Charm City Roller Girls Championship and Awesome Saturday Tonight in Baltimore

We’ve noticed something peculiar these last few months. Here at the Baltimore Chop, we keep track of local happenings and events pretty closely, and it seems to us that a pattern is beginning to emerge. Much as each week has a social ebb and flow to it, so do the months. And for the last few months, the final Saturday of the month has been Awesome Saturday.

It’s starting to feel like planners, promoters and party-people are all looking at their calendars in advance and zeroing in on Awesome Saturday as the date to schedule their event. We often find ourselves hard pressed to decide what to do on Awesome Saturdays.

Charm City Roller Girls' championship bout is at DuBurns Arena tonight. 6 pm doors.

A lot of that has to do with the Charm City Roller Girls, who routinely hold bouts on the final Saturday of the month. We’re always grateful that CCRG opens the doors at DuBurns nice and early, since it leaves us (and them) plenty of time for post-game raging.

We never quite understood why people don’t like showing up for things until 11pm or later. We’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re out to have fun, more time= more fun. So listen Choppers… get there early. You’re clearly not working on Saturday, so get yourself down to DuBurns and grab a PBR before the sun goes down. Tonight is the final final Saturday for a while. It’s the league championship bout, and the last chance you’ll have to see derby until July 24, when Charm City takes on Denver at home. Tonight also determines who’s awarded the prestigious and much sought-after Donaghy Cup. We don’t know all the details, but we like to imagine that it’s part Stanley Cup and part pimp cup… something you can take turns dragging to bars around town and drinking beer out of.

What else is so awesome about Awesome Saturday? Glad you asked.

In addition to the Innovate Love Art Auction that we mentioned yesterday, which is probably sold-out anyway, you could go see Matt Porterfield Speak at the Catonsville Library. Porterfield has enjoyed much acclaim recently for his film Putty Hill as well as setting the blogs on fire with the new Double Dagger No Allies video he directed.

If you’re in the mood for dinner and a movie you can check out the Slideluck Potshow at H & H’s Gallery Four. It’s bound to be a veritable bohemian bacchanalia and worth checking out.

Musically speaking you can keep it calmed-down tonight with Wrens at Sonar, step it up a notch with Loved Ones, Dead Mechanical and the Desert Boys at Golden West or get goofy and thoroughly rage with Pfisters and Davey G at the Windup Space.

If you’re not having an Awesome Saturday it’s your own fault, Baltimore.

Tomorrow: Charm City Roller Girls Semi-Finals @ Du Burns Arena

In a rare fit of foresight, we’re actually blogging about tomorrow today. And a good thing too, because you can’t be too early on this one. The Charm City Roller Girls are back at home tomorrow for the first round of playoffs down at Du Burns.

When we say you can’t be too early, we mean you literally need to show up early. Charm City bouts have been breaking attendance records all season long, and talk is in the air about finding a larger venue to stage bouts. Tickets at the door are limited, so get them online or go by Bad Decisions, Celebrated Summer, Atomic Books, or any of the other advance sale outlets.

CCRG semi-final bout is at Du Burns Arena tomorrow. 6 pm doors.

Let’s face it Baltimore, CCRG is a lot more fun to watch than the Orioles are right now. Unfortunately, they haven’t fared much better on the road than the O’s have. The Charm City All-Stars are coming off a west coast trip where they were swept in three bouts (sound familiar O’s fans?) and didn’t fare much better up in NYC against Gotham earlier this month. We’ve still got to hand it to them though. They’re definitely playing harder and looking more professional than the O’s are lately.

As for tomorrow’s intramural playoff, the Chop professes no allegiance to a particular squad, but if we’re a betting man (and you know we are) we’ve got to lay our money down on the Mobtown Mods. The Mods have just secured a new sponsorship from The Raven Beer, and as everyone knows, good beer is like Wheaties for rollergirls. It makes you strong and fortifies your muscles and stuff, so we’re predicting the Mods will go all the way to the Donaghy Cup on the strength of the Raven, which is a proven winner.

Last but not least, we want to make sure you know about the Charm City Rollergirls Examiner, which you should bookmark posthaste. The Junkyard Dolls’ Federal Kill has recently begun writing about CCRG news and Derby related topics at examiner.com, and she’ll keep you up to date with an insider’s point of view, as well as explaining the finer points of the game, as she does in her first article.

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CCRG bouts tomorrow at Du Burns Arena, 1301 S. Ellwood Ave. 6pm. For more info, get in touch with CCRG via their contact page.

Tonight: Roller Girls! Vivian Girls!

The Chop will admit it. We were late to the party this time. We remember hearing that they were getting up a roller derby league at the Fullerton Skateland and thinking That’s fucking awesome! It’s like a punk rock show on wheels! Unfortunately, that was around the same time we started traveling abroad extensively, and it took us an insanely long time to actually attend a bout.

Charm City Roller Girls skate tonight @ Du Burns Arena. 6 pm.

By the time we did, Fullerton Skateland was in the distant past and the Charm City Roller Girls had moved down to Du Burns Arena and evolved into something that was part punk-rock show, part family fun-fest, part professional sporting event, and part beer league softball tournament, complete with raging afterparty in the Canton bars.

To put it briefly, CCRG is one of the things that makes Baltimore a great city. If you haven’t been out to a bout yet, you’re missing out on the one of the best events in town. You’re also ‘off the bus’ so to speak, because the league has enjoyed tremendous support from the city (the people that is, not city hall), and deservedly so.

In it’s growth, CCRG has managed to pull off one of the most difficult feats for any organization; remaining truly DIY and fiercely independent, yet putting on a production that is 100% professional from start to finish. Being entirely skater-owned and operated requires an enormous commitment of time and a high level of skill and dedication both on and off the track, and these women not only pull it off, they make it look easy.

So we’ve got our tickets for tonight’s bout, and we’re planning on showing up early, cause that place fills up fast. (Word to the wise: get that beer wristband as soon as you walk in, before the line forms.)

Vivian Girls play the Ottobar tonight. 8:30 pm.

Sad to say we can’t make the afterparty though, cause we’re heading back uptown to the Ottobar to catch Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls with Wet Dog, Happy Birthday, and Weekends.

We’re a bit late to the party on Vivian Girls too, since the first time we went to see them play was with Fucked Up at the new Talking Head with like 15 other bands. The Chop has no patience anymore for 15 band bills, so we sat at the bar and waited patiently (read: drank heavily) for a long time, not realizing that the show was on 2 stages and we were sitting through the crap end of it. So we missed Vivian Girls entirely.

We were pissed about it too. You know a band is good when their sound is squarely between Sleater-Kinney and the Wipers. Seeing them tonight will go a long way toward making up for what we sat through last time.