Hollywood proper had been absorbed as a district of Los Angeles back in the 1930s, but West Hollywood was just across the city limits. In the 1960s, what was at the Whisky was what was hot. The Whisky was in West Hollywood, and Los Angeles always wants to know what's hot and what's not. Although the financing of the American record industry operated out of New York, Los Angeles had just as big a role in finding and producing the actual music. The Whisky played an essential role in breaking numerous American and English rock bands, all the more impressive since they only paid union scale. The huge exception was the Whisky A-Go-Go, at 8901 Sunset Boulevard (at Clark) in West Hollywood. In America, at least, nightclubs did not play a significant role in the rise of late 60s rock bands. In any case, hippies, particularly younger ones, weren't looking for drink anyway. The circuit of nightclubs that presented personal appearances by the familiar stars of stage and screen were all but completely shut out of the 60s psychedelic rock explosion. 60s rock in the United States had its own institutions: their own concert halls, modeled on the Fillmores, free-form FM radio, and hugely successful bands that seemed to owe little to the traditional starmaking machinery of New York and Los Angeles. Rock music exploded in the minds of young people, with phenomenal economic returns as well. Regional bands played the local version of the Fillmore, and although they released albums through national record companies, those bands did not achieve success by appearing on television. One of the driving forces of live 1960s rock music was that it arose somewhat outside the confines of the regular entertainment business. Because of the way the Whisky did and did not advertise its shows, some of the exact beginning and end dates of some of the acts may be a bit vague, but I am confident that all the acts listed here played the Whisky during this period. This post is a review of all the performers at the Whisky A-Go-Go from January through June 1971, and an analysis of what it tells us about rock music and the record industry of that moment. We don't think of the Whisky as a home for 'Jazz-Rock' and 'Prog,' but a review of the acts that played there in the first half of 1971 tell us just that. Surprisingly, however, for a few years the Whisky A-Go-Go became the locus for rock music in its newly-sophisticated form. Yet the Whisky was still in West Hollywood, and it was still important. Flashy hard-rock itself was a bit passe, too, since rock took itself awfully seriously now. Sensitive singer-songwriters expressing their feelings was the new pillar of the music industry, and those acts played the nearby Troubadour, not the Whisky. Them, The Doors, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin: they rocked the Whisky in style, and success followed.īy the early 1970s, although the rock music market had exploded, the Whisky was not the musical nexus of West Hollywood. Nonetheless, record industry tastemakers either went to the Whisky or heard about it the next morning, so if you rocked the Whisky, and in particular if you rocked with some style, you could rock the nation afterwards, whether you had been famous beforehand or not. Also true, the club only paid the minimum union scale, no matter how many records you sold. True, the little club on the crowded Sunset Strip held 500 patrons at most, and the mini-skirted Go-Go dancers elevated above the floor could be as big an attraction as the band.

In the late 1960s, one of the ways for a rock band to get big fast was to play the Whisky A-Go-Go in West Hollywood. Neil even turns to the camera at the beginning of the video and says 'This is where it all began.The Whisky A-Go-Go, at 8901 Sunset Blvd (at Clark) on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, sometime in the 1960s The Crüe paid homage to the Whisky when they filmed the music video for their hit single 'Kickstart My Heart' at the small venue. One would be climbing out the window while another was coming in the door. spilled out into the courtyard and the street. There would be members of punk-scene remnants like 45 Grave and the Circle Jerks coming to our almost nightly parties while guys in metal newborns like Ratt and W.A.S.P. Singer Vince Neil writes: We played the Whisky, half the crowd would come back to our house and drink and do blow, smack, Percodan, quaaludes, and whatever else we could get for free.

Bands like Mötley Crüe turned the Whisky into a must-visit club once again, attracting huge crowds that would follow them back to the band's apartment after their gigs. The Whisky closed in 1982 and only reopened in the mid '80s thanks to an influx of glam metal bands with hair sprayed to the heavens. Throughout history, its been hot, and it's been very cold. Aside from being the place to break bands as disparate as The Doors and the Germs, the Whisky is famous for its boom and bust periods.

Whiskey a go go