Shai Hulud’s Matt Fox Gets Old School With Gaming

"I have nine," guitarist Matt Fox of Shai Hulud answered Noisecreep when asked how many board games he has. "Maybe more than the average person, but not many. If I really wanted to think about it, I could name them all right now."

Board games -- those flat, unanimated pieces of cardboard that came with perhaps some cards and little plastic baubles -- have fallen out of vogue with the advent of home computers and gaming consoles. In earlier times, video games were kept safely in movie theaters and arcades, while board games ruled the home roost.

Fox wonders if he should bring these strangely non-electric video games with them when Shai Hulud tours. "I should take them on tour," Fox muses. "No one really likes -- well, Chad [Gilbert, of New Found Glory] likes board games like I do -- but no one cares about them too much. I should bring my mint condition Alfred Hitchcock 'Why' on the road, even though it's not a fun game to play ... I remember when I was a kid, it was really fun."

Don't think that Fox limits his gaming to the analog, though. Most Noisecreep readers may not be old enough to have experienced 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' game for Atari in all its frustrating, eight-bit glory. "That's a fun game ... you had to go the black market and get the parachute. I remember that much. If I remember, that was like the crux of solving the game -- the black market parachute. But I barely remember it. I think you had to jump of a cliff, and that's why you needed it."