Konquering The Documentary: The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters review

Arcade gaming as we know is something that has become restricted to beaches and carnivals in most people eyes, with the 50p a play slot now covered in cobwebs as Wii’s and Xbox’s sit comfortably in the warmth of our living rooms. Though many may prefer to experience gaming this way, there are still a fair few others who take retro gaming very seriously, which we found out in The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters.

What transpires is one of the greatest stories ever seen to unravel in a documentary as the film begins to explore the real world of the true video game nerds and the empire they have built around a select few, and the one man who infiltrates their safe haven.

The documentary opens with an introduction to the two main characters, Billy Mitchell, the reigning world champion of Donkey Kong and a host of other arcade games, the centre of adulation by all video game enthusiasts around him and probably the most horrifying persona of an American patriot ever seen on screen. Then, there’s Steve Wiebe, the family man and a nearly man of everything he has tried to succeed in, the epitome of the word underdog, who one day decided to try and become the world champion of Donkey Kong.

The film itself is as inspiring as it is funny, with most of the humour derived from the world of video gaming as we meet some of the great characters most notably, Walter Day, a video games referee with a burgeoning music career of sorts (don’t look for his album in any major record stores.) We are also confronted with the hero’s turmoil’s as he painstakingly and crushingly travels the country in pursuit of the prize that he and his family have been chasing so fairly for so long, which often leaves you truly sympathetic at his journey.

The King Of Kong keeps you constantly absorbed in the adventures of the “hero” as he beats the world record not once, but twice only to be knocked back by Billy Mitchell’s gang of snivelling sidekicks, in cruel twists of fate (notably the inclusion of a very corrupt video tape.) As the film builds up to its head to head finale we are not only left in anticipation of the potential climax but at the aftermath of what truly happens, which leaves the audience completely open mouthed at the sheer childishness of the encounter (we see Steve Wiebe constantly harassed and isolated at the World Video Game championships whilst Billy Mitchell is nowhere to be seen.)

What concludes is a documentary with so many well rounded characters and a storyline which rivals that of Rocky, it’s impossible to not think that some of the events of this film are fabricated because it’s almost too perfect. The King Of Kong is truly a brilliant story with a wonderful blend of humour and heartache. The world of competitive gaming will never be seen in the same light again.

The Brilliantly Odd Future Of Music

I have garnered a reputation over the last few years as fan of indie music, which is perfectly understandable and correct. I love indie; there is no question about that. But what people don’t really remember is that I used to be a big fan of hip hop. I loved Tupac, Eminem, 50 all the mainstream rappers that most 13 year olds loved. I even got into BIG and Public Enemy, who were big back when rap was an underground hit.

There are a few reasons why I suppose I became infatuated with indie music and distanced from hip hop. I had a new group of friends who were all into that indie/ rock music and I naturally followed suit and loved it. There was the fact that Eminem as well as various other rappers experienced dips in their careers, some more so than others (except for Tupac, he kinda died.....) but whilst 50 was making awful films and Eminem was getting fat and lame, Indie was on the rise.

After rap became the big thing with rappers like Kanye West and Lil Wayne selling millions of records across the world, it became un-cool. The underground, rallying rap cries seemed to be lost in search of this global acclaim and rap music seemed to be forever lost in a gaping hole where genuinely shocking, funny and hard hitting rap was to forever be trying to claw its way out.



That is until now. Hip hop has risen, in the unlikely form of 12 teenage skaters from LA. Formed in 2007, when all of them were sweet 16, Odd Future (full name Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) were rapping about things that were not so sweet, and putting their names across a world wide web of blogs all over the globe. Their crude but often darkly funny raps are both shocking and meaningful, in the style of early Eminem before them. Their leader Tyler, The Creator, has already released a solo album (Bastard) as well as another album which is being released at some point next month on XL Recordings as well as most of their members releasing solo material as well, giving away all of their material for free on their blog.


It wasn’t until the end of January though, that Odd Future truly caused a stir and people realised just how important they are becoming. Their late night performance on the Jimmy Fallon show was stuff of legends which isn’t bad considering it was their first television show. Even Mos Def called them SWAG.

Then Tyler released his solo masterpiece Yonkers. Filmed in black and white with the camera eerily focusing in and out in time with the music, Tyler’s dark lyrical theme and schizophrenic delivery (“I’m a fucking walking paradox/no I’m not) meshed both a psychopath and a genuine menace into 3 minutes of brilliant rap where he references not only the Flintstones but also Bruno Mars and the infamous Columbine mass killings. Whilst all this is happening he eats a bug, throws up and hangs himself. It’s a pretty intense few minutes. It’s certainly got a lot of attention as well, this video has had 3 million views since being added to YouTube just a month ago, and proving there is still a massive audience for underground rap.



We then have Earl Sweatshirt, who still at the tender age of 17 is Odd Future’s most deranged member, rapping about everything and anything that would make many upper class ladies faint in disbelief at just what is coming out of his mouth. Now though, rumour has it that Earl’s mum has sent him to boarding school and his promising rap career looks to be halted for an indefinite period of time. Not your average problem for a rap crew but nonetheless a pretty devastating prospect.

What is interesting about Odd Future is their message, if they have one. Is it a satire on the media outrage that teenagers are violent hooligans? Is it a genuine statement of discontent and angst in youth culture? Or are they just plain just fucking with us. What we do know is that if they carry on the way their going, re-inventing underground rap a bringing it back into the masses, the future most certainly looks to be an Odd one.

Radiohead: Reinvention or Repeat?

After what seemed like many long, musically inadequate days of having no music to really look forward to, I was starting to despair. There were bands I really liked, but everything seemed too samey (bar of course from The Suburbs and a couple of others.) In the meantime, indie & therefore in a sense rock music seemed to have almost died out. Then, on Valentine’s Day, I awoke without love in mind, but finding a very different, almost lost love of mine rekindled. The love (almost strictly plutonic) of Radiohead had instated itself back into my life with the best news possible. A new Radiohead album was finished. Not only this, but it was being released on that very Saturday (later changed to Friday.)

I was shocked, but as far as shocks come, this was definitely one of the best I have ever experienced in my life. After the shock came a sudden explosion of joy and after the joy came an immediate realisation. I, as well as everyone else, knew NOTHING about the new album. All we knew was the album title and artwork but aside from that, we knew absolutely zilch.

So, not only was everyone ultra excited at the prospect of a new Radiohead album, we were all bursting with anticipation as to what it would sound like. Now, in a month where Lady Gaga and The Strokes had released new material, each greatly anticipated by their own loyal fanbases, they were left almost i the dust by the ambiguous super powerful musical force that was crash landing in our own midst. This I felt, was the start of a new musical era.

By my own humble search for clues about the new album which I searched for roughly the day it was expected to launch, I stumbled upon a ‘first review’ of the album by the Guardian. Intrigued, I read on, only to find the most aggravating, stupid & pointless review I’d ever read. Not only had the reviewer only listened to the album once, they immediately cast it down for not reinventing music again. What the actual fuck! How can people keep expecting Radiohead to constantly create an Ok Computer for every genre possible? It’s absolutely absurd. AND, how can you tell after ONE listen, whether it's a reinvention? For one thing, Ok Computer has been voted in countless best albums lists as the best album of the last 25 years. Not only this but after Kid A, In Rainbows AND The Bends, all brilliant albums in their own right, they are immediately scorned for not doing so again. It’s a ridiculous presumption. Ok yes, I can understand that Radiohead, in the past, have kinda had this expectation self imposed just by creating so many amazing albums, it’s sad that people cannot appreciate it for what it is : a brilliant album. The fact that it’s not as revolutionary as others should not be a negative factor.


In my own opinion, after having acquired the album through a legal download (I know weird!) I found the listed reaction to be utter nonsense.
The King Of Limbs is a great, different album. It’s moved along with the times, it’s changed completely compared with In Rainbows and the fact that they have pretty much abandoned guitars on the record is an amazingly ambitious and brave move. The songs echo almost the post dubstep era of James Blake and co, with Give Up The Ghost hauntingly minimal throughout, whereas Lotus Flower is out and out groove in the style of Idioteque but with more lyrical meaning. It seems that they’ve take everything that’s made all of their previous albums great and rolled it into one brilliant album. Ok, it isn’t as good as Ok Computer but that’s hardly a criticism considering its legacy and accolades. If there is a bad word to be said about the album however, is that at 8 songs long, it’s almost not enough. On saying this, there are however mutterings of another album that’s already been finished which would obscure the above comment, though nothing has been confirmed yet.



What else is remarkable about Radiohead is that with constantly reinventing their music, they are now rejuvenating record sales as well. The rush announcement and digital download seems to have found a way of tackling the downloading situation of an album leak, by making it available a few months before the physical copy is released, something that everyone is so used to in the current musical climate.

So to summarise, not only have Radiohead made another excellent albums, where they hae once again changed the direction of the music they make, they are kick starting the faulting music industry. Two amazing feats conquered in a week, leaving the Guardian journalist with a fucking ostrich sized egg on his face. Here’s to Radiohead, the saviours of music and the all around kings of musical reinvention.

1. Gorillaz - Stylo

Here we have the number one song of 2010. The most complete, catchy song that was made in the whole entirety of the year, and it is Gorillaz first single off their career best third album, ‘Plastic Beach.’ Fairly anticipated due to both the five year gap in between this album and their last and also the huge success they enjoyed with Feel Good Inc and Dare, this song came much as a surprise to fans. It wasn’t as catchy as the old stuff and it didn’t really have a chorus of sorts. From the opening riff and hip hop beat, it wasn’t so much a rap song as it was a whole new level of pop. I know it sounds crazy, but with this song, Gorillaz elevated the pop standard, creating a whole new boundary for musicians by combining everything that has been embodied in current pop music into one, showing it’s possible to create a song that embodies almost all genre’s but yet they make it work so perfectly, its utterly jaw dropping. From Mos Def’s opening rap, to Bobby Womack’s completely impromptu and unscripted chorus it brings together nearly fifty years of music into one song, whilst keeping it fresh and modern as if we’d never heard anything like it before.

The talent and bravery of Damon Albarn to completely abandon everything that’s made him what he is and to keep re-inventing himself is something that’s almost superhuman, showing that 10 years down the line, Blur are better than Oasis so to speak. But this isn’t about them, it’s about Gorillaz, and how 10 years into their career, this ‘cartoon’ album has released the most complete and utterly 3 dimensional song in such a long time. So here’s to Gorillaz and let’s hope that the next year brings out some more breathtaking and spellbinding tunes, they have a lot to live up to.

Thanks for reading.

2. Foals - Spanish Sahara

I talked in an earlier blog post about how Foal’s were the unexpected saviours of the indie movement. How they were talked up before they released anything from the new album, saying it was a brilliant and unexpected change. No-one really believed it until they heard it. This is a truly stunning 7 minute epic, which starts of so tenderly, with Yanis Phillapakis showing a falsetto that many of us thought he couldn’t have, after the main shouting with which Foals made their career. It both stunned people and brought them together in a truly unique moment that’s rarely ever captured, silence on the radio.


Inspired by a dead dog he saw floating in a river, they set out to create this epic, not only expelling everything they’ve done since in a way that only a few have before them. The song builds and builds for 4 minutes, building complete tension with the listener before releasing the explosion of utter euphoria for the last 3 minute which is reached with the refrain of’ I’m the fury in your head/I’m the fury in your bed/I’m the ghost in the back of your head,’ where the song whirls around you, like a temperamental ghost in a bad dream, refusing to let you it’s spell until you wake up in the middle of the night to the chilling ending synth sounds at the end and you realise, it’s just a dream, but one you won’t forget in a hurry. So here’s to Foals, creating something that is truly memorable, from the most unlikely of sources. Completely unforgettable.

3. Hurts - Wonderful Life

This song, was all that was evident of hurts existence until mid way through last year. A bleak, low quality video of the band standing still singing this song garnered enough attention that they created a career out it. This song alone launched their career into mainstream pop and that’s why it’s so important. It tells the tale of a suicidal man, getting ready to end his life when he is stopped by a woman who falls instantly in love with him. It’s pretty soppy romantic stuff but I can’t help but think it’s a brilliantly told story, both completely bleak but gloriously triumphant at the same time, showing you how the power of love, so to speak in the least pathetic of terms can change things for someone so massively. ‘Don’t let go/Never give up its such a wonderful life’ is not only one of the years catchiest chorus’s but one of the most heartbreaking, it comes from the depth of the heart, knowing that if this line doesn’t work then the man will surely kill himself. It rolls a 2 hour Hollywood film into a 4 minute song, creating the same emotion and intensity in a much shorter time period. Not only are Hurts brilliant song writers, they are brilliant story tellers, and songs that tell stories are always that much harder to create. Not only have they done this, but they’ve made it so amazingly catchy that they thoroughly deserve the attention they have received across the globe. Love them or hate them, this song is so good it hurts.

4. Arcade Fire - Ready To Start

After their triumphant best album win at the Grammy’s last night, which was probably one of the biggest shocks in the history of the event, Arcade Fire have now officially conquered the world of music, and what a relief they have. Not only did it open the part of the music loving world that had been living under a giant Lady GaGa shaped rock for the last few years but it re-installed my faith in the music industry as a whole. The first American single from “The Suburbs,” ‘Ready To Start’ was stomp rock which shows another level of depth in the album, adding the darkness that was so familiar in Neon Bible and was the first glimmer of synths which is something as yet unseen from them. The theme of the record, which is essentially exploring both the dullness and boredom of teenage suburban life whilst at the same time realising how much it’s missed when you return to find nothing left of it, split into two parts, with Ready To Start incorporating the former.



It screams teenage angst all the way through the chorus rallying ‘now i’m ready to start’ is a sign that their ready to forget their past and move on in a more exciting place, in life, which, coming from a suburban area myself, I find especially true. The way the song holds you in its grasp throughout, moving your feet and probing your mind at the same time is what makes it so incredible, with the thumping bassline where the song crashes in on you, to the Depeche Mode synths at the end where the song breaks down almost entirely, every part of it is SO AWESOME! The lyrical delivery of the song adds what is really the main catchy of the song, which is not only brilliantly singable, but poignant and thoughtful, my favourite lines ‘all the kids have always known/that the emperor wears no clothes/but they bow down to him anyway/cos it’s better than being alone’ is the typical playground scene where the biggest kid is idolised though he’s basically an idea and the forcefulness of having to go along with what he wants or facing isolation that so many people have felt. The catchiest, and deepest song on the album, will constantly be a fan favourite for many years to come, and that fan base will undoubtedly grow thankfully, for many years to come.