Root for the home team

If you’ve been to a Blue Ridge Rollergirls bout, you know how intense the action and athleticism can be. If you haven’t, we strongly advise you to go this year. And the Rollergirls need help to keep up their fierce battling. Enter eight local bands, who’ll duke it out Sunday for the honor of playing a halftime show.

Rollerpalooza will help raise money for the team to rent a practice space in Asheville. Five years in, skaters still drive to Hendersonville to practice.

Eight bands will take the stage to support the Blue Ridge Rollergirls. The lineup is a sample of Asheville bands from a variety of genres including The Hillside Bombers (Southern rock), Super Collider (heavy rock), Lyric (soul/funk), 50 Year Flood (blues rock), Broken Lilacs (rock ‘n’ roll duo), Mystery Cult (classic experimental rock), Elkmont Place (folk/indie/psychedelic) and The Red Hot Sugar Babies (hot jazz/sultry blues).

Event organizer Simona Mortensen (aka Stormy Strike) drew on the Rollergirls network of friends and sponsors to put together a diverse lineup she describes as “local bands really working hard.”

The band I’m in, the Red Hot Sugar Babies, will be playing: It seemed a perfect fit for us. The nonprofit Rollergirls has a mission “to actively create, promote, and sustain an environment that fosters strength, courage, vitality and the empowerment of women,” and we were excited to support them.

That cooperative spirit got her involved, Mortenson says. After watching the Rollergirls practice, she was “inspired to become part of a team again,” she says.

In addition to the “A” team Rollergirls and “B” team French Broads, there is also a teen team, the Madison Junior Roller Divas. “A lot of our team members volunteer and coach or ref that team,” says Mortensen. “It’s definitely our Junior League — by the time they are of age to compete with the Blue Ridge Rollergirls, they’ll know the game front and back.” As a newcomer to the sport herself, Mortensen speaks from experience. “They put newbies through a pretty rigorous training before they’re even eligible to play a game at practice,” she says.

Hence the need for an in-town practice facility. The Blue Ridge Rollergirls will kick off the fifth season in March 2011 as an apprentice team in The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association — a recognition the team achieved last year, with hopes of earning a bona fide spot in the Eastern Division of that organization. “We always played by their standards to begin with,” says Mortensen, but now they will be “stepping on stage as far as the national derby — and world — are concerned.”

Even with all the recent limelight, there remains one small problem — the team has to drive to the far part of Hendersonville to practice at Skater’s Choice. “It’s a great space and all,” Mortenson says, and they’re grateful for it. But there’s the wear and tear on the vehicles and the gas money involved — all out-of-pocket expenses for the athletes. “If we had a space closer to home, it would make it easier for us to practice more. We are an Asheville team, so we’d really love to have a home in Asheville,” she says.

Unlike a professional sports league which compensates players, the Blue Ridge Rollergirls run as a nonprofit organization, and each team member pays dues to help with costs, in addition to fulfilling assigned jobs to help the team function. The team also depends on sponsors. If someone had a space to rent at a reduced rate, that would be a big help to the Rollergirls.

A secondary goal of Rollerpalooza will be to let fans pick the music for home games. “We’ve become more family oriented, so we’re trying to make this a way for our fans to tell us what they want as far as entertainment,” explains Mortensen. The night of the show, there will be a ballot box for each band, and the entry ticket to the show will be each patron’s vote for their favorite band. The three bands with the most votes in their box will play the half-time shows for the 2011 season. “Being a local-business team, we really try to help out the other local people around us,” says Mortensen.

Tickets for Sunday’s Rollerpalooza are currently on sale at Flipside Board Shop on Lexington Avenue, Harvest Records and Orbit Video on Haywood Road in West Asheville, Diamond Thieves Body Piercing on Smokey Park Highway and the Grey Eagle.

— Wendi Loomis can be reached at wendi@jazzandpoetry.com.