super duper

Quirky Houston DJ drops genre-blending mix CD inspired by video games

If you’re the type of person who has dubstep, Southern hip-hop, and Koji Kondo’s iconic “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. in your streaming-music library, then Squincy Jones has created the perfect playlist for you..

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

Super Nintendub is the name of the mix where the Houston-born-and-bred DJ mashes up all those aforementioned music genres. A capella bars from Houston heavyweights (Megan Thee Stallion, Paul Wall) and other Dirty South MCs (Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG) gets laid over grooves from underground dubstep artists (Numa Crew, Blay Vision, Hamdi). But we also get music from various Nintendo (Castlevania III, Ninja Gaiden) and Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI) games. Jones also throws in audio samples from commercials and gaming-heavy movies like WarGames, The Wizard, and the Adam Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.

Needless to say, Jones has always been a gamer. He’s had his run of game systems: NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, even the old-school Atari 2600. He recalls his days blowing the dust out of such cartridges as Contra, Double Dragon, and Duck Hunt. In the past, Jones has released a series of mashup mixes – titled Blend Pack – with cover art that resembles/salutes classic video games.

“I'm a huge fan of all the eight-bit and 16-bit stuff,” says Jones (government name: Shane Rector), 41. “I play a lot of the new games, or I have played a lot of the new games, but not as much anymore. You know, being a parent and having a full-time job – you don't really have time for video games anymore.”

Super Nintendub is a sequel to Nintendub, a dubstep mix he played during a party way back in 2008. “I added some a capellas, [like] a Bun B a capella,” he recalls. “I had some other Dirty South tunes from the time. I layered them because they're at the same tempo as dubstep. Another friend that does music gave me a folder of Nintendo songs. So, I just randomly layered it on top and kinda slowed down the Nintendo music, and it sounded cool as hell to me.”

The mix picked up fans overseas when he dropped it online. “I've always wanted to make a follow-up to it because I got so much good feedback,” he remembers. “People from all over were writing about it."

Jones decided to release Super on compact disc, sold in rectangular keep cases – packaging that’s very familiar to gamers – with double-sided artwork also by Jones. (A digital link is available upon request to those who buy the CD.) While the limited-edition disc is available for purchase on Jones’s Bandcamp page, the CD mix shouldn’t be confused with the Super mix that’s currently playing on the page.

“I wanted to have them in the mix as well,” he says. “But I'm not entirely, you know, confident with my production skills. So, I just kinda had it on the side to go along with the release of this mix.”

Since releasing Super in September, Jones says he’s gotten good feedback from those who’ve bought a copy. “Because it looks like a video game,” he says, “a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, cool! Is it an actual game or an actual DVD or whatnot?’ But it's always hit or miss because some people are like, ‘Oh, man, I don't have a CD player’ or "Wow, you actually printed a CD,’ because everything's, you know, digital.”

He’s looking into playing a big-screen version of Super, where videos of the rap songs are spliced in with video-game footage and other retro clips, somewhere around here. “I was thinking like either a movie theater or somebody mentioned Aurora Picture Show, or maybe Wonky Power, to do like a viewing or showing or whatever – kind of have a party for it.”

Even though Jones enjoys merging gaming and music – his dual obsessions – he still prefers to be known as more than a video-game DJ. A veteran of the Houston DJ scene for a quarter of a century, he continues to do gigs like his upcoming monthly residency at Eight Row Flint.

“I do open-format DJing,” he says. “I've done raves and dubstep parties. I've played on the radio. I've played at Mid Main, where it’s a mainstream crowd. In this day and age, everybody has their branding or whatnot. I just love video games, so I just kind of take that as my branding, I guess.”

music

Movie Review

Korean monster movie Hope starts strong, then chews too much scenery

Photo courtesy of Neon

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope.

Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hope splits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.

The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.

Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.

That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.

Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.

Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.

If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.

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Hope is now playing in theaters.

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