I went to a rock show in downtown Los Angeles, to a little club called the Smell, hoping to catch the opening band -- the Minibosses from Tempe, AZ -- who covered theme songs from Nintendo games. In fickle and lazy LA, I didn't expect to see the club crowded until late in the evening.

Instead I was amazed. People were packing in early. The Minibosses were amazed, too. Before their set was over, people were pressed in tight and the main room at the Smell was turning into a foggy swamp of body heat and perspiration.

Garagefathers of Nintendo Rock :

"I was surprised at how many people watched us tonight," said guitarist Aaron. Ben, bassist, confirmed, "That's a lot of people. We can play a lot of towns, a lot of places we'll get a sparse draw, but this is a surprise."

Miniboss Fred

The Minibosses haven't "toured" much before. When the group moved from Massachussetts to Phoenix, they played a few shows on the way. They play their hometown regularly. But now, thanks to MP3 sharing, their heavy, guitar-rock Nintendo covers have become notorious, and invitations to play at venues like the MIT campus, the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas and the MAGfest in Virginia are on the rise. Not exactly city-to-city tours, but special invitations to play for select groups of enthusiasts; they don't ask to play at shows like the Classic Gaming Expo-promoters call them.

"We're not big on asking, we like them to ask us. A lot of times it ends up being some guy who's a big fan of the Minibosses, who knows the organizers." Suddenly the Minibosses, with no label or promoters behind them, are being flown around the country to perform. "We did a show at MIT that was pretty awesome. They flew us out and gave us a tour of the campus and stuff."

"We had a pretty good crowd and people were totally into it, because they specifically ordered us. Virginia was the same thing -- our token response when someone wants us to play someplace that we can't reasonably drive to: 'If you give us plane tickets and a place to stay...'"

The Minibosses are part of a revolution in music culture that has much to do with the internet and mp3's: their music's easy availability can feed a specific sub-culture demand and can get them shows and fans without having a record in stores or on the radio.

The Game Soundtrack :

"We have a novelty so it's a lot easier... There's a gaming audience, the people who are like, 'Yeah, Contra!' and other people who are like, 'Yeah, this is kind of like Iron Maiden' -- and we have an indie-type audience that just likes the music." (Among the group's fans are that night's headliners, the Fucking Champs, whose own guitar metal has put them on respected independent label Drag City.)

"Effects are limited to clean and distorted channels and that's it. We don't do any effects or anything," said Aaron. Ben added, "We know the flavor that we want to go for. A lot of us were into heavy harmony bands before, we liked Iron Maiden, early Metallica. I used to be a huge Queen fan. Shit like that. We were all into that sound."

But even riding on the universal language of rock and roll, there may be limits on how far a video game cover band can go. "We make zero money. We're very much in the hole." But the band refuses to drop the covers. "When we started, we used to do original stuff. We never ruled it to be just Nintendo. Even though other people ruled it: other people were like, 'Oh, they're just Nintendo.' But then we decided if the Minibosses were going for anything, it would be Nintendo because there's just so much of it to do. More video games. What's the point of doing other stuff?" When I commented that the Minibosses could always go back to originals if they ran out of games they liked, Ben immediately responded, "But that will never happen, you know what I mean?"

"We've got to get it out of our heads, because it's all we did when we were kids. All we did was play Nintendo. And it's great to see what they composed with how limited it could be. We have our favorite composers, Hip Tanaka, Koji Kondo... but we don't really listen to the originals more than we need to get the songs down." Ben commented, "If I'm going to listen to the original, I'd rather just play the game," and Aaron replied, "Exactly. That's what it was meant for."

The Minibosses are at work on new recordings, at a new studio. Aaron described the record: "It sounds so different. It's a lot better. I kind of want to remaster the old shit." And how will they release their new record? "Same thing we did last time, all of it is going to be free. We get a lot of orders, people will send in checks that have notes with them that say, 'I already have the mp3's but I want to get the CD.' So we'd just rather they buy it that way. They just want to support. Then they think they're going to get a burned CD or something and they get a nice package, and it's like, 'Fuck.'" Orders keep coming in for Minibosses CD's from all over the world. "Sweden has a pretty good following. Mexico, too. Amsterdam's pretty good. Japan. Canada. The UK." Just like rock and roll... Chalk gaming up as another universal language.

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