Northwest Dancehalls

The Accents at Oil Can Harry's in 1966
Oil Can Harry's
752 Thurlow Street
Vancouver, British Columbia

Some of the bands that played at Oil Can Harry's during those great years of NW music were:

OIL CAN HARRYS was later known as Outlaws, the THE METRO, but unfortunatley it burnt to the ground in the early ninties, and is now a parking lot. Many bands played that stage in impromtu jams, such as Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Blue Murder, and many more.

Nick Cardarelli, December 2005
 

Oil Can Harry's never burnt to the ground - the building was demolished to make way for a highrise.

Ron Simmonds, July 2006

Twitch, a local rock group known for it's bizarre stage show, theatrics and theme inspired fast rock,played Oil Cans several times.

In one part of the show.the drummer, Mike Brown, was shot from a platform with a fake revolver and dove (fell) over the drum kit on a riser and landed writhing around in "pain" on the stage next to the rest of the band spewing fake blood.  When the "bullets" hit him, a pressurized blood bag hidden in his mouth exploded for effect.

Although that and the rest of the show was very successful even after seeing it several times including Grey cup weekend, the owners at the time were never able to erase or paint the "blood stains" off the wall until it was demolished..

Picture is on myspace and then found in the Twitch archives

Ian Steeksma, December 2006

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This brings back so many great memories.

I played in Black & White Affair at Oil Can Harry's in 1973 & 1974.  This was one of my favorite places to play.  They had three rooms with therr bands.

We played the main room and it was always jumping.

Bob Speer, December 2008

Back in the early 70's I was lead vocalist for the 8-piece horn band Granville. We opened for acts like El Chicano & The Witches Brew. Playing Oil Can's was a blast.  It was the A room of the 70's in my opinion.  All the Big Vancouver Acts played there at one time.

We also did our own shows in Dirty Sals, What a great club. Fond memories for me. I know Granville was proud to be a part of Oil Can Harry's History.

Terry Raible, January 2009

The band that did the grand opening downstairs was a jug band called "The Supper Time Jug" it still exists and is in Langley under the name The Genuine Jug Band.

Doug Fraser, November 2010

Oil Can Harry's did not become Outlaws.  Outlaws was a separate venue on Georgia near an old church that remains to this day.

Mark Mushet, July 2011