Minibosses

Minibosses
Background information
Origin	Northampton, Massachusetts
Genres	Progressive rock, video game music, Nintendocore, instrumental rock
Years active	1999–present
Members	Robin Vining Aaron Burke Matt Wood Jeff Owens
Past members	Ben Baraldi Fred Johnson John Lipfert Rich Smaldone Robert Kelly Turner

Minibosses is an independent progressive rock band originally from Northampton, Massachusetts and now 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 such as Mega Man, Metroid, and Castlevania. Such covers earned Minibosses the best cover band award in the Phoenix New Times Best of Phoenix 2006.

Minibosses have a following amongst video game music fans, and they allow fans to download many free songs on their website. Much of their following has come from their constant playing of concerts at local clubs around Arizona and other cities in the southwest. Fans refer to themselves as "Minibossies" and are known to travel great distances to see the band. The band has also formed a following on their web forums, which is host to tour announcements, new video game covers from other remixers, and the Dwelling of Duels video game music competition.

History

From 1997 to 1999, guitarist Aaron Burke and drummer Matt Wood played in Jenova Project, one of the earliest video game cover bands, along with other friends from the same dorm at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In January 2000, Burke and Wood recruited bassist Ben Baraldi to form Minibosses. Initially, the band played both video game covers as well as original songs, and self-released their first album, Minibosses, in September 2000. They were unsatisfied with the quality of this album and have since released new versions of their covers (as well as new covers) on the Minibosses/Penny Winblood split and Brass album. At the same time, they replaced their older songs, which had been freely available to download, with the newer versions found on Brass. From 2000 to present, the band has toured continuously while recording material for new albums. During this time, the video game cover scene has matured, with the rise in popularity of sites such as VGMix and OverClocked ReMix, giving the band the opportunity to play at such events as DEF CON, Penny Arcade Expo, Arcadia Festival and the Atomix Gamer Choice Awards. Minibosses often tour throughout Arizona and California, and occasionally return to the Northeast to perform, most notably at the Middle East where they recorded their live album, Live at the Middle East.

The band has gone through several changes, mostly on second guitar, which is now held by Jeff Owens. Ben Baraldi is still a member of the band, but is "on sabbatical" according to the band's Facebook page, and played guitar for several shows in 2010.

Members

Current

• Robin Vining — bass
• Aaron Burke — guitar
• Cameron Rosewicz — guitar
• Matt Wood — drums

Previous

• Robert Kelly Turner — guitar (2010)
• Ben Baraldi — guitar (2007–2010), bass (1999–2007)
• John Lipfert — guitar (2004–2007)
• Fred Johnson — guitar (2002–2004)
• Richard Smaldone — guitar (2001–2002)

Discography

• Minibosses (Self-released on Kraid Records, 2000)
• Minibosses (EP) (Self-released, 2004)
• Live at the Middle East recorded at The Middle East nightclub (Self-released, 2004)
• Minibosses/Penny Winblood (Forge Records, 2005)
• Brass (Self-released, 2005)
• Brass 2: Mouth (Released December 2, 2011)

Covered game themes

• Batman
• Bionic Commando
• Blaster Master
• Castlevania
• Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
• Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
• Contra
• Double Dragon
• Excitebike
• Ghosts 'n Goblins
• The Goonies II
• Ikari Warriors
• Kid Icarus
• The Legend of Zelda
• Metroid
• Mega Man 2
• Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
• Ninja Gaiden
• Rygar
• Super Mario Bros. 2
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Wizards and Warriors
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Game themes falsely attributed to Minibosses

There are various video game song remixes floating around the Internet that are falsely attributed to Minibosses, perhaps by mistaken fans or newcomers to the genre. These include a remix of the theme from the first level of Doom, the stage music for Big Blue from F-Zero (which is actually from a guitar arrangement of F-Zero X) and the Tetris theme (which is actually the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki") as performed by Ozma. Minibosses only play NES game music, although they did release original songs and non-Nintendo covers on their first album, Minibosses, as well as play the theme to Halo for PAX 2007's Omegathon.

See also

• Video game music culture

References

• Borges, Mario Mesquita. "Minibosses". Allmusic. Retrieved May 9, 2005.

External links

General

• Minibosses official web site
• Minibosses forum
• ReMixer profile at OverClocked ReMix
• Minibosses discography at MusicBrainz
• Minibosses EP Insert Credit review Sheffield, Brandon (Apr. 12, 2004)
• Minibosses official MySpace

Interviews

• "Nintendo Rocks!" Wired Magazine: Werde, Bill (Dec. 2002)
• "Nintendo rocks!" Salon.com: Becker, Verne (Apr. 21, 2004)
• "Rocking in the Key of Nintendo" NPR-All Things Considered: (Aug. 26, 2004)

Videos

• Castlevania III: Music Video, Directed by ZZalgern0n
• Interview and Live Concert Clips on The 1up Show, recorded July 21, 2006
• Interview and Live Concert Clips on The 1up Show, recorded at Penny Arcade Expo on September 1, 2006