Strip Joints

[John Doheny]

I'm wondering if any other forum members would care to contribute stories about the thriving music scene that once existed in Vancouver's strip clubs. I did a lot of gigs in this area from about 1971 to 1975, but I know there was plenty happening on the scene before I arrived, and lots of the older cats turned a buck in this area. Gavin, I know you played some of these gigs. How about it?

Here's a cut and paste from another thread about some of my own experiences to get the ball rolling:

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I think my experiences playing strip clubs probably qualify as both a 'best' AND a 'worst.' Best because, well, let's face it, getting paid to play music while beautiful women disrobe 6 feet in front of your nose is not a bad way to turn a buck. But also because a situation like that allows you a perfect no-pressure way to develop your chops. I mean, nobody's paying any attention to YOU, right?

During the time I did this (roughly 1971-1975) there was some kind of city ordinance (I think it was through LCB) that said in order to have nude dancing and liquor, you had to employ at least a three piece band. This rule got eliminated sometime in the mid-seventies and all these gigs dissappeared almost literally overnight. But while it was happening, all kinds of players were making a (reasonably) decent living playing joints like the Kubla Khan, the Shanghai Junk (this one was managed by Tommy Chong for a while) the Place, the Wheelgrinder, the Club New Delhi and the Smilin Buddha (before it became a punk palace). The standard gig was 6 nights a week, monday through saturday, and paid anywhere from $75 to $125 a week. In 1971, when draft beer was 25 cents a glass and my rent was $40 a month, this was decent bread.

There were some good players working these jobs. Guitarist Harris Van Berkel and keyboardist Ron Smulavichi had a band. Gavin Walker was on the scene. Also saxophonists Gordy Bertram (later of Powder Blues) Gib Monk and Larry Volen. Guitar players John Burton, Richard Baker (Doug and the Slugs) Olaf Deshield and Henry Young. I remember bumping into bassist-singer William Taylor on these gigs (in fact, he was on the first band I ever saw Gavin Walker play in, at the Carioca Club, across from where the Railway Club is now). Robbie King was around. "Little Daddy and the Bachelors" vocalist Tommy Milton and saxophonist Freddy "Hose Nose" Carotenuto. Fearsome, powerhouse drummer Al Wiertz. Many. many more folks I'm sure I'll remember later.

The strippers were usually not too picky about which tunes you played. They were more concerened about the groove, and would often make requests like "gimmee a slow grind, a funky one, and a latin one." We'd give em a blues in 12/8 (like "Night Train") a Meters tune like "Cissy Strut" or "Funky Miracle," and Horace Silver's "Song For My Father." Each dancer would have 15 minutes to get naked, and after you'd worked with them a while, you developed a sense of their timing, so you'd know to insert that extra chorus of solo in J. Geils "She's So Sharp" to give her enough time to get her panties off and do a little writhing around on the floor before closing out the routine. Long-time dancers actually developed callusses from wriggling around on carpeted stages. They called them "strippers muscle." (I'll leave you to guess how I discovered this).

On the 'down' side, a lot of these places were pretty creepy. The Place, for instance, almost never had any customers in it. I could never figure out how the owner, Horst Winterhoff, made any money, and ultimately concluded the joint must have a racing wire in the back, or maybe it was some kind of money-laundering operation. (Years later, in the 90s, I was playing at a "mail order bride" party at the Polish Hall on Fraser street. The place was full of recent Polish immigrants all looking to 'meet up' with excruciatingly young-looking phillipina girls in Canada on temporary nanny-visas. The whole gig was mondo-creepy, and a familiar name was running it. Horst Winterhoff).

It wasn't that there were NO customers. It was just that the half-dozen or so in there were all old, penshioner-looking dudes, all sitting at seperate tables, all well away from each other. And all with their hats in their laps. And their hands under those hats. Working away furiously.

I had terrible visions of these guys walking down the street with man-goo dripping down their foreheads until one of the strippers hipped me to their system of slipping a wadded up handerchief in there to 'tidy up.'

Another version of this played out at the Club New Delhi on main st., where a group of working class gay guys who all worked for the VSB as janitors used to come by and give each other hand jobs under the table. Occasionally, hookers would come in and turn tricks in the back booths until the owner, Leo Bhagri, would notice. Then he'd go over, unplug the trick, and kick them both out.

The MC on that gig was a guy named "Jumpin Jay" Alexander. His theme song was a medley consisting of "Twist and Shout", "Land of a Thousand Dances," "La Bamba", and the Otis Redding hit "Hard to Handle." He'd exort the crowd to "get real loose like a bucket of juice, here at the fabulous Club New Delhi." The Delhi was different in that it alternated 'dance' sets (with strippers) with 'show' sets, where the band would play "for your dancing pleasure" and one of two featured singers the club employed would do their stuff. It was during one of these that Mary, an elderly pensioner who was a regular at the club, whipped up her dress to reveal herself to me stark naked on the dance floor. I still haven't entirely recovered from this.

Jay's favorite stripper (who used to 'do' him in his dressing room between shows) was an ex-biker chick named Sweet Baby Jane. She had 'property of the BDMC (Black Death Motorcycle Club) tattooed on her ass, and liked to hit ringside patrons over the head with one of her boobs during her act.

I think if I had to play these gigs now I'd probably slit my wrists, but at the time it was all vastly amusing. And it really did teach me what it means to be a professional musician, cranking it out night after night whether you felt like it or not.

[Elliott Clarkson]

I recall playing at the Shanghai Junk for just a couple of nights sometime in the late 60's. William Taylor was our singer at the time.

I don't remember much about the gigs, except that one of the strippers was a rather overweight gal named Melody Humdinger, whose grand finale was to get her massive boobs spinning in opposite directions.

[John Doheny]

Sounds like Melody Humdinger and Sweet Baby Jane may have been one and the same, or at least worked out of the same playbook, since that boob-twirling bit was part of "Jane's" shtick as well.

Nearly forty ears later I'm finding I'm blanking on the names of some of these places. I can't, for instance, remember the name of the first one I ever played (it was down somewhere near the foot of Seymour I think) but I do remember the MC was stunningly unfunny comedian Don Laine, and we had to learn Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," which was his signature tune at the time. There was another place over behind the Austin Hotel owned by Xaviera Hollander of "Happy Hooker" fame that had some kind of major shootout happen. Future Doug and the Slugs drummer John "Wally" Watson was working there, but wasn't in the club at the time.

I can however remember significant residencies (anywhere fron two weeks to three months) at the Place Cabaret on Granville, the Factory on Davie, the Club New Delhi and the Shanghai Junk (both on Main) the Sidedoor Cabaret on West Broadway, the Smilin Bhudda on Hastings, and the Wheelgrinder (AKA "The Grinder," later an afterhours jazz club called Basin Street) just down the street from that.

The first time I worked the Bhudda, pay was $75 a week. If memory serves, there were still guys working there for that same bread in 1976, just before it became a rock/punk venue. It's location (convenient to a half dozen hotel beer parlors) meant that business picked up radically after the beer bars closed, I can remember absolutely ridiculous amounts of people crushing in there for an hour of 'power drinking' between one and two a.m., when Cabaret Licence places were required to close. It was a real hellhole and there were a lot of fights.

Most other places the pay was around $100. At the Place it was $92.50, and we used to lobby the owner for more dough by changing the Lyrics to Wilson Picket's "Ninety Nine and a Half Won't Do" to "Ninety Two and a Half Won't Do" (got to have a hundred). If this all sounds like peanuts now keep in mind that draft beer was 25 cents a glass at the time and you could rent a two bedroom apartment for $120 a month.

And I'm not kidding about the indifference to repertoire displayed by the strippers. With some notable exceptions they did not care what you played, as long as they could strip to it. Olaf Deshield, for instance, used to whip out Frank Zappa tunes like Willie the Pimp and Peaches En Regalia, and I often remember playing Blue Monk, Song For My Father, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, the Work Song, and various Meters things (the dancers loved "Cissy Strut") while women got naked six feet in front of me.

[Gavin Walker]

The boob twirling thing was huge (along with the boobs) and I do remember doing shows at Isy's with one lady who was hearing and speech impaired (in less politically correct times....deaf and dumb).....she was a pro and as long as we played music with a strong beat she was happy as she could feel the vibrations through the floor. We played the usual repertoire of tunes like 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy', 'Song For My Father' and any good blues with a backbeat (slow, fast, medium etc). She was very popular and returned to the club many times and eventually hooked up with the saxophone player who replaced me when I went to work at The Penthouse. She had the boob twirling thing down to a fine art.
I do also remember one earnest and lovely lady who was booked at Isy's. We met at an afternoon rehearsal when new ladies were booked at the club. She told us that she had charts for her act and told me over coffee later how much she paid some musician in Las Vegas for these "charts". I liked her and never enlightened her to the truth........the "charts" that she paid a king's ransom for were nothing but photocopied lead sheets written in concert, of tunes that we had played thousands of times before like 'Summertime', 'Desafinado', 'The Look of Love' etc. straight out of a fake book. She told us that we were the best band she had ever worked with and of course, we returned the "charts" to her when she left....ah yes....she was lovely.

[John Doheny]

I was hoping you'd chime in since you're a few years older than me and were on the set during the true halcyon days of the scene, the mid-to-late 60s. By the time I arrived things had started to wind down a bit and of course came to a screeching halt in the mid-seventies when the LCB okayed the use of pre-recorded music with nude dancing and booze.

Ah yes, the 'charts.' During my several tenures at the Club New Delhi (AKA 'the Delhi') new dancers and featured singers rehearsed with the band on Monday afternoons. I remember working with Shirley Granger there (who wound up poaching our guitar player, John Burton (later of Doug and the Slugs) for a 3 month cross Canada tour), as well as Lovie Eli, Wynn Nolan and Lottie Miss Body. A lot of the singers (like Lottie) were former strippers who switched to vocalizing once they were considered 'over the hill.'

One time with Wynn at the Delhi, she called "Proud Mary" in response to a customer request. It wasn't in her regular book and we hadn't rehearsed it with her but hey. Who needs to rehearse "Proud Mary," right? We kicked off the Creedence arrangement and she stopped us after one verse, saying "naw that doesn't get it guys. Give it to me funky."

"Aha," we think. "She wants the Ike and Tina arrangement." So we kick that one off and she stops us before we even get to the double-time release, and gives the audience a sorry look. "Folks," she says. "This is what happens when you work with kids."

It wasn't till after the gig that we figured out she really just couldn't remember the words and was looking to shuck the blame on us.:)


Oh, I almost forgot about charts. You must have run into some doozies. The ones that always made my blood run cold were the ones (in concert pitch, of course) that had teeny little four string ukelele-chord diagrams on them. You just knew they were going to suck. Another time at the Place I had laboriously copied out some fake-book charts in tenor-friendly keys (I'm pretty sure "Jump Monk" was among them) on some pale green manuscript paper Ward music was hustling at the time. It was supposed to be easy on the eyes, but as soon as they turned on the "black light" component in the stage lighting for the strippers, every note on the page disappeared. :(

[Gregg Simpson]

Great thread ! (Or G-String, I guess.)

Funny that when I was playing free jazz with Al Neil, I was also making some dough subbing for Jim McGillveray or Al Wiertz at the Buddah and other places.

I remember doing some fairly raunchy weeks in a duo with Mike Taylor on organ at the Kit Kat Club. Most of the girls were great and all were really friendly with the band (!)

I worked with mostly exotic dancers rather than strippers. My experience in this world was somewhat limited. I never did play at the Zanzibar...

The things you do when you're young and broke!