The Whisky A Go Go

In the summer of 1966, protests against the escalating Vietnam War turned into riots on Los Angeles' Sunset Boulevard. And an unknown rock band called the Doors landed a residency at the Whisky a Go-Go, a club on the Sunset Strip. The group had been formed a year earlier by a couple of UCLA film students: an aspiring poet named Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, a blues keyboardist who had studied classical piano as a kid.Soon the house band developed a following of its own, and the Whisky became a destination for local counterculture types. Says Manzarek, "There were these guys named Carl and Vito who had a dance troupe of gypsy freaks. They were let in for free, because they were these quintessential hippies, which was great for tourists. God knows if they were even on anything, they were so out of their minds, but they danced like crazy. And they loved 'The End.' "
An early version of "The End" -- that is, one that could safely be performed at, say, the Super Bowl halftime show. Then, one night in August, Morrison didn't show up for the Doors' first set. The band played without him, with Manzarek and the others handling the vocals, but Whisky co-owner Phil Tanzini was furious and demanded Morrison be retrieved in time for the second set. The group found Morrison at his apartment, wearing only his underwear and tripping on acid, and managed to spirit him back to the Whisky by set time. "Jim was a little spacey, but together," Manzarek recalls. "But then, after the third number, he turns to me and says, 'Let's play "The End." ' I was like, 'Jim, it's only the third number.' " The band, not surprisingly, tended to save "The End" for the finale. Still, the group took Morrison's cue and began playing the song. "There's a point where Morrison has a section where he can do a little improvisation, and he put his hand out to soften us down," Manzarek says. "And for the first time, he says, 'The killer awoke before dawn. He put his boots on.' And one by one, the dancers all stopped and stared. When he said, 'Father, I wanna kill you,' we'd never heard this before, but I thought, 'I know what's coming next. Please don't do it.' "Morrison, of course, did it. When he howled, "Mother, I want to fuck you!" the band, which had been softly accompanying his recitation, kicked into overdrive. As Manzarek recounts, "John [Densmore] whacked on his drums, I pounded on my organ, Robby [Krieger] made his guitar scream like a banshee, and all hell broke loose. The people began dancing madly. Everyone went into a Dionysian frenzy. It was Greek! Oedipus Rex had been exorcised right there on the Sunset Strip."The Doors left the stage thinking they'd killed, and they had. They had also offended Tanzini's sense of propriety. He went backstage, asked Morrison, "How the fuck can you say that about your mother?" and fired the band on the spot. Krieger asked, "Do you want us to play through the weekend, or are we fired tonight?" Tanzini thought for a moment, then said, "Oh, right. You play through Sunday, then you're fired."In the end, things worked out for the Doors. Two days earlier, the band had signed to Elektra Records: The L.A. rock scene would have new standard-bearers to lead the dancing gypsy freaks into the Summer of Love. Other bands followed, Led Zeppelin made their first L.A. appearance at the Whisky. Soon the Whisky A Go Go was a popular hangout for the GTO' s and other groupies working the L.A. scene. The Whisky is a historic rock landmark these days, and still hosts a number of bands each night.

The Whisky-A-Go-Go, 8901 Sunset Blvd at Clark, West Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA

GTO's
Jim Morrison