Ninja Sex Party

Ninja Sex Party

Ninja Sex Party on the set of their music video "Next to You".
Background information
Origin New York City, New York
Genres Comedy rock, synthpop
Years active 2009–present
Labels Micro, Inc.
Associated acts Starbomb, Steel Panther, Tupper Ware Remix Party
Website http://www.ninjasexparty.com
Members Danny Sexbang (Leigh Daniel Avidan)
Ninja Brian (Dr. Brian Wecht, Ph.D.)

Ninja Sex Party is a musical comedy duo based in Los Angeles (originally New York City), consisting of Danny Sexbang and Ninja Brian.[1] Their videos have been featured on the front pages of Funny or Die, CollegeHumor, and Dailymotion. They have performed at many venues throughout North America, including the Upright Citizen's Brigade, the Timeout NY Lounge and a monthly slot at the Peoples Improv Theater in Manhattan. Additionally, they have appeared in various sketch comedy festivals, including the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival,[2] Boston's Women In Comedy Festival, and Geek Week at ImprovBoston. As of February 13, 2016, the duo's YouTube page has 650,521 subscribers and 77,253,436 views.[3]

Career

2009–2012: Formation and early career

Dan (vocals), who previously sang in the bands The Northern Hues and Skyhill,[4][5] and Brian (keyboard), who was musical director of a comedy troupe in New York,[6] formed Ninja Sex Party in 2009 after being introduced by mutual friends at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre. Inspired by The Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, Ninja Sex Party is about "a Jewish superhero who wears a unitard, with his best friend who's a ninja, and together they sing songs about dicks, and try to hit [unsuccessfully] on women."[7]

They began performing together that summer, and since have acquired a large and loyal following from their live shows and music videos on YouTube. Their videos include animated contributions from popular YouTube and Newgrounds animators such as Egoraptor, OneyNG, RicePirateNewgrounds, StamperTV, Spazkid, Hans Van Harken, Gregzilla, PsychicPebbles and RubberNinja. As of February 2016, they have been viewed over 77 million times worldwide, and have appeared in many film festivals, including SXSW (2011),[8] Dragon*Con (2011, 2012), and the LA Comedy Shorts Festival (2011, 2012).

They have been awarded "Best Comedy Video" at Industry Power Play's international music video competition, as well as the "Trophy of Awesomeness" on Vimeo's video website.[9] They won "Best Comedy Video Short" and "Best Comedy Song" in Improvisation News' 2010 INNY comedy awards[10] Their video "Sex Training" was also featured on the Comedy page of The Huffington Post.[11]

In 2011, they released their first album NSFW, including many of their songs featured on YouTube. It is available on iTunes and other music download sources.

2013–present: Strawberries & Cream, Starbomb, Game Grumps, & Attitude City

The band released their second album, Strawberries and Cream, in April 2013. In July, the band also announced a new single entitled "Party of Three", to be included in their third album. The song featured an appearance from animator, voice actor and comedian Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson; costar of Avidan's other project, comedy Let's Play webseries Game Grumps. The music video for the song, released the following October, also featured other friends and acquaintances from YouTube and Game Grumps in particular, including Game Grumps animator and editor Barry Kramer and animator Ross "RubberNinja" O'Donovan, amongst others. In late June, Jon "JonTron" Jafari left Game Grumps and was later replaced by Avidan. Soon after Jafari's replacement, a sister show to Game Grumps was made called Steam Train featuring Avidan and O'Donovan with guest appearances by Hanson.[12] After multiple videos featuring the trio, a sister show to Steam Train was announced, similarly named Steam Rolled, which featured Hanson, O'Donovan, Avidan, Kramer, and Suzy "Mortem3r" Berhow. In December 2013, Ninja Sex Party's YouTube channel teased a collaboration album with Hanson called Starbomb, under the alias "Starbomb".[13] The video featured Hanson rapping and Avidan singing on a song titled "I Choose You to Die (Pokémon)." Later that month, the Game Grumps YouTube channel advertised pre-orders for Starbomb's first album with a video showing Hanson and NSP recording another song, "Crasher-vania (Castlevania)." Later that day, NSP's channel confirmed that Starbomb would also be available for digital download in another video featuring Starbomb recording "Mega Marital Problems (Mega Man)." Starbomb's debut album was released on December 17, 2013.

Ninja Sex Party contributed the ending song for the film Dick Figures: The Movie. On January 20, 2014, Mondo Media posted a video explaining fans could submit footage to make the song into a fan-made video. This music video was released on April 3, 2014.[14]

On the week of May 4, 2013, NSP album Strawberries and Cream debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Comedy charts.[15] Also, starting on the week of February 15, 2014, Starbomb would hold the number 1 spot in comedy for 4 consecutive weeks.[16] Starbomb also reached #1 on the Billboard Heatseeker Charts for 2 consecutive weeks starting with the week of January 4, 2014 [17] In July, 2014, Ninja Sex Party performed a concert for San Diego Comic-Con International at Nerd HQ, Petco Park, and during the concert, they released two new songs for their upcoming album, Attitude City. They played the audio accompanied with a lyric video for their unreleased song, "Road Trip." They also released the music video for "Why I Cry" during the concert.[18][19] On November 19, 2014, they released a music video for the song "Peppermint Creams".[20]

On January 12, 2015, Ninja Sex Party as Daniel Avidan and Brian Wecht released a cover on their YouTube channel of "The Last Unicorn," the theme song to the 1982 animated film based on the Peter S. Beagle novel of the same name. The video also promotes Beagle's ongoing worldwide screening tour of The Last Unicorn. The band has made the cover downloadable for free at their Bandcamp page.[21][22] On January 23 of that same year, a single was released by the band Tupper Ware Remix Party, collaborating with Ninja Sex Party, titled "The Hit."[23]

After an announcement on June 17, 2015 stating the release date of their third album Attitude City, it was released on July 17, 2015 on iTunes and CD Baby.[24] It was one of the top 20 best-selling albums on Amazon.com circa July 2015.[25]

An upcoming album of cover songs called NSP: Under the Covers was announced on July 28, 2015 in a Game Grumps episode. This album will also feature Tupper Ware Remix Party on backing instruments.[26] The album is planned for a tentative March 4 release.[27]

2015: Skyhill reunion

On October 7, 2015, Avidan released the single "Firefly" with Peter Lennox. The two had previously worked together as the atmospheric band Skyhill from 2006 to 2007. The song briefly became the number-one best-selling album on Amazon upon release.[28]

Discography

Influence

Danny's original name (before sexbang) was "Sweetnuts." Avidan appeared in the 2014 PC game Default Dan as a playable option.[29]

Avidan, and his co-hosts from Game Grumps, Arin and Ross, will be playable characters in the game Hex Heroes for the Wii U. Avidan will also be providing voiceover work for his character.[30]

References

  1. ↑ Milne, Gregory (2013-11-07). "Ninja Sex Party: Tales of Strawberries and Cream". Living Myth Media. Retrieved 2014-03-15.. Archived from the original
  2. ↑ "Toronto Sketch Festival Lineup".. Archived from the original
  3. ↑ "Ninja Sex Party's Channel".
  4. ↑ "Skyhill's Biography". skyhillmusic.com. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  5. ↑ Overview of Danny's life, archived from the original. colinwolftales.com
  6. ↑ Ninja Sex Party Interview
  7. ↑ Ninja Sex Party interview with "Lydia Wants To Know"
  8. ↑ "SXSW Lineup".. Archived from the original.
  9. ↑ Ninja Sex Party's video "The Decision" on the "Trophy of Awesomeness" page. Archived from the original.
  10. ↑ "INNY Awards 2010".
  11. ↑ Hartsell, Carol (27 January 2011). "'Sex Training' with Ninja Sex Party". Huffington Post.
  12. ↑ Amini, Tina (2013-06-26). "Fans Are Upset Over YouTube Duo 'Game Grumps' Break-Up". Kotaku. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  13. ↑ Napierski, Steve (2013-12-19). "Luigi's Ballad". Dueling Analogs. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  14. ↑ Ninja Sex Party's music video for the "Dick Figures" song.
  15. ↑ Comedy Charts, Billboard. "Billboard Comedy Charts". Billboard.com. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  16. ↑ Charts, Billboard. "Billboard Comedy Charts". Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  17. ↑ Heatseeker Charts, Billboard. "Billboard Heatseeker Chart". Billboard.com. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  18. ↑ Maker Studios to Make an Appearance at Comic-Con 2014
  19. ↑ Ninja Sex Party, live footage at Nerd HQ
  20. ↑ Peppermint Creams - NSP
  21. ↑ [The Last Unicorn (Cover) - Dan Avidan and Brian Wecht https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF1Q56YAo0Q]
  22. ↑ The Last Unicorn | Ninja Sex Party
  23. ↑ TWRP (2015-01-23). "The Hit (feat Ninja Sex Party)". Bandcamp. Retrieved 2015-01-24.
  24. ↑ https://twitter.com/ninjasexparty/status/612707513998385152
  25. ↑ "Attitude City [Explicit]". Amazon. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  26. ↑ "Sonic Adventure DX: Sorcery of Ehh - PART 10 - Game Grumps". YouTube. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  27. ↑ Game Grumps (28 January 2016). Twitch - Stream Train!! UNDERTALE GENOCIDE FINAL FIGHT (Twitch livestream).
  28. ↑ "Firefly". Amazon. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
  29. ↑ Kikiwik Games (2014-01-30). "Play as Default Danny!". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  30. ↑ Prismatic Games LLC (2014-09-04). "OUR GRUMPIEST ANNOUNCEMENT YET". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2014-12-04.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.