The Sound That Shook the World: Keith Haring and the Paradise Garage

If you follow our social media, you might have discovered that AM loves Keith Haring. In our opinion, the world would be a very different place if it hadn’t been so prolifically marked with his confident line and egalitarian worldview.

Keith Haring’s love of music and the influence it had on his work has been comprehensively covered. A lesser-known fact about the legendary artist is that he was an uncompromisingly passionate clubbing enthusiasts who always kept his Saturday nights free owing to his ongoing love-affair with the Paradise Garage nightclub.

Even at the height of his fame, the sought-after artist removed all work-related obstacles to immersing himself in the transformative experiences offered by the storied New York hotspot known as the Paradise Garage. A liberationist space where the euphoria-inducing beats were administered by the iconic resident DJ, Larry Levan, by way of the club’s game-changing, history-making soundsystem.  

Haring describes the Paradise Garage in his journals:

'I don’t know if you know how important the Paradise Garage is, at least for me and the tribe of people who have shared many a collective spiritual experience there. The Garage also changed or affected my life incredibly through various ‘re-imprinting’ experiences and transformations.'  

 

The Paradise Garage has been the subject of many thoroughgoing articles and documentaries, focusing on the culture surrounding the club, its flamboyant and charismatic resident DJ, Larry Levan, and the club’s soundsystem; a state-of-art, custom-made labor of love and ingenuity, which would go on to form the blueprint for the modern club environment we know today.

Spare a reverential thought for the clubbing OGs on your next night out; Keith Haring, Larry Levan and the rest of the New York crew from th ‘70s and ‘80s paved the way for getting lost in exceptional sound.