baker's! That one was around for ages, I mean, it was the 'go to' place in the fifties. My parents went there.

In the ladies washroom was a statue of a naked man with a fig leaf over his penis. The fig leaf was on hinges. If you were to lift the fig leaf up a bell would sound in the cabaret and the woman could expect to be greeted by many "knowing" smiles as she exited the bathroom

I wonder what happened to the Tiffany Lamps when they tore that place down? It was still a cabaret in the 80s albeit 'glamour rock'

 

[uncleg]

...........and there was the Tropicana.............Lion's Tail..........