The joke begins as an off color comment made by All Nite Skate guitarist Bob Haddad: “Two Arabs walk into a band.” At first glance, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then you take into account that Bob is Egyptian and the other guitarist, Omar Afzaal, is Pakistani, and it makes a bit more sense on the racial level. But if you take it just a little further, you find that it is exactly how it really began: two Arabs really did walk into a band, they became friends, and the show starts.

All Nite Skate began after the demise of the Plain Crashers and during the formation of the Poseidon Adventure, two bands that have fewer things in common musically than they do in members. Afzaal was in Plain Crashers, with bassist Cole Strader, who also happened to be playing bass in the Poseidon Adventure after Plain Crashers broke up. Afzaal and Strader decided that they were not quite finished making music together and began looking around for other musicians. Strader introduced Afzaal to Poseidon Adventure guitarist Bob Haddad, and things began moving.

“The three of us went out to dinner one night,” began Afzaal. “Bob and I began talking about music and guitars, the usual stuff. We just really clicked, Bob is probably one of the funniest people that I have ever met.”

“Really it was because we’re both really big Smashing Pumpkins fans,” added Haddad.

The two began jamming together and began to click musically as well as socially. After awhile, Haddad introduced Afzaal to Poseidon Adventure keyboard player, Darcy Flannigan. Once again, the four clicked musically. Flannigan introduced the four of them to ex-Beauty’s guitar player Kay Gregg and violist Michelle (last name unknown). Finally the sound was complete. At the end of the summer of 2005, Michelle left for the metaphorically sunny shores of the Pacific Northwest.

“The loss of Michelle was pretty tough,” said Afzaal. “But, at the same time, it was probably the best thing to ever happen to us. It forced us to pick up the slack; she isn’t in the front anymore.”

“It really did,” echoed Haddad. “Nothing against her at all. We love her; we really do. She’s an absolutely amazing musician, but it just forced us to be a better band without her.”

Up until Michelle’s leaving, All Nite Skate had been kind of floating by. There wasn’t - and still isn’t - anything in town that sounds remotely like them. The best hole to put them in is the ever-widening genre of indie rock, which is , after all, what most of the band listens to. They do in a way sound like their component parts. They listen to Pelican, Mogwai, Fugazi, Slint, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, etc., and this is also how they sound. They are instrumental and melodic and have a passive-aggressive undertone that makes them sound very genuine.

“We get compared to bands like Godspeed all of the time, and I hate it,” said Afzaal. “I mean, I understand why genres exist, so that we can be placed on a shelf in some music store under ‘alternative’ or ‘punk’ or whatever, but it is so limiting. We’re not special. We’re just a band, and we’re not trying to be put into a category, but people try to put us in one. We don’t consider ourselves to be anything at all.”

“There is a void in rock n’ roll, and we intend to fill it,” added Haddad with a laugh. “No, really, we just like to play music together.

“We like playing music, we like being an instrumental band,” continued Afzaal. “People can sing along to the music if they want, and there is no way that they can get the lyrics wrong. This band is pretty open musically, too, or at least we try to keep it that way. Right now we can kind of play whatever the hell we want, and it still sounds like All Nite Skate.”

With all of this in mind, All Nite Skate look passively into the future. What it holds does not reallymatter one way or the other.

“Since Michelle left the band has grown and changed a lot,” commented Haddad. “Right now our goal is to just keep writing. We are all pretty creative right now, and we are going through a creative spurt. I’m sorry, I’m saying creative a lot; we all just have really good ideas.

“It’d be kind of cool if we could do a bit of a tour, keep playing shows around the Midwest. We’re really not trying very hard to make anything happen though.”

“It’s cool if something happens,” echoed Afzaal. “But, you know, no big deal if it doesn’t. We’re not out trying to get signed or anything.”