As one of Canada's biggest cities, Vancouver is naturally a draw for musicians across the country, as a base and place for a show.
Over the years that means the city has shown up in music, and music has influenced the city. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes the stories are a little strange, like the time the Clash played soccer against some locals before their first show ever in Vancouver, or when Bob Geldof worked as a music journalist.
Now here are five more fun facts from Vancouver's music scene.
1. Motley Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls gives a shout out to a Vancouver strip club
While Motley Crue aren't really known as romantic troubadours, they did sing about women quite a bit, including their big hit Girls, Girls, Girls.
The song is essentially a love letter to strip clubs and name-checks several, including the Dollhouse in Ft. Lauderdale, Tattletales in Atlanta, and the now-defunct Marble Arch here in Vancouver.
2. A Vancouver band released their debut album more than 50 years after recording it
The Centaurs started off in the early days of garage rock, practicing in drummer John Gedack's (who was in junior high when they started) basement at Beckwith and Gage roads in Richmond (it's now the Costco).
In the mid-60s they were quickly rising in popularity, and went from the basement to playing all over Vancouver and touring the province. They even opened for the Beach Boys.
In 1966 they hadn't recorded an album, but decided to make a go of it in Europe. Before heading there they did record some songs, to send on ahead.
Once in Europe they were billed as one of the top bands in Canada and released a single, but eventually returned to Canada and broke up.
The recordings they made before heading to Europe resurfaced 50 years later, and the band finally got to release an album, five decades after it had been recorded.
3. Lulu Island is named after a singer and stage actress
Richmond is mostly on one island: Lulu Island.
That name comes from Lulu Sweet, who among other things, was a songstress. As a youth, she was already performing on stages on the West Coast.
In the early 1860s she and the troupe she was performing with were in B.C. and she caught the eye of Colonel Richard Clement Moody, one of the most influential men in colonial B.C.
As the story goes, Moody, who would have been nearly 50, was on the steamship the Otter with Sweet (who would have been 16 or 17) when they passed by the island.
Sweet asked the name of it, and Moody said it had no name, and that he would name it after her.
4. A Vancouver studio hosted the likes of Led Zeppelin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Sarah McLachlan
Many cities have famed studious, and in Vancouver the most famous, from a historical standpoint, is probably Mushroom Studios and its precursor and successors.
Hidden away in Fairview not far from Granville Island, the studio was originally founded in the 1940s and still exists, in a way, to this day.
Among those that have popped in at the studio are Led Zeppelin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Sarah McLachlan.
Among the songs recorded there were the Incredible Bongo Band's version of Apache (the name may not be familiar, but you've definitely heard this song, or samples of it, before), Dreamboat Annie by Heart, and Home for a Rest by Spirit of the West.
There's still a studio at that location, but Mushroom Studios is now in Toronto.
5. Two doctors recorded a big band love letter to Vancouver
Dr. Haydn Deane liked to go by the title the Singing Doctor, and performed often, both surgeries and shows (he was actually still performing in a big band as recently as last summer in Romania).
Around 1986 he was a surgeon on cruise ships, and linked up with Dr. W.G. "Griff" Walked.
Together they penned My Vancouver, Your Vancouver, a 1986 song all about the city with a some major big band swing to it.
"A seaway to the world and all Pacific nations, now she has become a world sensation," sings Deane at the beginning of the song, before extolling what makes Vancouver awesome.
