Frankie Knuckles Tribute

Frankie Knuckles started his DJ career at Better Days with fellow house pioneer DJ Tee Scott. He then DJ’ed with his good friend Larry Levan at the Continental Barth’s in New York from 1972. It was a a bath spa for the the New York gay scene that had a DJ booth and dance floor within its rooms. By 1974 Larry Levan had left to set up the Paradise Garage and Frankie had been promoted from Larry’s warm up DJ to the the headline DJ at the Continental Baths. He stayed there until it was forced into bankruptcy in 1976.

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Larry Levan Interview

“I’m going to get two more turntables so that as the night goes on, I can upgrade the sound. So I use cheap cartridges in the beginning and upgrade – I have $150 Grace cartridges which I’m really into but you can’t backcue with them. At five AM you’d say ‘what is that?’ because a record should sound as good as a tape.”

When I first went to The Paradise Garage I felt as though I’d finally found the perfect nightclub. With a clear door policy members and their guests only – a kind and courteous staff, no liquor, an awesome sound system continuously expounding the most serious Black music and an audience of thousands of dancers whose inter-connected energy often makes the main dance room feel like a rocket at the point of lift-off. Here was the antidote to all the glacial pose palaces passing as dance clubs.

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DJ Larry Levan – Paradise Garage

If we look back to the origins of the house music scene in the UK then we discover its roots in the New York Disco scene of the late 70’s and 80’s. Clubs such as the Loft, Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage gave us the blue print of modern day clubbing – those having the best sound system, lighting rigs and right mix of people to create that special atmosphere. If we focus on just one of the New York DJs – Larry Levan we can see that it was his genius and career that gave birth to modern Supaerstar DJ, remixer and taste maker. Levan showed just host much creative control a DJ could have over a loyal and devoted crowd. The Garage sound system which he helped to design and that he continually tweaked was considered to be one of the all time best. Larry Levan is still heralded as a maestro behind the decks one of the first DJs to remix his only tracks and then drop them in the club to test the crowd’s reaction and then refine them again in the studio.

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