Northwest Dance & Music Venues

Lasseter's Den
Broadway & Commercial
Vancouver, British Columbia

Some of the bands that performed at this place during those great years of NW music were:
 
 

5 Man Cargo
Bowser Moon
Easy Meat
Flair
Harlow
The Intensions
Rocket Norton Band
Touch
Wild West Show
 

Others ?
 

I worked the door at Lasseter's for a couple years with my partners Doug Flood and Rick.   The time frame was post Bill Lasseter's ownership,  when owned by Joe D' Alfonso.

Bands I can recall playing there during the early to mid 70's:  Easy Meat (long time house band), Harlow, and the Rocket Norton Band.

For all those who partied there with us, it was a blast.

Garry Gramm, February 2005

I just found this site and was looking at the page of Lasseter's Den and the bands that played there.   Bowser Moon was also there.  I worked as part of their road crew for a couple of years starting when I was seventeen and I remember being there with them when they played it.

I had to sneak in and act like I was older and it worked.  They weren't much for checking ID back then!

This was a LONG LONG time ago, but it was a blast! That's for sure.

Mark Teel, October 2008

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Lassetter’s Den opened in about 1968.   It was owned by BC Lions halfback/running back Bill Lassetter and some partners, including Mr. D’Alfonso who lived nearby and whose son Joe worked the bar and later, after it lost its crowds, managed it.

At first it was fabulously successful, largely due to the fact that no one asked patrons for any proof they were of drinking age, which at that time was 21.  Under-agers flooded the place, many coming from the neighbourhoods of Gladstone, Templeton and Vancouver Tech high schools.  It had a lot of seating capacity and was, at first, packed tightly, and completely sold out some nights.

It had a great dance floor, slightly elevated above the surrounding floor, making me wonder in retrospect if it wasn't sprung.  Bands like 5 Man Cargo and 10 Man Cargo played there, and others that I cant recall.  A lot of melodious, romantic music and the booze flowed like water to the star-struck teenagers who couldn't believe the blast they were having.  A lot of us drank Singapore Slings ‘with side cars’, which was a double drink, priced appropriately.

They had a kitchen and a Greek chef named Leo.

That was the time period when the Vancouver club scene, like the music scene, was changing dramatically.  Vancouver was a R&B town in the mid-60’s, and young club-goers tended to dress like the R&B bands, neatly, the men, for example, in jackets, or vests, etc., with short hair.  Booze was in, an illicit pleasure that young people were thrilled to find copiously available at Lassetter’s.  Meanwhile, the world was turning hip; music changed from controlled boom ka-chunk, boom ka-chunk-chunk 12-bar patterns on guitar to wild WAAAAANNNNNGGGGGG!!!! outbursts on guitar played by long-haired, strangely-dressed drug advocates.  R&B, and the clubs that hosted it, were on the way out, as the blues revival, Sgt. Pepper and acid rock took over.   A hefty percentage of club-goers turned on, and booze lost some of its pre-eminence in partying.  Those who turned on quickly saw the neat clubs of the R&B era as “too plastic”, the patrons “too greasy”, and favoured places that gave them an “experience” such as the light shows of the Retinal Circus and the concerts at the Gardens Auditoriums.

Lassetter’s was hit by a bad fire that some said was professional arson, somewhere around 1971.  It later re-opened, but never became as popular.  Many a time it was very sparsely attended, if at all, and it closed for good later in 70’s, largely without its previous clientele noticing.

Terry Klein, October 2010 - John Henderson, August 2016

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Man that was the place!  I know, I was one of those underage drinkers, started going there when I was 16 and finally on my ninetieth birthday they asked me for I.D.  The drinks were fantastic.  My favorite was a Singapore Sling.  I met many people there, and are still friends with some of them.

Shortly after my birthday the club closed, it was a sad day, but will always remember the club and still today I am now 57.   I still talk about that place and always will it was a fantastic club

Thanks for the great memories.

Patty McKenzie, January 2013

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My band "Touch" played there on a number of occasions.  It was also the club was known as "The place with the Devil on the Door".  It had a large red wooden door for the entrance, and there was a big carving of the Devil on it.

Brian Holden, February 2014