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Formed in March 1987 on the north shore of Massachusetts, Balboa Dance comprised three childhood friends: Elliott Hopkins, Jon Talbot and Doug Woodward. Hopkins and Woodward had been playing music together since they were 9 years old, taking guitar lessons at The Lynn Conservatory of Music in Salem. They would play their first live show together in 1983 (with Woodward on lead vocals) as part of the band Full Blast. A short-lived project, Full Blast only ever performed live once (at a local high school dance), also marking the first and last time the pair would play on a stage together until June of 1987, when Balboa Dance made their debut at TT The Bear's club in Cambridge, Mass. Meanwhile, Hopkins and Talbot had performed together in The Affect, a band they formed as teenagers at Danvers High School, near Boston. The Affect recorded a 2-song demo in 1984 at Fishbrook Music in Boxford with Ross Warner (who had worked with EMI recording artists "The Fools" and the late Brad Delp of local heroes Boston). The resulting songs, "Little Girl" and "AT A Y", received airplay on area college stations as well as "Bay State Rock", the local music show on commercial rock station WAAF. The band also gigged at various Boston area clubs until Talbot announced he was leaving the group (having decided that music and playing live were not for him). The Affect played their final show at Boston's legendary Channel Club in November 1984.
After graduating high school in 1985, the three friends drifted apart. Woodward went away to college; Talbot took a job at Parker Brothers in Salem; and Hopkins showcased his musical prowess with various bands (including Innocence and Capture The Flag), while also dabbling with classes at UMass/Boston. It was during an uneventful spring break in 1987 that the seeds of Balboa Dance were sown. Sitting in his apartment in Boston, Hopkins came up with a bass riff and sketched out some lyrics to a new song. He phoned Woodward, who also was home on break (from UMass/Amherst), and Talbot. The trio convened for an inauspicious reunion at Hopkins' parent's house in Danvers to work on the new song, just for the fun of it. That night, they completed "What You've Done" and, feeling inspired, Hopkins rang up Fish Brook studio owner Ross Warner to ask if he could drop by with some friends to demo a song that he'd been working on. That next morning, the three of them showed up in Boxford to record "What You've Done" with Talbot singing lead, Hopkins on bass/keyboards, Woodward playing guitar, and the backing of a drum machine. Balboa Dance were born… [end of part 1; part 2 coming soon]
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