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

Students from October’s school took part in the same event in Los Angeles with a rock ensemble called The Reckless Pretties — three 13-year-olds playing their own compositions on the acoustic guitar. They stole the show and were showered by accolades by Exene Cervenka and the audience.

As we traveled along I began to understand just how big this underground is becoming. The rock camps are connected through a network called The Girls Rock Alliance that span across the globe. It is being lead by women, for girls and women, to create a community for young girls and women to be involved in music. Everyone involved is equally important in making the camps successful from the volunteers to the interns to the directors. Anna Petrisko of the Bay Area Rock Camp For Girls shared this with me:

The interns are the true experts of Rock Camp. Maggie, a 14-year-old drummer who has been to Girls Rock Camp every year since 2008, is now an intern, assistant teaching in the drums class as well as band coaching. During the last session of camp, she spent an entire week one-on-one with a young drummer who was having trouble coping at camp, and that same drummer was able to totally rock out at the showcase after just five days! Over the past few years, I have seen Maggie’s growth not only as a drummer and as a leader, but as a socially conscious person who cares about making change in her community that is rooted in equality for all genders, sexualities, races, classes, sizes, and abilities. Maggie as well as the other interns are amazing because the campers are not only able to relate to them, but they also look up to them, providing campers with an invaluable kind of mentor. I know that Rock Camp has made a huge difference in her life and she will continue to make a huge difference at Rock Camp for years to come.

The women we met at the camps were sharing and inspiring girls to get out there and rock — music in its purest form. It reminded me of how much a punk rock community had changed my life in Washington, DC — watching bands like Fugazi at 13 that infused me with the desire to play music. These camps and schools go further than just inspiring, they are passing on the rock and roll torch — and for females in rock’n’roll this has been sorely missing. At the Portland Rock’NRoll Camp For Girls, the first camp to launch all these sister camps around the globe, a girl remarked how sweaty we were after the show, and I said, “A real girl is sweaty and stinky and that’s cool.” And the girl started banging her head saying, ”I’m gonna get sweaty and stinky today!”

The girls all proudly told us what instrument they were learning, and I thought what a refreshing conversation to be hearing from teenage girls who might usually be encouraged by society and media to be spending their time discussing clothing, hair and make-up. Seeing an audience of 100 young aspiring girl rockers, I started thinking of the numbers and the camps and indeed it felt like this was change. This is what has been missing from the landscape to make the difference for a woman to be in a band and be treated like an equal, not the girl onstage.

Marisa Anderson from the Portland Rock’N’Roll Camp For Girls shared with me how the whole organization works and even offered advice on how to start a camp if there isn’t one in your area:

Over the past 10 years we’ve had literally hundreds of women volunteer at camp. Our volunteer base is huge and diverse. Men volunteer at Rock Camp as well. Most of the women who volunteer are musicians with bands and solo projects of their own. The first thing anybody interested in starting a camp should do is contact the GRCA (Girls Rock Camp Alliance). The Alliance has many resources and the combined expertise of over 30 camps to help new Rock Camps. Also, the yearly GRCA conference is the best place to go to learn about every aspect of starting and running a Girls Rock Camp. The next GRCA conference will be in March in South Carolina. I don’t feel like I can do justice to the transformative experience of the hundreds of girls who have come to Rock Camp by relating just one anecdote. When girls come to Camp they know it’s their space and each girl has a unique and empowering experience, whether it’s playing drums for the first time, turning a guitar amp up to 11 or singing a song they wrote that week to 700 cheering fans.

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by collapseboard