Yo Ho Ho

If I ran a game store I would play the song Yo Ho Ho by Captain Dan and The Scurvy Crew.

Everybody likes an occasional pirate ditty, but this isn't that. Captain Dan and The Scurvy Crew are hardcore rapping pirates. They mix modern slang with pirate slang and modern gangsta rap themes with pirate lifestyle themes to create a very unique take on both genres. Yo Ho Ho is a play on the old "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" song we all heard back in the day, with the "yo ho ho" turned into an audience call and response. It features Captain Dan, Quarter Master Sea Dawg, and Gunner Scott Free rapping about their criminal exploits while DJ SyKo spins the beats. The song's lyrics take no prisoners, covering all of the vile behavior for which pirates are known and sung in boastful manner. The lyrics cover enough deplorable acts that the song is more of a PG-13 song, even though most listeners would be hard pressed to hear the worst of the language.

Yo Ho Ho is from Captain Dan and The Scurvy Crew's 2007 album, Rimes of the Hip-Hop Mariners. They also performed the song on the TV show America's Got Talent. It was season 7 and they didn't get past the audition phase. It's clear that Howie Mandel, Sharon Osbourne, and Howard Stern had it in for the group pretty quickly by buzzing them out and then insulting them. The band has a considerable amount of talent if you're willing to buy into their premise of being rapping pirates, though. There will be a few other songs from Captain Dan and The Scurvy Crew on X Marks the Beat in the future.

Yo Ho Ho on Bandcamp

Pirates vs Ninjas

If I ran a game store I would play the song Pirates vs Ninjas by Raptors Away!.

Pirates vs Ninjas is a guitar-driven, hoarse-throated, crossover thrash tune. Musically it's a little heavy for a game store, but the subject matter makes the song a must-play. The song is about the obvious: a fantasy battle to the death between pirates and ninjas.

It's an established fact that if pirates and ninjas fought that the pirates would win, duh. Yet when Raptors Away! recorded Pirates vs Ninjas they recorded the song with two endings – one describing pirate victory and one describing ninja victory. When the band performed the song live they would poll the audience who would win and play the ending to match. Ideally, both versions of the song will be on my game store's playlist and the playlist will be set to shuffle.

Raptors Away! was a garage band that never really got anywhere. They peaked by getting on the same line-up as The Great Lukeski, Warp 11, and The Phenomenauts at Gen Con So Cal 2004 gaming convention (all these bands will be covered by X Marks the Beat). Dr. Demento was in the audience that night (so was I – the audience voted for pirates) and Raptors Away! was interviewed by Attack of the Show. The band produced a five-song CD for sale at the convention and in 2005 they produced a second CD titled There's One in Every Crowd. They eventually combined both CDs onto a single album titled Rise of the Phoenix. Pirates vs Ninjas was originally titled PvN and was released on There's One in Every Crowd. The name was changed to avoid confusion with PvA (Predators vs Aliens).

Pirates vs Ninjas (pirate victory) on CDBaby

Pirates vs Ninjas (ninja victory) on CDBaby