The World Famous Whisky a Go Go – As long as there has been a Los Angeles rock scene, 1964

a primeira discoteca do mundo On January 16, 1964 a small club on the Sunset Strip opened its doors for the first time. It was The Whisky a Go Go, the first ever live music venue to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and the most iconic club of the Strip. Founded by Mario Maglieri, Elmer Valentine and Phil Tanzini – The Whisky had to spell its name without the ‘e’ in whiskey because Los Angeles city zoning laws didn’t allow any club to be named after alcohols (The Whisky constantly had problems with the city and for a while had the name “The Whisk?”). The world-famous Whisky a Go Go opened on Jan. 15, 1964 with a concert by Johnny Rivers. A DJ named Joanie Labine (the first DJ at The Whisky) played records in a booth that was suspended to the right of the stage in between Johnny Rivers’ sets. Labine entertained the crowd by dancing and the idea of the go-go dancer was born. Very soon a ‘costume’ of the go-go dancers also emerged: a girl wearing a short, fringed skirt and high, white boots: a trend that will spread to all discotheques and nightclubs all across the country. The Doors begin their run as the house band at The Whisky a Go Go opening for every group to play there from May 23 to August 21, 1966. They typically performed two sets per night. Exposed to a wide-ranging audience, The Doors began to experiment daringly. Allegedly, the experiments often took the form of drug trips, and weekly tales of The Doors’ freaked-out adventures flew: “Morrison was so stoned last night he fell off the stage again”. During this period The Doors opened for artists as Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, Buffalo Springfield, Love, Them, The Turtles and Johnny Rivers. The Doors perform as the house band at the Whisky a Go Go for the final time on August 21,1966. Jim Morrison misses their first set and the other band members play without him. Before the second set, they go looking for him and find him in Room 203 of the Tropicana Hotel. Jim has dropped acid and is wearing only underwear and a pair of boots. The guys quickly get Jim dressed and drag him to the Whisky for their next set. The last song they perform is “The End” and Jim improvises the Oedipal section into it for the first time, inserting lyrics about his mother and father. Jim later explained what happened in a 1967 interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “One Sunday night at Whisky a Go Go — we were the second band — something clicked. I realized what the whole song was about, what it had been leading up to. It was powerful. It just happened. They fired us the next day.” Janis Joplin and her group Big Brother and The Holding Company also became regulars at The Whisky. Mario Maglieri describes one night sitting at a booth with Janis: “She was a great entertainer, but a raunchy chick. Dirty nails, stringy hair. Looked like she hadn’t bathed in a month. And she had that raspy voice. Well, she was at the Whisky one night. I was sitting next to Janis, don’t know what the hell we were talking about. The waitress came up to the table. Janis says to her ‘Gimme a drink’. So the girl brought over a Southern Comfort on the rocks. And what do you think Janis said? ‘I want the whole fuckin’ bottle!’ That was Janis. I truly loved her musically and as a person. She was just a great chick, you know what I mean?” Less than three weeks after Jimi Hendrix’s death, on October 4, 1970, Janis Joplin was found dead of a heroin overdose in the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood. She, too, was twenty-seven. As Mario Maglieri’s son Mikeal recalls: “I gave Janis Joplin her last drink, four shots of Southern Comfort, and dad said, ‘Put the bottle in her trunk.’ Next day the headlines said she died of alcohol poisoning. It was actually heroin, but for three days I thought I killed her. She was a mellow chick, but smelly — she bought her clothes at Goodwill.” “Fortunately, an extremely sexy, pixie-voiced blond named Ronnie Harran, who booked the Whisky, saw us…She had an ear for talent…the Whisky was finally a gig we could be proud of…” ~ John Densmore, The Doors’ drummer (“Riders On The Storm”) The Whisky a Go Go (informally nicknamed The Whisky) is a historic nightclub in West Hollywood, California, United States. It is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip, corner North Clark Street, opposite North San Vicente Boulevard, northwest corner. The club has been the host for musicians and bands including Taj Mahal, Otis Redding, Hugh Masekela, Alice Cooper (who all recorded live albums there between 1966 and 1969), The Doors, The Byrds, Three Dog Night, The Mothers of Invention, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin, Love, The Stooges, Parliament-Funkadelic, The Beach Boys, Cheap Trick, No Doubt, System of a Down, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Chicago, Germs, Elton John, Oasis, Steppenwolf, Van Halen, Rush, Johnny Rivers, X, Iron Butterfly, Fleetwood Mac, KISS, Guns N' Roses, Death, AC/DC, Golden Earring, Linkin Park, Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Stryper, Dokken, and Phil Seymour.