Artist: Shuffle Demons, Album: Streetniks, Song: Spadina Bus

"I want confirmation of my information about my transportation from Spadina station."  The Shuffle Demons are a jazz group from Toronto who formed in the early eighties.  They started out as a street band, busking on various corners in the city.  They soon brought their act indoors and released their debut, Streetniks, in 1985 with Stony Plain records.  The band's popularity exceeded the city's limits thanks to the power of video.  That's how I learned of them back then.  If you tuned into Much Music for any length of time you probably remember their video for the song, Spadina Bus.  The song was a bit of a parody about our public transportation system and more specifically, the Spadina street route.  The band wore wild costumes and had three sax players.  The original members were Rich Underhill, Mike Murley, Dave Parker, Jim Vivian and Stich Wynston.  The band was actually nominated for a Juno as a result of this release and over the span of more than 2 decades, released 6 albums, toured Canada 20 times and Europe 16 times.  They actually did a street busking tour of Europe prior to the release of this album.  The band still gigs and is touring internationally as well.  You can follow them at http://www.shuffledemons.com/.  You can purchase the album, Streetniks, on Itunes.  You can watch the video for Spadina Bus on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnLjRi_g9o).  As always, you can hear this song as well as others that I blog about each day on Live 365 (http://www.live365.com/stations/raisedoncndnradio).  Thanks for reading and enjoy!