The Get Awesome Ninjas

The Get Awesome Ninjas play a certain brand of sloppy pop-hardcore that I find irresistible. Their first show was at the Battle of The Bands at SUNY Geneseo on February 12, 2004, which was also the first Pink Cammies show. They also played a fantastic Halloween show in 2004 that was killer. They also played at Gabe’s birthday party on November 19, 2004, which happened to be in the apartment formerly occupied by the guitarist from Kalpana. I went to every one of their early shows, and only recently missed my first GAN show.

The GAN are a power trio. Dan, the bassist, plays a fretless bass through a practice amp. This is one of the most “fuck you” setups I could think of. He also has the coolest moped (1964 Peugeot) in all of Livingston County. Zach, on drums, is a crazy art kid. Jeff, on guitar, has some of the most technically advanced guitar playing around. He loves metal and has an instrumental side project called Honeytoast, which is also great.

Much like The Shaggs, I wanted to get them into the studio while they were still hot. I brought them into the WGSU Production Studio and can be forever heard saying “go” at the beginning of many of their tracks. The GAN and the Pink Cammies were totally devoted to doing away with the “I Love You, Babe” fare typical of college-made rock (and tragically rewarded at the aforementioned band battle). They were bands I could love and didn’t have to play in! They were both killer groups whose recordings I will always enjoy.

The GAN definitely has their own GAN sound, yet their songs vary. “Phone” is a melodic hard punk song, with a breakdown and growling. “Beard” takes a contemporary dance-punk sound, and is a great, positive ending to their record. “Star Wars” sets the record to an explosive start. Its rhythm changes and guitar soloing are surprisingly inventive and technical. When the GAN change up their vocal styles for “Sex (Parts 1 and 2)” with operatic, Interpol-at-age-ten style of singing, followed by an emo style speaking section, the result is pure weirdness but also pure fun.

According to my iTunes setup, my favorite GAN song is “(I want to go to) Norway” which states: “I want to go to Norway / I want to live in a spoon / I want to be a Viking / I want you to come too.” It says volumes about their band. Their MO is to be nonsensical, but they want everyone to have fun. Actually, the band is a treat to the Geneseo scene. They are a punk band for everyone. After their first show, one famous Geneseo figure said “I could have listened to Dan sing “Sex Bomb” over and over again for like a half hour!” Although I enjoy being their biggest fan, I feel they deserve more fans and are not even big enough fans of their own music.

Their website: (http://www.geocities.com/getawesomeninjas/) offers this:

We came up with this band in January 2004 for the sole purpose of making some kind of noisy ruckus (hootenanny) and turning some heads at a "battle" of the bands in Geneseo the next month. Of course, Standard College Soft Rock won the prize but who was the moral victor? A question that remains unsettlingly unanswered, like the dinner bell on a West Virginia farm on a summer evening when something terrible is about to happen.

We also played at our friend Gabe's birthday party, something else, and a Halloween party where half the party was there to see us and the other half was there to play beer pong, repeat lines from Chappelle's Show to make themselves feel witty, et cetera. It is now late 2005 and there has been little to no progress but plenty of big talk.

The GAN are so punk, they don’t really even bother to give their songs concrete titles. Nevertheless, here are two of their songs:

The Get Awesome Ninjas - “This Phone Will Self Destruct In Ten Seconds” - Link

They call this one “Dance jam for you to dance to and drink wine coolers, has since been turned into a real song.” but I think of it as “Beard, Aflame” (which is a shortened version of the vulgar title they had when we recorded it!)

The Get Awesome Ninjas - "Beard, Aflame" - Link

If you would like a copy of their seven song, 12 minute CD, post up your email to the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

FACT: The Get Awesome Ninjas’ first show was almost exactly seven years after and 26 miles away from legendary D.C. art punks Jawbox played their last show ever at RIT. It was also exactly 5 years after the events documented in The Starting Line’s superhit “Leaving.”