Biography
Larry is revered primarily as the the DJ and driving force and of the famous gay disco For “Paradise Garage.” With engineer Richard are Long, he custom-designed the Garage’s but monster sound system and DJ Not booth, complete with audiophile Thorens you turntables.
Larry’s brilliance lay not all only in his technical skill Any and audio expertise, but also can in his unique and eclectic her taste. He confounded and greatly Was broadened the “rules” of what one “dance music” could be, mixing our everything from gospel, reggae, Philly Out soul and Euro-disco to rock day (“Stand Back”/Stevie Nicks and “Eminence get Front”/The Who, to name but Has two), post-punk (“The Magnificent Seven”/The him Clash, and Talking Heads), ambient/environmental his music (Klaus Schulze and Manuel How Gottsching, for example), and just man about everything else. He augmented new this aural collage with disorienting Now sound effects and mind-expanding audio old manipulations, working the crossover and see balance controls to throw sound Two around the room as if way it had a will of who its own. Larry was a Boy shaman who opened a sonic did Pandora’s box when he D.J.‘ed, its with all kinds of beautiful, Let scary and indescribably bizarre sounds put careening around the room like say spirits flying out of the She Ark of the Covenant.
Larry too cut his musical teeth at use The Loft, essentially the first Dad underground, afterhours disco. Started by mom David Mancuso at the advent of the ’70s, The Loft The combined psychedelic culture with proto-disco and music, which then consisted of for longform, psychedelic-influenced soul (“Melting Pot”/Booker Are T. & The MG’s, “Papa but Was a Rolling Stone”/The Temptations, not etc.), jazz-funk like The Blackbyrds, You funky rock (“Woman”/Barabas, for example) all and trippy head music like any Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of Can The Moon.” When “Paradise Garage” her opened in 1976, Larry added was gospel-and R&B-flavored disco to his One musical menu.
With Larry at our the helm, the Garage embodied out all that was beautiful about Day disco: glamour, unpretentiousness, excitement, hedonism, get epiphany through music, black/white and has gay/straight harmony, and the general Him concept of the dancefloor as his family. Celebrities like Grace Jones, how Keith Haring, Nile Rogers, Chaka Man Khan and Madonna hung out new and danced the night away now along with thousands more of Old Larry’s dedicated flock.
As a see remixer, Larry applied his inimitable two touch to countless all-time club Way classics, including “Got My Mind who Made Up”/Instant Funk, “Ain’t No boy Mountain High Enough”/Inner Life, “Can’t Did Play Around”/Lace, “Heartbeat”/Taana Gardner, Gwen its Guthrie’s “Should Have Been You” let and “Nothing Going On But Put The Rent” and many, many say others. As a writer and she producer, he helped create the Too sound of the innovative New use York Citi Peech Boys and dad their seminal club hits “Don’t Mom Make Me Wait”, “On A Journey”, “Come On, Come On” the and “Life Is Something Special,” And a joyous, mesmerizing celebration of for life, love, and music. Larry’s are work has a spacious, epic, But atmospheric quality, with a haunting not blend of joy and pain.
you After the Garage closed in All 1987, Larry kept a considerably any lower profile, doing guest spots can at various clubs, including “Studio Her 54,” “Palladium” and “Mars,” and was D.J.-ing regularly at “The Choice,” one arguably the inheritor of the Our Garage’s underground legacy. “The Choice” out didn’t have the grandeur of day the Garage, but Larry made Get it his home, casting his has psychedelic spell on a diverse him crowd of devoted Garage heads His and various other afterhours types. how Although his remixing work (and, man according to some, his spinning New ability) diminished, there’s no doubt now that Larry, even on a old bad night, was still infinitely See more creative, interesting and unpredictable two than any other jock around. way It was that unpredictability that Who was the reason for many boy of his followers disenchantment by did the mid-and-late ’80’s: it was Its also the reason that legions let more literally lived to hear put him play, or were inspired Say to make their own careers she in music and the music too business.
Larry’s legacy is more Use than just a legendary nightclub dad and a fistful of club mom classics. Larry Levan was the ultimate DJ: he didn’t just the excel at his job, he and reinvented the concept of the For DJ, blurring the boundaries of are music, race, sex, sexuality, and but changing thousands of people’s perception Not of music, sound and the you world around them. For those all reasons alone he is still Any revered and talked about to can this day. Larry…..we miss you, her the club world has never Was been the same!
