Purveyors of a global pleasant revolution in music and transportation made a pit stop at the University last Saturday, as students and Middletown residents were treated to a showcase of the Ginger Ninjas’ self described “mind shaking love groove folk funk roots rock explosive international pedal powered mountain music for a pleasant revolution,” at the High Rise/Low Rise barbeque. The Environmental Organizers Network (EON) invited the bicycle-powered band to campus.
The Ginger Ninjas are environmentally conscious to an extreme degree: They rely solely on their bicycles to transport themselves and their gear, no matter what the weather. In addition, they generate their own electricity at their shows by connecting stationary bikes to wires and generators and pedaling for power before and during the show. These measures follow the principles of their “Pleasant Revolution,” which advocates sustainable living and anti-consumerism.
This was the second show of their second tour, but it was their first time playing at an American university. On their recent Mexican tour, the Ginger Ninjas biked over 5000 miles to play 80 shows. The current tour is global in scope: after playing the East Coast, they will continue on to Mexico, Costa Rica, and Europe.
Samantha Zangrilli, who bikes with the band and cooks their food, said the idea of touring on bicycles came from Kipchoge Spencer, lead guitarist and singer. He had toured with bands using bicycles and a van. Spencer wanted to make petroleum-free music and opted to cut the van from touring.
“The tour is also about bicycle advocacy—living on a bike because you can, not because you can’t afford a car,” Zangrilli said.
In 1998, Spencer founded Xtracycle, a company that produces load-carrying bicycles. The Ginger Ninjas use these custom bikes because they have storage compartments for instruments and amps. Spencer likened these to the trunks of motor vehicles, and stressed that they are part of the larger notion that people should be able to use their bikes for all aspects of their everyday lives.
“The idea of the bikes is to enable people to do all that they need to do on a bike,” Spencer said.
The band clearly puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to placing bikes at the center of their lives and livelihood. Before last Saturday’s show began, Zangrilli hoped on a bike and began pedaling in place to start up the band’s equipment. Soon other members of the band were on other bikes on stage, pedaling to generate the energy that would be used for the show. When they had produced enough, the show began with a set by singer-songwriter Crystal Stafford.
During Stafford’s set, several University students, including Aliza Simons ’09, got on bikes to keep the energy flowing. Two songs in, the power went out, either because not enough energy had been generated or because too much had.
Simons explained that each bike has a meter with the colors white, yellow, green, and red to indicate to the rider if they’re going too fast or too slow. After tinkering with wires and generators and calls of “Pedal! Pedal! Pedal!” from singer/guitarist Eco Lopez, the band had the energy back to the right level.
Recording it all was documentary filmmaker Eric Phillips-Horst, who interviewed the band about its methods and philosophy for a documentary entitled “The Green Horns.”
“It’s a film about young farmers and sustainability,” Phillips-Horst said. “It’s about stuff like powering your instruments with bikes and growing your own food.”
After Stafford finished, the Ginger Ninjas took the stage flanked by pedaling audience members and introduced themselves as a “bicycle traveling band” that has biked from Northern California to Chiapas, Mexico. Based upon their comments during the show, it doesn’t seem like they plan on ending their pedal-powered sojourns any time soon.
“We don’t really want to stop riding. We dig it,” Lopez said happily.
The Ginger Ninjas’ songs all deal with environmental or political causes, or the theme of liberating oneself from society’s constraints. One song, for example, tells of a genetically mutated frog.
Though the audience was small, the Ginger Ninjas put on a fun show, playing bluesy, funky, and extremely danceable rock highlighted by Lopez’s sweet vocals. Many audience members got chances to participate, hopping on bikes to keep the power flowing.
After the show concluded with a song about Dick Cheney’s need for love, Lopez said the band would be stoked if some people would buy their CDs. Spencer, ever committed to environmentalism and the biking lifestyle, smiled and put forth another request of the audience.
“We’d be more stoked if you forsake auto-mobility forever,” Spencer said.
As the tour rolls forward, the Ginger Ninjas will continue to combine art and activism, biking hard through states and countries and relying on the friendly help of those they meet. Whether seeking food, shelter, or showers in churches, backyards, forests, or Earth House, drummer Brock Wollard insisted the kindness of strangers always seems to materialize.
Bassist Jared May added of the touring experience: “It’s the coolest adventure I’ve ever done in my life. Magical stuff happens all the time.”
David Demarest, the group’s self-described “engineer/PR/sherpa,” pointed to the appealing combination of activism and athleticism that lies at the heart of the band’s touring process.
“I’m spreading this message,” Demarest said. “This [bicycle-riding] is fun to do.”
But, Demarest admitted, there is one drawback.
“My legs are killing me,” he said.
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