Hey, Ho! Let’s Go! The New Girl Rock’N'Roll Underground

Singing and playing Youth Arts (Rain City Girls Rock Camp)

By Joyce Raskin

First, I must tell you that I am not a journalist, just a musician who happens to write on the side.

As much as Everett likes to stir things up in the music world, I also know him as a person who likes to inform about things that are happening, music and people, that you might not know about if it weren’t for his rattling around and making them known. And for that I am thankful for Collapse Board being out there, and for the honesty it provides readers. Music is about the experience and the writers on Collapse Board are sharing their experiences with you — a virtual word of mouth. So here is my experience to share…

I just completed an east and west coast tour with my band Scarce to promote a new novel I wrote titled My Misadventures As A Teenage Rock Star. On our tour we stopped at several Girls Rock Camps and did many book events that included a reading, Q&A, and a performance for girls, ages 9-16 years. What I discovered on our tour was a new underground movement of seasoned and burgeoning female musicians that are beginning to change the face of rock’n'roll, one girl at a time.

Our first stop on the east coast took us to Girls Rock Rhode Island in Pawtucket. There the girls asked Chick Graning, the guitar player in Scarce, to show them a solo up close, and the girls studied him like a good book. Then they asked Joe to break down a drum solo, and they air drummed along. The girls at the camp wanted to talk to us about guitar strings, what music we listened to, what drums kits were good, what it’s like to tour, and bass playing styles. The camp is run by volunteers who are equally as enthusiastic about teaching the girls — as the girls are themselves about what they are learning. Walking around the camp you could just feel the excitement and energy emanating from the place — pure rock’n'roll for the sake of rock’n'roll. Chick Graning said of the camp, “They’re teaching them to be like The Stooges and the Ramones”.

Hilary Jones, who started Girls Rock Rhode Island, shared with me experiences in witnessing the transformations that the girls go through at the camp. One of the stories she told me was about a girl named Aubrey.

Aubrey was 11 years old and the vocalist in her band. She had expressed a little nervousness about performing earlier in the week, but seemed OK the day of the Final Showcase. Her band was supposed to perform second. But when it was their turn to play, the rest of the band appeared on stage, sans Aubrey, who was on the floor with tears in her eyes, being comforted by her band coach and some other campers. She was totally frightened to get on stage in front of 400 people. So, volunteers tried to bide time to see if she changed her mind and get up on stage. We decided to have the band go on last to give Aubrey a little time, and finally just before the last verse, she put one leg up on the stage, took her sunglasses off her head and walked to the microphone and finished the song with her band. At the end of the song, the audience roared, many with tears in their eyes. It was an amazing experience for everyone who witnessed it. After the showcase, Aubrey was interviewed by the local NPR station and was quoted saying that “If there’s something you think you can’t do … you should do it!” We agree wholeheartedly.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 3:14 pm. It is filed under Columns and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

8 Responses to “Hey, Ho! Let’s Go! The New Girl Rock’N'Roll Underground”

  1. Erika Meyer says:
    October 11, 2011 at 11:40 pm

    This is such zeitgeist, but I have to give a shout out to my friend Misty McElroy who started THE original Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon. I taught guitar there for two years and my daughter attended when she was 8 and 9 years old. The girls were not just taught to play, but in a week’s time they formed bands, wrote an original song, and performed it in front of a sold-out 600 seat venue. Here is a documentary film that was made about the 2005 camp http://youtu.be/Dbx5PM8jH3wm (I’m in the film for, like, 2 seconds, standing behind Beth Ditto, who also volunteered there that year…)

  2. Patrik says:
    October 12, 2011 at 2:31 am

    “They’re teaching them to be like *The Stooges*(!) and the Ramones”.

    Woah! How times have changed. I would not think of those bands as role models for children. A lot of used paraphernalia and dead musicians left in their wake. I’m not so sure that Iggy hasn’t been replaced by an android, either.

    Nevertheless, these camps sound like a lot of fun and something positive for the girls. Even as a boy, I would have appreciated *any* encouragement to make music. Keep rocking.

  3. » Link Love 10.12.2011 says:
    October 12, 2011 at 5:36 am

    [...] Ho! Let’s Go! The New Girl Rock’N'Roll Underground by Joyce Raskin at Collapse Board. Girls Rock Camp! I wish they had that when I was growing [...]

  4. Bianca says:
    October 12, 2011 at 7:49 am

    I wish they had this when I was growing up! Such a positive thing for young girls… I have an interview I did almost a decade ago with Misty McElroy about Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon for my old zine that never ended up being published because I stopped doing it (but that’s a whole other story)… I’ll see if I can find it to put on CB :)

  5. Erika Meyer says:
    October 12, 2011 at 10:27 am

    @Patrik that is the irony of the whole thing isn’t it. Rock n’ Roll is outlaw, yet empowering. When you create a “rock” camp, you focus on the positive empowerment aspect of it, and recognize that you are being a bit subversive just by encouraging girls to take power and get loud. The Portland girls rock camp did not teach girls to “be like Iggy” (as a lifestyle choice) at all. The volunteer staff was definitely lesbian/bi/trans dominated (hetero chix were a minority, reflecting IMO the real world of females in rock music) and it was more about being ok with who you are, having confidence in your voice, learning to use and care for gear, defend yourself, and advocate for yourself. There was a heavy Olympia influence, with lots of Oly musicians involved and Oly K & KRS acts coming down to perform. The Oly aesthetic isn’t very Iggy! (As for me, by request, I taught the girls to play songs by White Stripes and Nirvana. They loved it!)

  6. Everett True says:
    October 12, 2011 at 10:42 am

    The Oly aesthetic isn’t very Iggy!

    Oh, I don’t know …

    Two degrees of separation.

    Iggy Pop -> Lux Interior -> Calvin Johnson

    You can get there other ways, too.

  7. Erika Meyer says:
    October 12, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    First, oops! I really shouldn’t generalize like that about neighboring towns. It’s poor form. Like when some Olympians disparage Portland old school bands for being unambitious druggies. It’s hard for an outsider to really catch the nuance in a small scene, and too easy to toss off over-generalizations.

    The bands I saw perform at RRC4G were Mirah, The Blow, Gossip, Bangs… all great acts.

    I’ve only seen Calvin Johnson perform once, solo acoustic and some a capella, about 10 years ago. Also a great act. I suppose I could see the Lux in his stuff, but my impression at the time was more like Frank Sinatra meets Arlo Guthrie with a dash of Tommy Smothers hootenanny.

    Both Portland and Olympia musical acts have a lot of variety, humor, and art.

  8. Girls Guitar School says:
    November 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    [...] For more in the exciting news column…GGS students were featured on Everett True’s blog,  Collapse Board!  Our deepest thanks to Joyce Raskin for including our work in her article.  Check out the Reckless Pretties doing their thing at the Stories Cafe event in July right here. [...]

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