Casey and had worked the lights for the previous DJs. Joey was known to lubricate the turntable platter with actual wax underneath a primitive, felt slipmat for easier cueing. Frankie Knuckles called him one of the unsung DJs of the club’s history, and he’s credited with being the first to invite Larry Levan into the booth. “Someone needed to work the lights to segue with the songs seamlessly, and Larry was great at that,” says manager Don Scotti. When Ostrow wouldn’t give Bonfiglio a raise, he left, and the gig was open to the first person who could piece together a record collection. By now, the young pair of best friends Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles were mainstays at the club. “Larry was this crazy, talented kid, and Frankie was very level- headed and grown up for his age. Larry would do a lot of crazy things, like dress in orange hot pants and dye his hair orange and dance on top of a car. Frankie would protect him from all the people who would want to beat him up,” says Siano. “They had very different personalities,” says Don Scotti. “Larry was bigger than life, and
and told them he wanted records for me,” says Siano.“Then [Larry] used those records at the Baths.” In those days, DJs kept their collections at their main club of residence to avoid transporting heavy crates of records. Soon the walls of the Continental Baths DJ booth were lined with Levan’s growing record collection.While Larry was mixing, Frankie would work the lights.“Musically, we’d be all over the place, which could’ve been fun for our towel-clad listeners, or a nightmare,” said Frankie. Larry began mimicking other DJs of the time, playing safe mixes like Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “Bad Luck” into MFSB’s “The Sound of Philadelphia.” According to Siano, Larry took some pages from Siano’s book of tricks with signature moves like dropping a blaring 707 jet- plane sound effect over MFSB’s “Love Is the Message.” But once Larry gained more confidence, he began to be the first to break songs, such as South Shore Commission’s anthemic “Free Man.” Manager Don Scotti took notice of Levan’s talents.“He was a creative genius, he
Frankie was like a sponge soaking up that energy from Larry. Frankie was nice in capital letters. Larry was more caustic, more of a smash queen. He was spontaneous, where Frankie Knuckles was more involved and personable,” says Casey. Their first taste of DJing was during the day when there wasn’t a scheduled DJ. “We spent many hours, days, and nights playing one-for-one, honing and sharpening our skills,” said Knuckles. Although they were still both under twenty-one, the pair had received a serious education in music as regulars and informal assistants at Nicky Siano’s Gallery, where they’d blow up balloons before the shows and do other odd jobs around the club. Eventually, Nicky and Larry became romantically involved, a relationship Levan leveraged in order to build the record collection he’d soon use at the Baths. Although Levan has claimed in an interview that he borrowed records from another friend, 9 Siano remembers it differently: “Larry went behind my back to the record companies I’d been taking him to for years
84 Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan at the Continental Baths, from Tim Lawrence’s Love Saves the Day (original photo courtesy of Bob Casey).
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