The NESkimos
Encyclopedia
The NESkimos are an independent American
video game music cover band
from St. Augustine
, Florida
. They are known for their songs based on video game music, as well as covers of songs from popular
television shows and movies. They fancy themselves a video game cover band that, rather than try and recreate songs note-for-note, opt to artistically explore and expand upon the songs they cover, via creating additional parts (such as their cover of Grape Garden from Kirby's Adventure
) or creating lyrics (such as their cover of Norfair from Metroid
). The NESkimos have gained a very fierce, loyal following on their web forums (fans refer to themselves as NESkimites), and they allow fans to download all their music, for free, from their website. They perform in clubs throughout the Southeast United States, and have made appearances at MAGfest
and PAX (Penny Arcade
Expo). In 2004, they were featured on MTV
's Ultimate Video Game Countdown (hosted by Seanbaby
).
The NESkimos are plagued by the fact that many of their songs are on peer-to-peer
networks, sometimes incorrectly tagged as being recorded by the older VGM
cover band, The Minibosses
. Their current status is unknown, as their website has not been updated in several years.
(NES) with the word Eskimos. This is a nod both to the practice of third-wave ska
bands in the early 1990s fabricating band names that somehow involve the word "ska" and to the DOS-based Nintendo emulator NESticle
, which the band's founder Dr. Wily credits as giving him the idea to cover NES music.
As of February 2006, bassist
Simon Belmont has left the band. Keeping with the Castlevania
/bassist
theme, the NESkimos have decided on the name for their new bass player
: Trevor Belmont. He is also referred to as the "Dog from Duck Hunt
".
As of 17 January 2007, drummer Mario and bass player Dog from Duck Hunt had left the band in unrelated circumstances. A new bass player has signed on, and Dr Wily has announced that it is likely that future drums will be programmed. The synthetic drums have been jokingly referred to as "Drums Man", a reference to the Megaman villain Dr. Wily's naming conventions for all of his creations. This leaves Dr Wily as the only founding member of the band currently performing. However, the NESkimos seem recently to be inactive, as none of these releases have come to fruition and their site has not been updated since 2006.
A few songs also feature guitar solos from The Shredder, and one song features Napalm Man on alto saxophone.
format on the internet
, and provide album artwork.
The NESkimos were planning on releasing a new album, Explod (originally titled Brutality), in 2007, as well as a purchasable "best-of" CD, The Strongening. They also planned to release an album in CD form, featuring the material recorded from their Penny-Arcade Expo 2007 show.
A partial unfinished album entitled Balance is available here, which contains the songs currently only otherwise available as a stream on the NESkimos MySpace page.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
video game music cover band
Cover band
A cover band , is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is...
from St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. They are known for their songs based on video game music, as well as covers of songs from popular
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
television shows and movies. They fancy themselves a video game cover band that, rather than try and recreate songs note-for-note, opt to artistically explore and expand upon the songs they cover, via creating additional parts (such as their cover of Grape Garden from Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Adventure, known as in Japan, is a platforming video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. It was first released March 26, 1993 in Japan, and was later released in North America on May 1, 1993, and in Europe on...
) or creating lyrics (such as their cover of Norfair from Metroid
Metroid
is an action-adventure video game, and the first entry in the Metroid series. It was co-developed by Nintendo's Research and Development 1 division and Intelligent Systems, and was released in Japan in August 1986, in North America in August 1987, and in Europe in January 1988...
). The NESkimos have gained a very fierce, loyal following on their web forums (fans refer to themselves as NESkimites), and they allow fans to download all their music, for free, from their website. They perform in clubs throughout the Southeast United States, and have made appearances at MAGfest
MAGFest
MAGFest is an annual convention held in Virginia that celebrates video games and video game music, as well as their surrounding culture...
and PAX (Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...
Expo). In 2004, they were featured on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's Ultimate Video Game Countdown (hosted by Seanbaby
Seanbaby
Sean Patrick Reiley , better known as Seanbaby, is an American writer best known for his comedy website and frequent contributions to video game media outlets Electronic Gaming Monthly and 1UP.com. He is also a regular contributor to the humor website Cracked.com...
).
The NESkimos are plagued by the fact that many of their songs are on peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
networks, sometimes incorrectly tagged as being recorded by the older VGM
VGM
VGM is an audio format for multiple video game platforms, such as Sega's Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, SG-1000 Mark III, MSX, NeoGeo and many others...
cover band, The Minibosses
The Minibosses
Minibosses is an independent progressive rock/progressive metal band originally from Northampton, Massachusetts and currently located in Phoenix, Arizona. They are known for their video game music covers, which are instrumental rock variations of the theme music from classic Nintendo video games...
. Their current status is unknown, as their website has not been updated in several years.
History/about the band
The name 'The NESkimos' is a portmanteau combining the initials of the Nintendo Entertainment SystemNintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
(NES) with the word Eskimos. This is a nod both to the practice of third-wave ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
bands in the early 1990s fabricating band names that somehow involve the word "ska" and to the DOS-based Nintendo emulator NESticle
NESticle
NESticle was a popular NES emulator for DOS, created by Sardu of Bloodlust Software. The name is a portmanteau of "NES" and "testicle"....
, which the band's founder Dr. Wily credits as giving him the idea to cover NES music.
As of February 2006, bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Simon Belmont has left the band. Keeping with the Castlevania
Castlevania
Castlevania, known as in Japan, is a video game series created and developed by Konami. The series debuted in Japan on September 26, 1986, with the release of for the Family Computer Disk System , followed by an alternate version for the MSX 2 platform on October 30...
/bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
theme, the NESkimos have decided on the name for their new bass player
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
: Trevor Belmont. He is also referred to as the "Dog from Duck Hunt
Duck Hunt
is a video game for the Nintendo Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System game console system in which players use the NES Zapper to shoot ducks on screen for points. The game was developed and published by Nintendo, and was released in 1984 in Japan...
".
As of 17 January 2007, drummer Mario and bass player Dog from Duck Hunt had left the band in unrelated circumstances. A new bass player has signed on, and Dr Wily has announced that it is likely that future drums will be programmed. The synthetic drums have been jokingly referred to as "Drums Man", a reference to the Megaman villain Dr. Wily's naming conventions for all of his creations. This leaves Dr Wily as the only founding member of the band currently performing. However, the NESkimos seem recently to be inactive, as none of these releases have come to fruition and their site has not been updated since 2006.
Current lineup
The band members prefer not to go by their real names, and instead have adopted internet personae based on videogame icons.- Dr. Wily - lead guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, vocals - Johntendo as The Passion - guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
- Dylan - bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Drum Man - Drums (MP3 Player)
Previous members
- Mario - drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
- Simon Belmont - bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- The Dog from Duck Hunt aka Trevor Belmont - bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- The Double Kick pedal
A few songs also feature guitar solos from The Shredder, and one song features Napalm Man on alto saxophone.
Discography
Due to legal reasons, the NESkimos have not released any form of CD, but instead release all their songs in MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format on the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and provide album artwork.
- Battle - Perfect Selection (2002)
- Bloodshed (2003)
- Berserker (2004)
The NESkimos were planning on releasing a new album, Explod (originally titled Brutality), in 2007, as well as a purchasable "best-of" CD, The Strongening. They also planned to release an album in CD form, featuring the material recorded from their Penny-Arcade Expo 2007 show.
A partial unfinished album entitled Balance is available here, which contains the songs currently only otherwise available as a stream on the NESkimos MySpace page.
External links
- Official NESkimos Website, with forum.
- NESkimos Soundclick Page (Contains Music)
- ForGreatJustice.org, official Fansite
- The NESkimos' appearance on MTV's Ultimate Video Game Countdown
- Some of the NESkimos' PAX 2006 performance
- Concert from May 18, 2006 on Google Video (1 hr 37 min 35 sec)
- An interview with NESkimos lead guitarist/vocalist, Dr. Wily
- PDF Scan of Jax Folio Weekly Article
- Article from the World Series of Videogames