Bit Wars

Wii Salute by the Angry Video Game Nerd


What side of the line were you on? I was a Nintendo kid. As sad as it may sound, I couldn't imagine my childhood without the NES or Super NES. Tecmo Bowl, Contra, Double Dragon I & II, Excite Bike, Bionic Commando, Super Mario Bros. 3, Final Fantasy II & III, Secret of Mana, Super Metroid, Super Mario RPG, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball...too many good ones (and good times) to name them all. Unfortunately, once I bought a Nintendo 64 and found that there were a grand total of five good games for the system, my loyalty shifted towards Sony. I left the console wars with the PS2, using the system mainly as a DVD player throughout most of its lifespan, and only recently buying games for it, since they're so cheap now.

But with respect to the Bit Wars, I would say that while I was a Nintendo loyalist during those years, I didn't hate Sega. In fact, I was pissed that a lot of dope games for the Genesis never got a Nintendo release. I would have shit a brick if Streets of Rage, Joe Montana Football, or Eternal Champions had hit the Super NES. Fortunately, I had a friend - one whose name and person I can't remember - who rolled with Sega and got to play those and other gems. What I'm trying to say is that even though there was a war going on, people could still appreciate what both sides had to offer. So forget these X-Box flag-wavers who basically constitute a division of free marketing for Microsoft. You aren't representing anything other than your parents' cash-flow, which is what payed for your console and games. You are spoiled fucking nerds.

Grey Area - Fanbelt Algebra

Victory Records
(2000)

Burning adolescence. A time when music enraptured and literally answered all of life's problems. The doldrums of school could be remedied by a few chords. Blasting your favorite album was as good a reason as any to get in the car with friends and drive aimlessly until 2am. A good record store was both a necessity and the holy grail.

I have tried to find this in the music of today. I cannot. This may have less to do with a current lack of artistic quality, and more to do with a nostalgia associated with the sounds that comprised my formative years. In other words: maybe I have become an old, jaded curmudgeon.

Grey Area's Fanbelt Algebra happens to be one of those records that fires up the way-back machine for me. To the unfamiliar, this album might not resemble much other than a generic punk/hardcore release destined for obscurity in the dollar bin. But remember the relativity of experience that comes with being a teenager; quite early on in my punk rock odyssey, there was a freshness about everything fast and melodic.

I see no point of going into a massive amount of detail concerning Grey Area and Fanbelt Algebra. I can't seem to come up with a description of either that is worth phrasing. Each time I try, I just end up getting lost in reverie of old, unable to reference much in terms of specific characteristics - and I have the CD lying next to me. The first paragraph is the most honest representation of the music I can give, which might be a better description than any conventional inquiry. I hope.

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(Or here's a preview.)

King Diamond - Abigail

Roadrunner Records
(1987)

The dilemma of modern metal: though infinitely better than the suburban aggro which nu-metal imposed on my youth, the heavy music of today often fails to create anything beyond faithful offerings to genres that were forged 25 years prior. Make no mistake, there definitely exists a place in my heart for the throwback metal band. But as more and more groups continue the endless rehash of already-twice-recycled ideas, a saturation point has been reached. The best course of action to take in this scenario is to return to the source material. Because true classics never fade.

King Diamond's Abigail is a second-tier masterpiece of traditional metal, lacking the notoriety of a British Steel or a Number the Beast. But to claim any inferiority on the grounds of quality would be misguided bogosity. Abigail represents heavy metal doing what heavy metal did best in the 1980's: being unashamedly heavy metal. Reveling in all its excess and cliches, the album conjures up a time when skilled axemen weren't too modest to rip gratuitous solos with the backing of huge arena-style production. Or when it was okay to go nerd for lyrical themes involving fantasy and whimsical horror. Though I was too young to know of Abigail at the time of its release, through a shared heavy metal genealogy I find appreciation in an era gone by.

Then there is the voice of King Diamond. Harnessing one of the most distinctive falsettos in metal (perhaps second only to Rob Halford), his great range regarding both melody and theatrics can simultaneously impress and amuse (a combination of elements paramount to traditional metal). And there should be an emphasis on "amuse"; the King's vocals are frequently overdubbed in threes, each taking on a different part of the given melody, creating a hilariously grandiloquent one-man choir. Laughter is inevitable concerning King Diamond. But if you cannot find the raditude in a dude in face paint that screams in the register of a banshee, pull the stick out of your ass.

Ridiculous and totally metal, Abigail plays like the alternate soundtrack to Castlevania. A definite classic that should not be overlooked. So grab the chain-whip and get to stepping.

(Jathan, I'm looking at you on this one.)

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Narrows - Gypsy Kids video

This one caught me off guard. Total cadaver carnage with such nihilistic (and creative) gore as to avoid B-movie campiness, extending into what I shall dub corpse art. A bit disturbing, yet still found myself watching - and smiling (?!). Look out for the scissors and blood regurgitation. Definitely won't be seeing this on Headbangers Ball. Dedicated to Cameron Currier, with love.

The Killing

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
(1956)

Even with a relatively small filmography, the early work of Stanley Kubrick still finds itself the victim of neglect. It is no exaggeration to claim that most people couldn't name a film of his preceding Dr. Strangelove or Lolita, let alone to have watched one. How unfortunate, in that his debut full-length feature film, The Killing, captures a future legend's rather humble, but obviously capable beginnings.

A heist in the heart of noir, The Killing unfolds with a team of criminals' plans to stick a (horse) racetrack for $2 million. Through schemes involving bullheaded thuggery, inside connections, a corrupt policeman, as well as both keen precision and timing, the collective lays out a complex but seemingly foolproof plan. Of course, with the essence of every film noir being humanity's exploration into its self-defeating heart of darkness, there exists a foil to the mugs' full realization of happiness in the jackpot. In archetypal fashion, the foil shows itself as the greedy broad of one of the men involved in the heist - she, having her own ideas as to where the shares of the loot shall be allocated.

The Killing can be seen as comparatively conventional by Kubrick's standards. Though this may be in part due to the suits at MGM, who undoubtedly had a heavy influence on the final cut, and to whom Kubrick was surely too green to give the finger to at the time. Other traces of probable studio meddling can be found in the overly-explanatory narrator, melodramatic acting, and the shamelessly cheap recycling of footage - reoccurring two to three times throughout the film.

But the roots Kubrick's cinematic vision are in place. From a technical standpoint, some great tracking shots are present, seamlessly transferring between the separate rooms of a building; shots of this nature would become the director's trademark in later films such as Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick also pulls off what is perhaps one of the more difficult techniques to authentically execute in the moving POV shot, as a wounded character stumbles through the unreal aftermath of bullet-ridden corpses from a deal gone bad - a grisly realistic scene, even in black and white. This first-person styled camera work most notably reappears at the end of The Shining, where poor Danny attempts to outrun a sadistic, hatchet-wielding Jack Nicholson through a maze of snowy hedges: a likewise surreal setting, infused with a disquieting tangibility that is effectively achieved by shifting the viewer's perspective to that which is no longer objective and removed.

Regardless of its conventionality, The Killing altogether entertains, being a fair degree grittier than what the genre normally produced. And as a precursor to the director's notorious later investigations into the darker avenues of life, the conventions of the classic film noir, restrictive as they may be, thus provided Kubrick with a choice foundation from which to expand upon.