Skate-ology
This year marks the tenth anniversary of both Unsane’s “Scrape” video, which paired the New York band’s brutal noise with vivid footage of gnarly skateboarding injuries, and the first Warped Tour, which treated extreme athletes and pop-punk groups as co-headliners. These days, the Warped Tour has reduced sports to sideshow status, but in one local skater party, the connection between adrenaline-spiking activities and high-speed soundtracks still crackles with electricity.
When Amber Keimig decided to put together her own skating-and-punk showcase, the event’s name proved to be the hardest obstacle. “Skating and Punk” and “Something Awesome Productions” (named after her promotions company) led to the same unflattering “SAP” acronym. Eyes of the Betrayer singer Dustin Albright suggested Nightmare Fest, and the title stuck. The forebodingly christened event starts Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the KC Indoor Skate Park (9105 Flint in Overland Park). Multitaskers who want to ride the ramps during the show can bring their boards, though they must add $5 to the $10 cover charge. The nine-band lineup includes the city’s heaviest hitters (Moire, Eyes of the Betrayer, Evermourn), regional ringers from Dallas and Tulsa and two up-and-coming area acts whose dossiers we have assembled in order to determine their unique qualifications for this gig:
1. Enemies Laid to Rest
Sounds like: Blistering grindcore with old-school solos and breakdowns for the pit’s kung-fu kids.
Skating experience: Three of its members hail from Paola, Kansas, or Drexel, Missouri, which singer Travis McWhorter describes as “country towns with lots of gravel and no place to skate.” However, bassist Pat Fielder, an Overland Park native, has skated since sixth grade, including a session at the all-wooden Burcham Park course in Lawrence that roadies dismantled to make way for the 1997 Warped Tour’s temporary stages. Last year, he fractured his foot on an errant frontside flip.
Strangest venue played: Drexel High School, for a dance. “We played in a gym in front of a bunch of kids who are into country and rap,” McWhorter recalls. “They got a kick out of us.”
Worst nightmare: “Sock puppets,” Fielder says. “It’s kind of a touchy subject.”
Verdict: With its skating scars and thrashy attack, Enemies Laid to Rest fits in at this show like pavement-aged Vans and creatively spiky hair.
2. Chloe Bridges
Sounds like: An intricate, intense fusion of gloomy guitar rock, serrated screamo and upper-octave metal.
Skating experience: None. Says guitarist Tyler Chadwick, “I was always too big into things with motors.”
Strangest venue played: “Starving Underground in St. Joseph, Missouri, during Mardi Gras with my old band, Incoherent,” Chadwick says. “It was in a basement, and the microphone continually shocked my face. After the show, the streets were filled with drunken people with no teeth.”
Worst nightmare: “When I was younger, I always used to dream about monsters, zombies and vampires, but not too much anymore, unfortunately,” Chadwick says.
Verdict: Though its members have never gleamed the cube, Chloe Bridges has experienced enough horrors, real and imagined, to earn a spot on this bad-dreams bill.
