Paradise Garage / Larry Levan

[mixtape]

Anybody remember the days of Paradise Garage???? I just purchased the cd "live at the paradise garage" its a live mix by resident dj larry levan from the originals days of the paradise garage. Its from 1979. It's a must have for any disco fan. I was just curious, what were some of the classic house songs played there??? Thanks

[Forrrce]

Curiously, it's neither from '79, nor mixed by Levan!

[NickNack]

Originally Posted by Forrrce

Curiously, it's neither from '79, nor mixed by Levan!

Forrrce,

Do you have some dirt? 8)

They advertise this as being 'recorded straight from the dj booth' in 1979. Probably on reel-to-reel.

Please enlighten us.

[Rab]

The mixing sounds like Levan's at the time. The songs are not mixed very well, the volumes don't match from song to song. The CD's have a few hits, with a lot of duds. It sounds like typical 1979 Levan.

[mixtape]

actually i was wondering myself how they were able to record about 90 minutes straight of a set done live at paradise garage at the time. Maybe this mix was used to promote the club at the time??? Because I have a live mix of the club Disco Fever from '81. Maybe the club just wanted to record it for themselves?? dunno, because I have another mix done by larry levan in 1985. I know that it is definitely recorded from Paradise because it has Jocelyn Brown doing "somebody else's guy" live and she says garage a few times in it and u can hear the audience. The mixing definitely is similar to that of the cd from '79. Thats why I think it is larry.

[NickNack]

Originally Posted by mixtape

actually i was wondering myself how they were able to record about 90 minutes straight of a set done live at paradise garage at the time.

Most clubs had a tape deck in the booth. Pop on a 7" or 10" reel of blank tape and go for it. At 3 and 3/4 IPS (Inches Per Second) a '35-90' 7" would give you about 93 minutes per side. Unless you intended to use it for mastering (which at the time most of us did not), the degradation of sound at this slow speed was really negligible.

[SandraDee]

I thought it was strange that this CD featured a very brief snatch of Syreeta's 'Cant Shake Your Love' which I thought was a 1981 track; also Change's 'Angel In My Pocket' is from 1980 so if it was from 1979 Mr.Levan (or whoever it was) must have been able to see into the future! (oo, spooky :o )

[JussiK]

Honestly, people, anyone who went to the Garage in 1979 knows instantly that the cd thing is absolutely a fake. Would Levan have played tracks in some 3 minute cd-friendly chunks - don't think so! The times I went he spinned music in grand style with proper long passages of instrumental magic, jolting weird electroclashy stuff and long hot nasty records. Plus "Born to be Alive" a lot - would those behind the cd have the nerve to include THAT? The garage was disco heaven, nothing like that cd lets on.

[miles mayhem]

check out www.deephousepage.com - a truly amazing repository of online mixes from the seventies to the present. there are levan mixes there, alongside just about everybody else you will have ever heard of