Paradise Lives ! A Tribute To Paradise Garage September 6, 2009

This Labor Day Weekend join Honey Soundsystem as we pay tribute to the legendary Paradise Garage. Our guest discaire will be Steve Fabus.

Steve, one of the original pioneer DJ's, began his career in the Disco Glory Days of the '70's, first spinning at warehouse/loft parties, then gaining residencies at major SF clubs. While Larry Levan, Richie Rivera, and Robbie Leslie were blazing trails at Paradise Garage, Flamingo and 12 West in NYC, Steve and Bobby Viteritti were burning it up in San Francisco at the legendary Trocadero Transfer. During this "Golden Age of Gay", Steve was also a resident at the much-loved I-Beam, where he played at Sunday Tea Dance with Tim Rivers and Michael Garrett. In 1980, Steve was one of the first DJ's to play at "Church", the notorious Sunday morning party at the EndUp. Then, it was time for New York!

In 1983, Steve moved to NYC after getting a residency at 12 West/River Club. A year later he would land another residency at Tracks, where he would play Sunday nights for a number of years, while doing guest shots at the Palladium and the Anvil. Steve frequently went to the Paradise Garage, and David DePino, who played at the Garage with Larry, also played at Tracks, making it a sister club of the Garage.

Steve returned to San Francisco in 1988 to reopen Dreamland and then to play at Crew and Colossus. The '90's found Steve in Los Angeles as a resident at Axis(Factory) and was a frequent guest at Probe and "Does Your Momma Know?" and traveled throughout the country playing at events and clubs. Eventually, the road led Steve back to San Francisco, where he currently lives and continues to spin his soulful flavor of Disco and House.

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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.

The club was strictly "MEMBERS ONLY" and if you got past the body search by the guards in the entrance, you walked up the runway, up the hill and feel the pumping music hitting you by every step. Paradise Garage entrance in 1977-78 You could stop by the changing room to get into your dancing clothes or you could head directly to the huge dancefloor, which would hold up to some 2000 people.

By the dancefloor was also the stage, ALL the best artists entered this stage, people like Grace Jones, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Karen Young, Colonel Abrams... The list is endless. Some famous acts like Gwen Guthrie and others actually started their careers on that stage.

Official Website: http://www.myspace.com/honeysoundsystem