Larry Levan - Paradise Garage - Classic WEST END RECORDS remixes ~ makact

In September of 1977 one of the worlds most influential clubs opened up in New York's Greenwich Village, at 84 King Street. No one knew back then that this club would live for a decade and that it would also give name to an own music genre - "Garage"... The club was of course the legendary Paradise Garage or - "the Garage" as the regular guests used to refer to it. The club was owned and run by the late Michael Brody. Prior to becoming the Paradise Garage, the place was a short lived club called Chameleon. The guys behind that club worked on turning the old garage into a club. Chameleon opened up in December 1975 and they had Natalie Cole performing on the opening night. The club had a triangular (pyramid) sign with a Chameleon logo over the entrance and the DJ booth was also pyramid-shaped (and aligned true to North in order to garnish the most benefit from the then current fad of "pyramid power"). But the club was closed down just some months later.

When the Garage opened in September of 1977, the club was far from ready so originally there were only "construction parties" held and during this time of construction the club was called the 84 King Street Garage, to later become the Paradise Garage by the official opening in February 17, 1978. The Garage was not fully completed by the opening and they kept throwing "construction parties" occasionally for yet another year... They even had a small wrench as the membership "card"! The club fast became a very important piece to the now rapidly grooving Disco Music scene. The club with its very open-minded, mainly black gay clientele became one of the trendiest places in no time. Everyone wanted to know what was going on there and wanted to test their songs/remixes on the Garage audience. As famous and legendary as the club itself was the Garage's DJ - the late Larry Levan. Larry was the resident DJ of "the Garage" and to many people he was "the Garage". Lots of people, and other DJ's, came to the club just to hear him play... He was a true master behind the turntables. Unfortunately the club was forced to close down in September 26, 1987.

Another guy who made his way all the way up to Larry in the DJ booth was this young talented writer, a guy called Kenton Nix. Kenny had this test pressing of a song of his, a song he called "Work that body". The record didn't even have any vocals yet, but Kenny gave it to Larry. Larry and the crowd loved the record and Kenny asked Larry if he couldn't help him get the record to SalSoul Records. Larry said; "No, we're not gonna go to SalSoul this is a West End's Record, we gonna give this to West End.And since "Mel Cheren, the owner and former of West End Records, was part owner of the club along with being Michael Brody's lover and life partner - Kenton got to meet him, it hit off and the rest is history. "Work that body" was released by West End but now there was vocals added to the song from this young lady named Taana Gardner. The song was (of course) remixed by Larry and was followed by other Kenton penned and Larry remixed hits for Taana like "When you touch me", "No frills" and the song that's actually West End's biggest hit today - "Heartbeat".

But it wasn't only the DJ [Larry] and the music that was something extra at the Garage. No, together with the sound engineer of the club - Richard Long - they managed to put together the world's best sound system... It has been told that the whole system were sold for some half a million dollars (!!!) to the Ministry of Sound in London when the Garage were forced to close down in September 1987. But that's NOT true... The sound system was installed at a club called the Paradise Ballroom on W. 43'rd St., New York. Sadly that club didn't live that long and the system was actually auctioned off. Gary Stewart, owner of GSA [Gary Stewart Audio] based in New York, still offers some of the original RLA [Richard Long & Associates] designs, electronics, speakers and consoles. Gary tells me that the RLA system at the Ministry of Sound was purchased new and only had 3 components that were similar to the ones in the Garage;

The RLA X3000 3 way DJ crossover
The RLA Bertha/Levan Sub Bass cabinets
The RLA Tweeter Arrays