Eric Szabo, the french horn player, was born in Toronto, but moved to Stouffville (a suburb north of Markham) when he was 7. He started playing music early on, taking piano lessons and playing trumpet in elementary and high school. In grade 12, he decided to switch over to French Horn to pursue a career in classical performance. After high school, he went to York University where he met the guys who would eventually become the band now known as Turbo Street Funk. In the summer of 2011, he decided to take his horn to the street. He joined Dan and the gang for one night to see how it went. It was a huge success and he stuck with the group ever since.
Little is known about Camilo, the mysterious drummer. He appears to be a human male though this remains to be confirmed. It is also said that his voice can only be heard by cats. Luckily his drum skills speak for themself.
Daniel Walsh, the trombonist and band leader, is from Markham, a suburb. Both his parents, Irene and Frank, are musicians themselves so Daniel took to it naturally. In high school, Daniel was heavily involved in the music program(where he met Eric for the first time), playing trombone in band and playing guitar and bass in some groups which he created himself in the school. He didn't take to trombone for a long time though because of his interest in hard rock and heavy metal. This was in fact amplified during his brief stay at Humber College where he studied jazz trombone yet ultimately got swept up in playing in the death metal scene, leading to him dropping out.
After a year of reflection and practicing, Daniel attended York University studying jazz guitar. He joined the York R&B Band on trombone headed by Prof. Mike Cado and slowly started to get noticed as a strong player. Now finishing his 3rd year at York, Daniel is playing trombone at all times, leading several bands and working his way towards becoming a professional freelance musician and band leader. Turbo Street Funk is his biggest accomplishment yet and likely will be for a long time.
Colombian born sax player Juan Arce has been working as a saxophonist since 2003 performing a lot in the Latin music scene as well as with jazz and funk bands. He is currently in his third year of jazz studies at York University, leading his own Latin-music band "Son de America", and as he says "having an awesome time playing with Turbo Street Fun"
Casey was born in Toronto but moved around with his parents a lot as a kid. He spent time in Australia, New Jersey, Brazil and the Netherlands before finally returning to Toronto for university. Casey's background is in Blues music including guitar and harmonica, but he's been pursuing Jazz bass at York University. Casey loves it here in Toronto and as well as digging the Jazz scene here, he loves being part of the city's dynamic street culture scene. See you on the street!
Tuba player Trishul "Trix" Sharma was born on September 18th, 1989 in Muscat, Oman. Moving to Canada with his parents, sister, and grandmother at the age of 8, Trix began study in music through the public school system at the age of 10.In 2001 Trix started playing the tuba after being the only student to ask to play the instrument. From then on he was involved in as many musical endeavors his elementary school, and eventually high school, had to offer.In 2004 Trix picked up his first bass guitar, with the intention of playing in his high school jazz band. Though his original intention was to play jazz on the bass, he found that he enjoyed playing rock, metal, and punk (and all of their sub-genres) much more. To this day Trix will take any opportunity to rock out on the bass guitar.After high school, under pressure from his parents, Trix did a year at Ottawa University at the Telfer School of Management in a Bachelor of Commerce program. After a semester of misery he decided that it was time to get back to what he loved doing; music.Trix is now at York University doing an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in music. York is where Trix met Daniel Walsh, the leader of Turbo Street Funk, and through Daniel he met Casey van Gorkom, Juan Arce, and Eric Szabo. After collaborating on projects on and off through the years, the idea of Turbo Street Funk was born in the summer of 2011. Trix spends most of his time now days focusing on classical performance, but when it comes to Turbo Street Funk he is just as passionate as any of the other musicians in the band.
The group that is known to be Turbo Street Funk today came from a very humble beginning. It started out when our leader, Daniel Walsh, gave some of his friends a call to come downtown to busk for an evening. Among those that he called were sax player, Juan Arce, tuba player, Trix Sharma, and guitarist, Casey Van Gorkom. At first no one took the idea to be anything more than a way to have some fun on a Friday night. However, after a couple nights the members realized that if they pushed themselves enough it could be profitable enough to make a modest living. The ramifications of that hit everyone at the same time, and when it did; full-time jobs were quit, and tuning slides were greased up. Turbo Street Funk stopped being a silly idea and started to become a way of life. Camilo Giraldo was quickly recruited to play the drums, and happens to be able to fix absolutely any mechanical difficulties that the band has. A few weeks later french horn player Eric Szabo was picked up to round out the sound of the band; and round out the sound it did. For the entirety of Summer 2011, Turbo Street Funk could be found playing on street corners of Toronto such as Queen and Spadina, King and John, Yonge and College and many others. In November, they had their CD Release Party at the Pilot Tavern having featured Toronto jazz legend, Richard Underhill, in a rendition of his song "Spadina Bus"
