It’s inspired by London’s black gay underground, and the clubs – along with the DJs – that conversely are at risk of being forgotten. Sweaty, funky, and fierce, its fame has seen it carved into the stone slabs of dance music history.īut now, a new play at Depford’s Albany Theatre is telling a parallel story from the same period.
And for everyone on the dancefloor, real life could be forgotten for a moment and replaced by the soundsystem, a cloud of poppers, and waves of naked flesh. Since its closure in 1987, the Garage has come to be regarded as the mother of modern clubbing: it was where house music icon Frankie Knuckles cut his teeth, where resident DJ Larry Levan would wow the crowd with his legendary sets, and where cult artists and musicians from Keith Haring to Arthur Russell would sometimes slip in and dance until the early hours. During the ten years it was open, the Paradise Garage was a magnet for New York City’s black gay community.
