Living in an eight-bit world
The Koopas (see Artifacts on the left, if Koopas doesn't ring a bell) are giving up a life of terror for music
By Henry HoustonRather than continuing the seemingly hopeless journey of decimating Mario and Luigi, and enduring the stress of repeatedly kidnapping Princess Toadstool, the Koopas—spawn of the almighty Bowser—have decided to channel their emotions into music, which just happens to be the music of classic video games.
The Koopas is manned—or Kooped—by three members, who have donned names from the many children of Bowser: Wendy Koopa, Frankie Van Hooser; Iggy Koopa, Johnny Gutierrez; and Roy Koopa, Diego “Boof” Marquez.
Since the Koopas are the children of Bowser, who has a track record of taking out Mario or Luigi at either a racetrack or his treacherous castle, it makes sense that the video-game music classics would be accompanied by something like thrash metal.
But the band didn’t start out with the intention of playing music from video games to an edgy sound that surfaces from influences like Judas Priest, Motörhead, and Black Sabbath. During the band’s early days, someone would always come to practice with a brand new video game song perfected, which would lead to the others wanting to learn it. Eventually, they decided to band together as the Koopas and share their love of video games and the music that accompanies them.
And the Koopas definitely know their music. The drummer, Diego, drums away with utmost tenacity; when he blasts his bass drum it feels as if he were about to kick some green Koopa shells at the audience. And then there are Johnny and Frankie, who both posses the deadly combination of rapid finger work on the guitar and a pick hand that could give the almighty Bowser a run for his kingdom.
The musical skill and finesse of the Koopas must be in their blood.
Given the Koopas’ practice space, it’s no wonder that video games are on the front of their mind. Plus there is the fact that they are a video-game cover band. The Koopas call their practice space The Doom Ship House. For the non-Mario buffs, it’s a reference to the recurring ship that harasses and harangues worlds one through seven of Mushroom World. Each Doom Ship houses one of seven Koopas.
The Koopas’ future looks promising. The band plans to perfect the intro song to the Super Nintendo masterpiece Donkey Kong Country, and a version of the underworld stage of Super Mario Brothers, which is played purely with octaves, in addition to several other songs from Metroid. The band also plans to gather songs in order to record a CD on their Claustrophobic Gopher Records label.
The Koopas may not be selling out arenas around the world but during their show at GameStop on Aug. 7, it was truly a band of brothers who had joined together to hear their favorite songs from classic video games. The Koopas are a band for we few, we happy few: those who have spent countless hours engaged in noble battle to destroy Bowser in his myriad of appearances, overthrowing the tyrannous rule of King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Island and recovering his banana hoard. Or for those who were just trying to survive the week delivering newspapers while simultaneously avoiding the jaws of a dog, or the grill of a car; it’s a band for those of us who only remember our childhood in choppy pixels.
Henry Houston is an intern for New Times’ sister paper, the Santa Maria Sun. Send comments via Arts Editor Ashley Schwellenbach at aschwellenbach@newtimesslo.com.
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