The evolution of international hi-NRG dance music can be traced from elements of the remnants of the eclectic energy of what was the end of the fashioned disco craze and the need to take the next music step. Dance music's history, so often bashed by its critics for a lack of knowledge and a lack of passion, rose from the ashes to once again to write another chapter. With its "hands-in-the-air" excitement and a driving spirit clocking 130 beats per minute, a new genre was born.
Surrounded by the influences of the late and very great Patrick Cowley, Spanish fusionists Azul Y Negro and a variety of producers with bravado and hooks to match like New York's Bobby Orlando and England's Ian Anthony Stephens, Allan Coelho took a page from their book. Fusing his enthusiasm as a part-time DJ and a constant clubber, he wanted to take his weekend pop dreams playing in local bands and go to a different stage. "At first", Coelho recalls, "we just wanted to be popular in our own community. The world stage is a dream. I don't know if we really shot for the moon that early in the game".
The community he speaks of consisted of thousands of young Portuguese immigrants who came to the Toronto area, searching for a new life as a part of the thriving industrial and cultural metropolis that Canada had become. Almost a half decade later, the West End of downtown Toronto remains a foundation where social clubs rule and church festivals are amongst the highlight of the calendar year. It is here where Coelho, school mates Tony DaCosta and Paul Silva became French Kiss, at that time a wedding and event band. When change came to them musically, they decided a name change was in order. Taking the first letter of each of there given names, Tony, Allan and Paul, pluralized them and became Tapps.
Andree Emond, a lighting magician and part time DJ, heard of the dreams of the trio and introduced them to local record producer Bob Rudd. With a background in music in the Montreal area and a father who was a prominent jazz musician, Rudd's original attraction to the group was a drum machine. "Somehow, we ended up getting together with Bob to start laying a track and getting music together. Then, we had a setback that I thought was going to be the end of the group."
Original member Paul Silva was suddenly struck with a serious medical condition. "It's really heartbreaking because Paul was there in the beginning and we wanted him there with us. We're friends, you know", remembers Coelho. Because of this, and with Paul's blessing, the group's name didn't change and their vision had determination added to it. During the late months of 1982, work began in the producer Rudd's apartment on what was to be the group's first single.
Coelho: "We didn't have a vocalist, so we started auditioning people and many of them came to us from a poster that Bob put in Star Sound, a record store on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. A club kid, Steve Bolton was actually the original lead singer of the band. But somehow it didn't work out. Steve wrote an original song that was kind of strange and I think we all knew that even though the energy was there musically, but the total package really didn't work.
Taking Bolton's original lyric context about a forbidden sexual encounter, club DJ Vincent Degiorgio had started a label called Power Records. "I lived in Le Tube, the club where Vince was spinning and I mean, I really lived there. Tony was Vince's light man for a while and when he played, people stayed" recalls Allan. "I don't think I ever left the club before 7 a.m. on the weekends." Years later, when Coelho became a club-owner for a day, he never forgot those wild days where Sylvester, Bobby O and Cowley ruled the clubs. On the last day Le Tube was opened in 1984, he invited Degiorgio to close the club and play the last day it was opened.
Rewind back to 1982: Degiorgio, as an aspiring lyricist, jumped into the fray by taking the original lyric and twisting the concept. Using the inspiration of Chic's hit of a year before, Bolton's concept was given a vision: My Forbidden Lover. Producer Rudd found a vocalist through a newspaper ad. The search brought Irish-Canadian blondina Barbara Doust to the fold. "Barbara really gave life to the song in a way that I think we were looking for and Tony and Barbara hammered out the melody with a bridge in mind and it just took off. When knew we had something".
During the time that "My Forbidden Lover" was to be released, one mix was done on the track and the sessions weren't exactly a walk in the park. "Allan wanted to quit the night we were mixing it at Kensington Sound" says Degiorgio, who signed the record to his fledgling label. "There was no love lost in a matter of weeks in the production, with the headstrong Rudd making certain production decisions that were making the band crazy". An unknown fact is that Degiorgio's room mate at the time, DJ Chris Klaodatos called Degiorgio and summoned him to the studio. "I can still remember Chris saying 'Get the hell down here or there will be no record' and at the time I didn't drive. So here I was taking a taxi to find that we were minutes away from finishing a record and suddenly the producer wanted the chorus to be instrumental!!”
Cooler heads prevailed and the song was mixed and printed. The label pressed up the first 500 copies and they didn't sell, they flew out of the shops. While working at a local dance retailer, Degiorgio started to see a buzz. "We knew that the reaction was legitimate and then international territories started calling". Soon after the 12" vinyl was released in Canada, exports to Mexico, the United States and Holland had a local band go from wanting to hit their community to having one of the most successful dance records in Canadian history, charting at # 1 for ten weeks with TOPA, Canada's most influential record pool. When dance label Friends Records called from Holland, it wasn't just for that territory, but for all of Europe. "My Forbidden Lover" became one of the biggest Hi-NRG records worldwide, garnering a # 2 single in Holland on the dance chart, only to be blocked out of the penthouse by Herbie Hancock's "Rockit". Subsequent releases in Spain, Germany, the U.S and Mexico solidified the group as an act to watch. A tour of Holland ensued, and was coupled with a riotous tour of Mexico. "I thought we were the Beatles, remembers Coelho, because it was absolute insanity. At one gig I didn't think we were going to get out of there alive. It was absolute madness". The group, who did very few gigs in Canada despite its success, performed for over 100,000 people at one event. Its memories intact, enjoined on tours by Candy Berthiaume as its lead vocalist for duration of the group's recording, it was not without its problems.
Success came with a price. And the price was paid during what was to be the fabled first album of the group to follow. After a remix for the UK was refused when their debut reached the UK HiNRG top 10 as an import by their producer, the group went into Studio 306 to record their debut album. Dipping into their past performances, the group took an original folklore track "Madeira Dance", their first attempt at a ballad with "Keep Me In My Mind" (co-written with Doust) and a variety of other tracks that remain unreleased. The only song to emerge from these sessions was a song called "Burning With Fire".
