Since 1990 and throughout most of the decade, if you lived in Atlanta, you couldn't get away from the Urban Shakedancers. The bluesy band played six nights a week to meet the demand. "We did play endlessly, just all the time," says Shakedancers lead singer/guitarist Robert Paige. "We gigged hard."

Inevitably, perhaps, the pace began to slow, some time after the Olympics. Members revolved in and out. But despite personnel changes over many years, the Shakedancers' momentum never stopped entirely. They finally split for good only when Paige moved to Charleston last summer.

But the Urban Shakedancers -- which also includes bassist Mike Williams, drummer "Country Bill" Edwards, guitarist Jim Ransone and Dan Seifert on organ -- couldn't stay away from each other for long. A two-night stand at the Northside Tavern will reunite the band's original lineup, with Paul Linden on harmonica, this weekend. "Nobody's forgotten a thing," says Paige. "We played so much that the songs were just ingrained."

Their sound, he says, "is not straight blues so much as it is a hopped-up, rocked-out blues. We give nightmares to the blues police, because I don't give a crap about that purist stuff. What I do is get up there and have fun, and I look out and I see everybody else having fun."

It's more fun for the band this time around, Paige says, because "now it's less of an occupation and just more of an art thing again. Shows like this, it's more like it was when we began."

And that's reason enough for a reunion. "It is kooky, but we still have the best time together. It's just because we love each other and we miss each other, and we sound great together, and there's nobody that's going to deny that."

The Urban Shakedancers play the Northside Tavern, Fri.-Sat., Jan. 18-19.