Taco Ockerse!

It was the Summer of 1999 and I was working in the Costuming Division at Disneyland back in my native Anaheim, California. I was set to turn twenty years old that coming September. The nineties were coming to a close, it was Disneyland, a wonderful job and life was great. What made it even greater—are the nights I worked in Costuming—especially Fridays. We always had music softly playing in our department, coming from the speakers in the ceiling, and the station was always set to KBIG 104 (104.3 FM— nowadays known as 104-3 MY FM). Friday nights it was always the 80s greats.

And it was a Friday night there in Costuming when I first heard “Puttin’ on the Ritz” by Taco. It was catchy, and I could’ve swore I probably heard the tune when I was a kid, but wasn’t sure. Then more Friday nights I worked—the more I heard it. It wasn’t until a year later when I purchased by very first computer (with the advent of MP3s just getting underway), so I had to settle for finding it on CD and I eventually did. It became a popular song between me and a couple good friends as one of them was a rather sharp dresser in those days and the lyrics to Taco’s “Ritz”—fit the bill perfectly.

Years later, in 2006, I found myself going through a difficult period with various health concerns of the day and I found great comfort in my iPod that I had started piling music into. So I went looking for “Puttin’ on the Ritz” on iTunes—and soon discovered another, (which I never heard before), hit by Taco—‘Singin’ in the Rain.” It was a great song that helped through some hard times in the spring of ’06. Now this was five years ago or so, and even then—there was barely any up to date on whatever became of Taco Ockerse. There was a fansite (taco.us), but it had been somewhat outdated.

But more recently I discovered that he since has had a significant presence on the internet—thanks to his manager—a man named Roland “Roco” Colerus. This man has built a great website for Taco (www.taco.tc) and established a Facebook account, YouTube and MySpace pages for Taco. Roland really does an outstanding and tremendous job in maintaining the fan contact on the various social networking sites he administers on behalf of the famed singer.

The YouTube page that Roland keeps is awesome. Has tons of videos, both music and promotional, and variations of live appearances by Taco from over the years. One I really like is a recent (2009) in-studio radio interview Taco did in Russia I believe. You can watch it here. Also I saw that there was a 2010 remix done for “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and you can watch/listen to it here (great photographs in that, I might add). I really like the live recording Taco did for “Singin’ in the Rain” that accompanies great guitar riffs towards the ending.

But nothing beats this…of which I think is far better than the 1952 original take on the song/film. And also…some of Taco’s CDs and old vinyls are still found for sale!

“Singin’ in the Rain” 1983- from his album, After Eight