There’s this group that I love. They’re called Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and they’re from Toronto. It’s impossible to talk about this group without talking about the Kids in the Hall, so let’s start there.

In the early 80’s, a group of five Toronto comedians - Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson - formed a comedy troupe, and in 1989, launched a sketch comedy show on Canadian TV channel CBC, named The Kids in the Hall. It was like Saturday Night Live, albeit with a much smaller cast and a much stranger, less accessible sense of humor. Despite having a bit of a cult favorite reputation and a number of oft-quoted sketches (“I’m crushing your head!”), it’s never been at the center of any cultural zeitgeist like SNL. Much of it survives on YouTube, though; here’s one of my favorite TV show sketches ever, a hilarious jab at classic rock fandom featuring Kevin McDonald and Bruce McCulloch.

The surf music you heard at the end of that video - that’s Shadowy Men. They provided all of the music for all of the show’s interludes, and it was a perfect pairing - the show’s quirky, hip vibe went perfectly with the band’s loopy cocktail of surf and new wavey pop. The show’s main theme that played over the opening credits was “Having an Average Weekend,” the band’s most well-known song by a landslide, and also one of their best. It’s quintessentially Shadowy Men - bouncy instrumental surf.

Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet formed in 1984 (the same year the Kids in the Hall formed) and consisted of Brian Connelly on guitar, Reid Diamond on bass, and Don Pyle on drums. They garnered regional popularity, primarily for their Kids in the Hall exposure, as well as a string of EPs they released (later compiled on 1988’s Savvy Show Stoppers).

Despite the fact that their sound featured all the conventions (fuzzy, reverberated guitars and sunny atmospheres) of instrumental surf music, they adamantly denied during their active years that they were a surf band, as evidenced by a track on their final album, Sport Fishin’: The Lure of the Bait, the Luck of the Hook, “We’re Not a Fucking Surf Band.” They hilariously reneged on this last year with a boxset release titled “Oh, I Guess We Were a Fucking Surf Band After All…”

They’re goofy and funny when they want to be, which is most of the time. All of their song titles are surreal non-sequiturs; “They Don’t Call Them Chihuahuas Anymore,” “Ben Hur Picked Off in a Gazebo,” “Hunter S. Thompson’s Younger Brother,” among others. When they want to be a more serious group, they pull it off well; “Siesta Cinema,” one of the last tracks on side B of their debut album Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham, is another one of their strongest tracks, free of intentional silliness. It’s a straightforward summery pop song, and it’s a joy, an earworm - very hard not to fall in love with.

The group took an extended hiatus after bassist Reid Diamond’s death in 2001 - in recent years, they’ve reunited with new bassist Dallas Good, and sporadically play shows and festivals. Hopefully they record new material soon - their catalog is unfortunately limited. Check them out - you’re bound to love at least a few songs.