Starting at noon, the Near Southside will be rocking and rolling with some heavy shoegaze and lots of ollies — plus food, drink, and carnival games — as part of The Trauma Ray Carnival. Presented by Magnolia Skate Shop at Fire Station Park Skate Plaza, this free event is mostly a community celebration but also a party for Carnival, the new EP by the namesake band.
“Since it’s our event, I guess we feel pretty good,” said Trauma Ray frontman Uriel Avila. “I just wanted to give back to Fort Worth and put the event together for the bands and things we care about in our area.”
The bill also includes Empty Shell Casing, Ozone, Defcon 1, and Spurred. Food trucks like Kelly’s Onion Burger and more will be on-site, plus there’ll be a dunk tank with mini carnival games and assorted local vendors.
As heavy shoegazers Trauma Ray, (from left to right) Nicholas Bobotas, Jonathan Perez (top), Uri Avila, Darren Baun, and Coleman Pruitt (bottom) have released several recordings, including two long-players on N.Y./L.A. label Dais Records. Photo by Justin Pietropaoli
And there will be skaters.
Magnolia Skate Shop owner Bobby Wilson raised about $80,000 in 2022 to help with the construction of the neighborhood’s first and only skate plaza, the site of numerous other events, most notably low-rider get-togethers. The Trauma Ray Carnival, he said, is “a for-locals-by-locals kind of event, just trying to do something sick for our Fort Worth community.”
From playing the shop’s grand opening eight years ago, Trauma Ray are now almost always on tour between writing and recording. Avila, bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas, and guitarists Jonathan Perez and Coleman Pruitt generate more than 243.3K monthly listeners on streaming platforms. Co-written mostly by core songwriters Avila and Perez, Carnival follows the 2024 LP Chameleon and a number of earlier recordings dating back to Trauma Ray’s formation in 2018. Recorded by Mario Cernadas and mixed and mastered by Corey Coffman, Carnival was released in February by Dais Records, the independent New York/Los Angeles label that also put out Chameleon. Carnival is as heavy and hypnotic as everything else the band’s done, but it has a creepy, nightmarish, funhouse vibe that shows there’s more to Avila and company than traditional cosmic nodding.
“At first,” said Perez in a press release, “I thought [Carnival] was gonna be really bad and rushed, and now I feel like it might be my favorite thing we’ve ever done.”
Carnival, Avila added, is “the most collaborative we’ve been, where everyone was both hands-on and hands-off. You can really hear each person’s influences in almost every song in a very unique, non-biting way.”
The Trauma Ray Carnival presented by Magnolia Skate Shop
Noon Sat w/Trauma Ray, Empty Shell Casing, Ozone, Defcon 1, and Spurred at Fire Station Park Skate Plaza, 1616 Hemphill St, Fort Worth. No cover.
The Trauma Ray Carnival is “a for-locals-by-locals kind of event,” said Magnolia Skate Shop owner Bobby Wilson, who raised about $80,000 in 2022 to help with the construction of the Near Southside’s first and only skate plaza. Photo by Juan R. GoveaFire Station Park Skate Plaza will be rocking and rolling noon Sat. Photo by Juan R. Govea
