One way movies and TV series set in the world of music try to hit the right note is to include a cameo from Los Angeles’ Whiskey a Go Go. The legendary nightclub located on West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip has been an integral part of rock and roll history since the early 1960s, so it’s no surprise that in the first five minutes of Daisy Jones and the six– Prime Video’s adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2019 novel about a fictional ’70s rock band, starring Riley Keough as the title character – the Whiskey makes an appearance.
It’s 1968, and precocious 15-year-old Margaret, soon to rename herself “Daisy,” slips out of her parents’ modern home and through the stage door of the 1923 Art Deco building onto one of the legendary concert hall scenes. nights the Byrds and Doors played. “I mean what an era to be alive if you loved music,” an older Daisy recalled for a documentary in the series. “I saw Cream at the Pac Center [Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County]and Zeppelin at Whisky, and snuck backstage for the Who at Sanctuary.
Daisylaunched on March 3, is just the latest production to be filmed at the two-story music institution whose marquee was the last update in 2004, and was granted landmark status by the West Hollywood Historic Preservation Commission in 2019. Originally a commercial building housing real estate and banking businesses, the iconic club was designed by former cop from chicago Elmer Valentine in 1964 after a visit to the Whiskey à Gogo nightclub in Paris. Valentine made the name his own and, with his partners, created a 500-person space with Naugahyde tufted red raised booths near the entrance, a female DJ suspended above the dance floor in a booth with glass walls and the first go-go dancers – women outfitted in fringed miniskirts and white boots, also suspended in cages.
