If I won the lottery I don’t think I’d tell people but, as the saying goes, there would be signs. One of the most obvious ones would be that I’d pay a live band to play the score to Mario Kart in one of its many forms at a local bar for me and my friends. Admittedly, this isn’t something I knew existed until a few hours ago, but now I can’t un-know it.
What are the great combinations of visual art and composition to experience together? Phillip Glass conducting an orchestra as Koyaanisqatsi screens in the background, obviously. John Williams waving a baton for an orchestral performance of Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark has to be up there as well. For something even more modern and Milennial-coded, I’d kill to see Jon Brion live paired with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
To this list, I must add another mixed-media experience: Playing any version of Mario Kart and listening to a band drum out the score. Again, I was unaware of this until I saw it on Instagram and now this is all I’ve been looking at today.
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The above is from a recent “Mario Kart Live” event in San Jose, California. This is apparently a tournament and they’re making it more fun by having a live performance. Also, the reel above went viral a week ago and I completely understand why.
From the moment you hear the soprano sax belt out the opening tones of the starting lights, you know you’re in for a fun ride. In this configuration, there’s a keyboardist, the aforementioned sax player, a bassist, and a guitarist. Off-screen is a drummer. They’re doing “Sunshine Airport,” which is one of the many jaunty tunes on the soundtrack.
If you don’t play Mario Kart I’m going to assume you’ll be able to connect the dots here. It’s the Mario Bros. and the collective Mario Bros. world, but they race go-karts and have the ability to toss powerful shells at other drivers. Why? Sometimes to gain an advantage and, sometimes, just to screw with someone else purely for the LOLs. The system of passing out these upgrades, though seemingly random, does have a progressive (some would argue socialist) bent to it, with those falling behind gaining more benefits than those who are far ahead.
Also, Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Nintendo Gamecube is the best version. No, I will not be taking any questions.
This whole live band Mario Kart is more common than I realized. Here’s that same band, Badwagon, doing a performance of “Donut Plains 3” in Oklahoma City:
Of course, the ultimate track/song in any Mario Kart game is Rainbow Road:
Man, so many feelings. If I’m ever in a situation where I need to pilot a starship to save the universe, please pump this right into my headset as I blow up the alien landing ship or the sentient comet or whatever.
Part of the reason why this works, besides the incredible musicianship of the band, is that the musical tracks slap. This isn’t a quirk of this particular game as Nintendo itself first imbued video games with catchy, jazzy tunes. Most people of a certain age can probably hum the entire score to the original Super Mario Bros. without dropping a note.
The score for the original Super Mario Kart for the NES, which was composed by influential early Nintendo employee Soyo Oka, takes all of the best of the original Mario and elevates it with a wider range of tones. It’s the driving force behind the game and somehow survives all of the various sound effects the game tosses at you:
These tunes have all been iterated on in later versions, but maintain that same fusion of modern Japanese and Latin forms of jazz. It works for me.
I know we’ve been talking about having a New York Area meetup at some point and I wonder if we could generate enough interest to do a live Mario Kart tournament complete with a live band? Is that crazy?
Top graphic images: Nintendo, depositphotos.com
I would 100p throw money if needed to get a band there
I am not a mario kart player. My favorite video game music to listen to is orchestral arrangements of Nobuo Uematsu soundtracks or music by PowerGlove. Despite neither of those things pointing to this idea being amazing to me, this is freaking amazing. That is awesome!
Shout out to Bottlerocket Social Hall in Pittsburgh for being one of the first (maybe the first?) to do this a year or two ago.
I fell down a “What to do when you win the lottery” rabbit hole a while back, and man, I hope I never do. I’ve always heard that it ruins people’s lives, but the ways it ruins them were surprising to me. In one case a guy won a lottery worth significantly less than his original net worth (he had owned a successful business and had a net worth in the 8 figures already), and after finding out he was a lottery winner his friends and family turned into gigantic assholes. He wasn’t appreciably richer than he had been before, but it completely changed how people viewed him.
Anyway, if you win the lottery and your friends and family don’t disown you, this would be an excellent way to spend that money.
Option 2: racing real go-karts at a track with either a speed metal band or punk band accompanying. With full damage insurance, of course.
My local roller skating rink has rock/punk bands on Friday nights where the band and a small crowd are in the center as people skate around them. It’s awesome.
If I win the lottery I’d have a jazz band playing as I worked on my cars.
I would go full jazz, but I’d go “jazzy.” Steely Dan?
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Falling down to the places that no one sees…
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Nah, fuck Steely Dan. I need jazz.
And here we have the strongest opinion — either for or against — ever levied towards Steely Dan 🙂
Dammit Kevin! Why’d you throw another blue shell at the drummer?!?
This is same reverent amazement I had when I first heard music from the NESkimos and the Minibosses (all NES/SNES cover songs) over 20 years ago. It also gives you a lot more appreciation for the original soundtracks, which all had to be “dumbed down” from their keyboard scores. Of course, I also would have just accepted “Lemmy was a Racecar Driver” from Primus, and not just because it’s also a nod to Motorhead.
I was thinking of Minibosses, too, and I like to play as Lemmy in MK8 for that very reason.