mialuv ulongty & notown derby match review

we may have a new favorite roller girl over @ the view looks good from here, fresno. i mean, we didn't vote or anything, but we were both blown away by the skill of mialuv ulongty. not only was her name and number (10 dolla) hilarious, she had the skillz to pay the billz. really, she cut through the crowd without any difficulty. at times it looked like she was the only one moving in a pack, and then she was fifteen feet ahead.

overall, the notown derby girls looked very good. they played hard, and looked way more prepared than the opposition from chino. i was worried that notown might be in a little trouble because hari kari was out injured, but several ladies stepped up big as jammers. even lotta leadpipe took a turn at jammer and scored some points. and, the notown

couple of suggestions (because i got 'em):
-whorechata might want to throw a few less elbows. seriously, i love the passion, but i'm not sure i saw her make two laps around the track without getting tossed into the penalty box.
-stop arguing with the refs. and refs, stop listening to arguments. if you make a call, make it. if someone wants to argue, tell them to stfu. having watched sports all my life, i know that when refs entertain players "suggestions" it makes them look like they don't know what they're doing. i understand a little, but if after every other jam we (the crowd) has to sit and wait while the refs get spoken to, have a mini huddle, call people over, talk more, etc it sucks.
-the sound in the building is still really uneven. i was talking to a friend on the south side of the track during a break and the sound was rather intelligible. i was seated on the north side of the track and it was pretty garbled. it seemed like they made some improvements, but it could still get a little better.
-if you're ever looking for announcers, the view looks good from here, fresno would love to give it a try. it's possible we might suck, but hey, maybe no one hears it anyway.

again, great work by notown and everyone who helped put it together last night.

notown roller derby in fresno, the jabronskis in merced

if you're not doing this saturday




make a drive up to merced and check out this

"HEY HEY HOOOOO!

It is the first Jabronskis show in 2 years, we are going to be playing with our musical brothers THE GOOD LUCK THRIFT STORE OUTFIT at The Partisan in downtown Merced witch is owned by 3 of the 4 Jabronskis. Gee I wonder how we got the show.

Anyways, not sure when we are going to be playing again, but I do know we have over an hour of material to play. So come out and lets get rowdy.

Love,
The Jabronskis

Sat May 30th 2009
at The Partisan
432 West MAin Street
Merced CA 95340
thepartisanmerced.com

doors at 8pm
shows at 9pm
$5.00
21+"

now, it's been a while since i've seen the jabronskis, and apparently been a while since they've played together. i really enjoy their music, and hope maybe they'll hit fresno some time soon.

upcoming fresno events

there's a lot of cool stuff coming up in fresno. why am i telling you? well, because i want you to share the fun with me. and, i want people to know about some events that are a little away and should be put on your calendar.

this thursday is the last week of the rademacher residency @ tokyo garden. this show will be super awesome with the sleepover disaster playing before rademacher. rademacher will have brian kenney fresno, thomas from gypsy cab, luke from sleepover, benji from fay wrays (at least i think they're all guesting this week) all playing along. it should be a sick show.



on saturday, head over to the fairgrounds and check out notown roller derby. these ladies are legit, and it's a fantastic experience.



you could also head over to the fulton mall and check out the rev fest, which promises a ton of motorcycles, a parade down the mall, and more.

speaking of the fulton mall, you can head back down to the mall the next weekend and enjoy the hye fest. tons of armenian food, music and stuff on saturday (and sunday?).

june 2nd, you can enjoy a cocktail and support creative fresno's downtown mural project over @ the bartender challenge. this one is set @ the landmark and features a competitor from the megazone contest: joey "lola la chola" fernandez.



on monday the 8th you need to be over @ starline for pecha cucha night 3, another creative fresno event. adam is slated to present.

june 13 - undercurrent anniversary show, 3rd edition. it's a little after the actual anniversary, but whatever. for $15 you get 8 great bands, and i think they're playing in this order: it's an icicle, son del valle, the fay wrays, shon j, 3 bags full, patrick contreras band, the sleepover disaster, and destructo bunny. i really dig destrecto, although i've mainly seen him dj'ing and rapping with ibid. since then, he's moved down to southern cali and has been making a bit of noise. i'm excited to see him back and will be promoting the hell outta this show.

june 20 - patrick contreras band cd release show. this really is too big for fresno to ignore. patrick has budwiser sponsoring his cd release, it's shut down a whole parking lot in the tower, they're parading in, and so on. it'll be a fun time and actually showcase the tower district as well patrick contreras.



july 2 - arthop - edward stewart showing @ milano. downtown fresno, fulton mall, 5-8pm.

fresno derby girls

is fresno big enough for two roller derby teams?

we will soon see. in fact, we'll see this weekend because valley fever roller derby will be playing a match downtown @ the exhibit hall. can they pull anything near the 800+ that were at the notown derby match?



now, i have admit i'm a bit skeptical about how this debut match for valley fever is going to go. this isn't me hating on them or anything, this is me, someone who tries to stay fairly connected to what's going on in fresno not having heard much at all. like, zero promos for this match. not on the beehive. not on fresno famous. not on the fresno blogosphere. the only reason i knew about this team is because they had posted some comments on notown roller derby posts on fresno famous. and, i only knew they had a game because someone not affiliated with the team mentioned on famous that there was a match this weekend. and $15? a little steep. i know it's only $5 more than notown matches, and $5 more than what smog city was running, but it's still more expensive to see a team i've never seen, that i don't know anything about.

but i do hope that their match this weekend goes well, and that they bring in some more people to the derby scene.

i've also heard some rumblings about yet a third team in the works. wow, 3 teams? i know fresno & the surrounding area have enough people to support multiple teams, but are there enough people interested in roller derby to support it? i'm not sure.

here's what i would like to see: all these teams are successful and around long enough that they play each other at least once. really, let's get a match going between notown & valley fever.

notown roller derby vs battle born derby demons

last night was the inaugural match for smog city. well, sort of. many of the team members were on smog city, a team i loved to go and watch. would notown measure up? i had to go and see.

along with the team change, there was also a venue change. smog city had played it's last couple of seasons at valdez hall downtown, and now they were playing over @ the fairgrounds. location wise this wasn't a big deal. building wise it turned out to be. the commerce hall @ the fairground sucks. really sucks. the building is all sorts of angles inside, so you don't get as good of a crowd feel because it's very broken up. and, the angles and low ceiling contribute to crappy sound. so, the "announcer" was unintelligible. which honestly wasn't bad because the reverend, as he goes by on the radio, was just babbling useless crap all night long. to all that bad sound, throw in a dj who is playing loud music, and you just had a sound mess. another issue with this new venue was that they had less bleacher seats than before. this meant more people were sitting @ floor level, trying to look through other people. which actually meant i spent the second and third periods standing up to really watch the match. not terrible, and there was only one row of people behind me and they were also standing. finally, and this isn't actually a venue issue, but the numbers they were using for the scoreboard were highly stylized and very difficult to read. here's a suggestion: use numbers that are easy to read at a distance so people know what the score is. fans want to know what the score is.

okay, i've got those venue gripes out of the way, onto the match. the good thing about the match was that there wasn't a huge drop off between smog city and notown. the notown girls need some work, especially in their blockers, but overall they were still very good. some of the people that weren't that great when they played for smog city had really stepped up their game and played great last night. some of the newer players were good additions to the team. and notown needed it last night because battle born derby demons, hailing from reno, came to scrap. it was a very aggressive match with a lot of people hitting the floor. hard. their blockers were well organized and they had their own little star jammer named short fuse who seemed to just fly through the crowd with ease. battle born was tough, but they just couldn't keep up in the long run. notown skated to the victory, and i think the final score was 105 to 87. i'm not sure, because the numbers were hard to read (just kidding, i forgot the final score).

one other difference between notown and smog city is that the girls seemed to interact with the crowd a whole lot more. in the past, they did some stuff, and worked to get the crowd fired up. many of these same girls were now really working their butts off to get the crowd involved. they're dancing, they're skating with props during the introductions, they're getting cheers started for players. some of this may have happened before, but it really stood out last night. and betty rocker, already a star to fresno dergy enthusiasts, was really working the crowd. a couple of times as she was jamming after whipping through the other team she signaled to the crowd as if to ask, "should i call off the jam. no, don't call it? i should whip through them again? okay. done and done." really good showmanship.

for me, there was no let down between notown and smog city. i'll be back. specifically, may 30th for their next home match.

no town roller derby 3/21

this is where it's at this weekend. get your tickets early.



ALL-FEMALE ROLLER DERBY

NOtown Roller Derby presents:

The Good, The Bad, and THE DERBY
A NOtown Production

NOtown Roller Derby vs.
Battle Born Derby Demons
The ULTIMATE Derby battle for the West!

Saturday, March 21, 2009
Doors open @ 6 PM
Bout starts @ 7 PM

Advance Tickets - $10
Door Tickets - $12
Kids 10 and under Free!

Fresno Fair Grounds - Commerce Building
1121 S. Chance Ave.

Fresno, CA 93702

FREE PARKING!

Tickets available @

LA LUNA LOCA TATTOO (1306 N.
Wishon Avenue; (559) 268-LUNA),

SACRED HEART CLOTHING (101 W. Olive Ave.
; (559) 681-2205),

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/52227 or

FROM ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE ROLLER GIRLS!

NOtown Roller Derby is teaming up with the Poverello House to conduct a FOOD DRIVE! For EVERY can of food/non-perishable item you bring, you will receive ONE RAFFLE TICKET!!!

Great Raffle Prizes, including:

Gift Baskets, Gift Certificates, AND MORE!


honestly, i'm intrigued to see how these girls stack up versus my memory of the smog city roller girls. i know that they have many of the same people, but there has also been a fair amount that left. mix in some new players and it could be very interesting, or terrrible. (nothing in between.) i'm also curious about the fair grounds as a venue. i know smog city played there for a bit, but i never went to any of those games.