We all love video games, but there are some who take that love and fondness for video games to a new level. They pay tribute to this defining past time by creating music inspired by many different video games. And much like every person has varying tastes and ideas about music, so do these folks. This has made for an endless and varying degree of video game inspired music. In that vein I would like to introduce you to three amazing and varied Nintendo inspired bands who take their love of video games to new and highly artistic levels.

The first band I want to talk about comes from the UK and is known as Elfonso (elfonso.co.uk). The group is made up of two cousins, Rory and ELX, who have a strong affection for video games both new and old. They have a very hard to place style of music which can be described as folk, punk rock, and pop all rolled into a ball and shoved into an NES. The duo started creating music as Elfonso in 2004 and have been gaining a lot of ground in both video game music and independent music circles in both the US and their home in the UK. The group incorporates tons of instruments, from harmonicas and banjos, to guitars and violins, along with their vocals, which are always about video games and VG characters. They have song very heartfelt and fun songs about games like Sonic, Nights, and Zelda. Especially Zelda. You can check out their particular brand of video game inspired music in the youtube video below.

Band number two does things very differently. Temp Sound Solutions (tempsoundsolutions.com) is the musical incarnation of Shawn Phase, an amazing musician who has been creating video game music covers and more for over a decade. He has been called the Kurt Cobain of video game cover bands, and with good reason. Temp Sound Solutions is like a grunge rock melding of classic video game tunes, lo-fi sounds and energetic guitar and drum work. Temp Sound Solutions has covered hundreds of video game tracks, including many obscure games from the NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and more through his Now Your Playing With Powar series of albums. You can get a taste of what Temp Sound Solutions is all about with this track of his from Now Your Playing With Powar 7 (the song kicks in at about the 45 second mark).

The last group I would like to discuss is The OneUps (theoneups.com). A video game jazz ensemble that has been making the rounds since 2002. The groups is comprised of some very talented musicians, several of them also a large part of the OCReMix community (ocremix.org). The band creates very classy, complex and catchy new jazz renditions of everything from Kirby to Chrono Trigger, from Super Mario Kart to Street Fighter II. The band has released two albums of amazing music (the second one spanning two whole discs), and have even played to the huge crowds at the 07 and 08 Penny Arcade Expos. You can check out their amazing live performance from last year’s PAX below for a taste of their highly refined style of music.

I hope hearing some of these artists inspires you to find out more about them, or even better, perhaps start creating some video game inspired art of your own! Huge thanks to Carmen and iuwii.com for letting me do a guest article and spread the VG inspired music gospel to a few new open ears as well!

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Anthony “genoboost” Ruybalid has been writing for the past three years at his site Game Music 4 All (gamemusic4all.com) a news site and netlabel for video game inspired music and art. He also organizes VG inspired music compilations and concerts, as well as generally helping promoting the VG music scene. He also writes for The Start Screen (thestartscreen.com) and contributes to Nerdapalooza (nerdapaloozafest.com). He is also an avid fan of Nintendo and of course owns a Wii and bought his DSi on launch day, even though he already has a DS and DS Lite.

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