The L.A. Musical History Tour
The Whisky-A-Go-Go
Sunset and San Vicente, Sunset Strip
Now primarily used by hard rock bands, this was the club in the sixties
and seventies.
Who played here? Where do you start? The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Cream,
the
Doors, Otis Redding (whose LP Live at the Whisky was recorded here in 1967),
Jimi
Hendrix, the Byrds, Talking Heads, AC/DC -- the list would fill this book.
The Whisky-A-Go-Go opened in 1964 on the site of an old bank building that
had been
remodeled into a short-lived club called the Party. Though billed as a "Discotheque"
--
meaning no bands, just records -- the Whisky opened with a live band led
by Johnny Rivers
and a short skirted deejay spinning records between sets from a suspended
cage at the right
of the stage. When the girl danced during the Rivers' set, the audience
thought it was part
of the act, and the concept of "go-go girls" in cages was born!
Rivers rode the Whisky-born "go-go" craze to national fame with
records recorded (partly)
"live at the Whisky." The Miracles recorded "Going to a Go-Go"
in 1966 (it was covered
in 1982 by the Rolling Stones) and Whisky-A-Go-Go franchises sprung up all
over
America.
In 1966 the Whisky was one of the centers of the Sunset Strip riots. It
was hassled repeatedly
by the city, which once ordered the club to change its name, claiming "whisky"
was a bad
influence (does anyone remember when it was the Whisk?). The Doors, who
played every
club in town including London Fog next door, settled in for a long run here,
and
subsequently rode to world-wide fame.
The rockin' didn't stop till the late seventies, when live music venues
fell on hard times.
The Whisky closed in 1982 and reopened as a "four-wall" (promoters
renting it) in 1986.
Today the Whisky is at the eastern end of an active hard rock "strip"
not dissimilar to that
of the halcyon days of the sixties.
The club was originally painted red, then changed over the years (our 1970
photo shows it
in its checker-board phase). In early 1990 it was repainted red, and its
old striped awnings
restored, for the movie The Doors .