As a long time patron of clubs and dancing I can tell you that no disk will ever capture the feel of the Garage. The Garage had that perfect symbiosis that must occur between the dj and the crowd. The Garage was home to music that only worked there because we were Larry's lab rats and we loved it. We showed the world how Gays and Straights could come together for the sake of music and make it happen... If I had know that we were making history I would have demanded that we would have record more to save for prosperity...

This is a great deal.
Beautifully packaged, great booklet and liner notes, and only cost 9 bucks brand new.
A DJ doing what DJ's are supposed to do...
Pick good records and Play them. Enjoy yourself, and help the crowd do the same.

(As far as mixing faults go, the stories of Larry leaving the booth during a set to clean the lights for half an hour because he wanted the experience to be the best it could be show that seemless mixing and dj tricks where not what it was about. He even slows some tracks down towards the end to mix in the next at it's proper speed, rather than just getting faster and faster. A true journey - up down and back again. Class.)

This is one of the most imperfect live mix CDs available, and would simply not obtain a release if it was recorded by a current DJ.

But this was recorded in much more primitive times, when DJ technology wasn't as developed, underground clubs were not all about perfect mixing and 8 hours of identical, formulaic music.

On this CD, you can hear manual adjustments to record speeds, trainwreck mixing and even some ill-advised mix selections, as well as analogue sound quality.

Yet it all sounds SO much better than your run-of-the-mill "Now That's What I Call Making £££ Out Of The Club Scene II" mix CD released today; most of which aren't really "live mixes", but are made on computers to ensure perfect beatmatching. zzzzzz....

Why then, is this CD apparently so great?

Because you can really feel the passion the DJ has for the music, and the quality of the music is so high that the recording's technical imperfections don't detract from the experience.

Just imagine that you are there. Imagine that your first rave in 1988 was really a visit to the Paradise Garage in 1970s, and just imagine how you would have felt. Would you have been listening out for technically-perfect DJing, or would you have been having the time of your life, at the start of something significant?

Since buying this, I have listened to this dozens of times, and it still sounds amazing. Buy this and listen to history being made. It really is that good.

Excellent historical document - this was just a regular night at the Paradise Garage recorded on tape , while the action was on . You can hear that it's from a tape , because track 11- People's Choice- "Here We Go Again" .. is split into 2 parts , something that happened a lot when the 45 minutes of a cassette's running-time was over , before the song was finished . This is 80 minutes of pure Paradise Garage spirit caught in the act .. He used 2 Thorens turntables without pitch control and a very primitive mixer ,so all of the turnovers are made manually . The only extravaganza you hear here are parts of the intro to an old Grand Funk Railroad track layed over the last song "ERUCU'" by Jermaine Jackson.. children's voices saying - " obey your mother and your father , do what the teacher says and everything will be allright .".another kid says : "I believe there are more people that are bad , than there (are) good ; when you're good you'll live forever , when you're bad you'll die when you die.."

When first purchasing Larry live at the garage my first thoughts were how good it must have been to hear his set in 1978, and why don't they make records as classy as that anymore.

Alex
London

Attention, at this moment you hear music history. The mix isn't that what most of us understand as a technically perfect DJ-set, but I can imagin that THIS was an absolutely INSANITY at this time! Listen and feel the avantgarde in it. Yes.