Brave New Works

Have you ever heard of Nintendocore?  Well, it exists…and it’s weird.  iamerror is a band that I accidentally found while browsing for free downloads at Last.fm.  When I listened to their song Rainbow Road, which I think is a song from one of the Super Mario Bros. games–if my video-game addled, pre-pubescent brain was able to store and retain anything–I was amazed, one:  by how mesmerizingly beautiful some of the ambience music in those old games were, and two:  by how these guys (or guy, bio please) were able to warp it into some really cool stuff.  I mean, my old favorite game, Balloon Fight, gets some attention here.  That means something.  What?  I don’t know.

Their album Trout Yogurt blends grindcore vocals and percussion with 8-bit overtures, while their Demo ‘09 leaves out the vocals in favor for some awesome double-bass and smooth variations of the songs we really grew up with.  By us I mean Generation Awesome, of course.

Really cool stuff.  Check out Last.fm for free downloads of all their songs.  Click here to listen to The Balloon Fight Song

Visited KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games
Exhibition open Friday, March 13th 2009 until June 14th 2009 at the Japan Society Gallery. See japansociety.org
Alright, so where do I begin with this one? Let’s start by saying that I have never been a big anime or manga fan. Video games, of course, I’m a relatively young guy. But due to a lack of exposure to anime and manga growing up I knew very little and never developed much of an appreciation for them.
So the exhibit opened this past weekend and I said: “Hey, I’m starting this new art blog, checking out new stuff. This is definitely new to me, maybe for others, so let me give it a shot.”
I wouldn’t say I was disappointed so much as I was underwhelmed. The exhibit was little more than some bubbles along the walls displaying pages and covers of classic comics. Some movie screens played a selection of the most popular anime movies. Manga books - huge journals resembling phone books - with dozens of monochromatic comic strips were kept on a book case and were available to flip through. The ones I picked up were in Japanese, though, and I can’t…well, you know…I’m ashamed to say it but I can’t really read Japanese.
The inclusion of video games in the exhibit was little more than a gesture. A wall display said how important they were in Japanese art and a small room had a few Nintendos set up and available to play.
The best part was by far the viewing room, where they showed classic movies on a circular wall, all the films one beside the other. Small cubicles allowed you to sit and view these with audio in a more personal setting. Also available are presentations of movies and television shows in a movie screening room.
At the end of it all I was left with a deep curiosity. The absurd grandness of the characters, the scenarios they were placed in and the gravity by which everything is portrayed is a little bit too much to brush off. The strangeness of it all gets a hook into you.
And so with the very little taste I got I am inspired to beef up a bit on my Japanimation chops, come back an art samurai.