The NESkimos are an independent American video game music cover band from St. Augustine, Florida. They are known for their songs based on video game music, as well as covers of songs from popular television shows and movies.
... The NESkimos are an independent American video game music cover band from St. Augustine, Florida. They are known for their songs based on video game music, as well as covers of songs from popular television shows and movies. They fancy themselves a video game cover band that, rather than try and recreate songs note-for-note, opt to artistically explore and expand upon the songs they cover, via creating additional parts (such as their cover of Grape Garden from Kirby's Adventure) or creating lyrics (such as their cover of Norfair from Metroid). The NESkimos have gained a very fierce, loyal following on their web forums (fans refer to themselves as NESkimites), and they allow fans to download all their music, for free, from their website. They perform in clubs throughout the Southeast United States, and have made appearances at MAGfest and PAX (Penny Arcade Expo). In 2004, they were featured on MTV's Ultimate Video Game Countdown (hosted by Seanbaby), where they discussed the impact that The Legend Of Zelda series has had on video gaming's evolution, as well as their music.
Unfortunately, the NESkimos are plagued by the fact that many of their songs are on peer-to-peer networks, incorrectly tagged as being recorded by the older and more popular VGM cover band, The Minibosses.
The name 'The NESkimos' is a portmanteau combining the initials of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) with the word Eskimos. This is a nod both to the practice of third-wave ska bands in the early 1990s fabricating band names that somehow involve the word "ska" (i.e. Mephiskapheles, Bim Skala Bim, Skapone) and to the groundbreaking DOS-based Nintendo emulator NESticle, which the band's founder Dr. Wily credits as giving him the idea to cover NES music.
As of February 2006, bassist Simon Belmont has left the band. Keeping with the Castlevania/bassist theme, the NESkimos have decided on the name for their new bass player: Trevor Belmont. He is also referred to as the Dog from Duck Hunt.
As of 17 January 2007, drummer Mario and bass player Dog from Duck Hunt had left the band in unrelated circumstances. A new bass player, yet to be named has signed on, and Dr Wily has announced that it is likely that future drums will be programmed. The synthetic drums have been jokingly referred to as "Drums Man", a reference to the Megaman villain Dr. Wily's naming conventions for all of his creations. This leaves Dr Wily as the only original member of the band still performing with them.
At the Penny Arcade Expo of 2006, the NESkimos featured a set of programmed beats, played through an MP3 player which Dr. Wily had left taped to the microphone stand on-stage when he left. It was later recovered, and offered up on eBay as "the first time you can buy a band's drummer."
