Max Cady, This Damn Town, Texas Rollergirls

In case you didn't know, roller derby is back. All-girl teams have started popping up around the D-FW area (see City on page 16), and last Sunday, four groups from the Austin-based Texas Rollergirls took the rink to show the newbies how it's done. These wise ones came with kneepads and leather minis, with such names as Sedonya Face, Slim Kickins, Bloody Mary and Kitty Kitty Bang Bang. Between sets, entertainment came in the form of local bands Max Cady and This Damn Town, making for perhaps one of the strangest music shows to hit Dallas in some time. This was a family affair, with spectators ranging from toddlers to octogenarians, all absorbed by the multimedia assault of sport, rock and rumble. OK, so the bands' sound wasn't great; this was a skating rink, after all. The echo of the cavernous rink made it almost impossible to make out any lyrics to Max Cady's songs, but the rock band still tore through a set including "Tonight Alive" from the group's fierce album of the same name. Despite the sound issues, singer Justin Moore captivated the eclectic audience with his focused tenor/baritone rock-out, making it all the more unbelievable that he was ever part of the ethereal, now-defunct Frill. The bands were a perfect fit to the evening's catfight exhibitions--mixing a dash of rousing drunkenness with brawling guitar riffs from both Max Cady's Jeff Biehler and This Damn Town's Jeremy Diaz. Hell, the Brian Setzer snarl of TDT's Alex Cuervo and spot-on bass of Omar YeeFoon (not to mention the pompadour) made me long for an on-the-spot jam session with Johnny Reno. After their sets, members of both bands joined fans and local derby teams at the rink's perimeter to throw up some devil horns, chug some beers and cheer on Austin's roller chicks to kick serious tail.