Rock ‘n Roll Camp for Girls brings the revolution to the page
The collection of lessons from the self-empowering camp includes musical and personal guidance, and a batch of industry-insight to boot
By Genevieve Diesing
Published: June 16th, 2008 | 2:20pm
For all the rhetoric associated with the phrase “female-empowerment”, Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls may finally be a vehicle that delivers the message where it counts. The camp on which the book is based is an annual, week-long project that teaches girls ages eight to eighteen lessons beginning from how to play an instrument to how to perform. With the help of established female musicians and volunteers, it also focuses on promoting girls’ self esteem and questioning the status quo. Rock ‘n’ Roll goes the extra step and, in addition to helping girls rock out, it shows them how to book a show, record an album, and strategically “spin the Web”.
With today’s seemingly endless supply of “role models” like Hannah Montana and other image-driven young performers, the timing of Rock ‘n’ Roll couldn’t be better. What began in 2001 as Portland State University student Misty McElroy’s capstone project is now a phenomenon that continues to reestablish itself in camps throughout the globe and a recent documentary, and evolved into a significant social movement. As Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein advises in Rock ‘n’ Roll’s four-page foreword, “Rock music was once about breaking rules, but in this day and age, skintight jeans and leather jackets mean nothing and break no rules at all. If you want to break the rules, you create a place for the most unlikely people — who look nothing like the music icons we see in magazines — to not just break rules, but to invent new ones.”
That is just what the camps, and now book, seek to do: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s chapters challenge young women to be original and unapologetic in their self expression, while giving insight and history into rockers who came before them. The book kicks off with a statistic that the first female artist mentioned on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock was Janis Joplin in the year 2000, one of six on the list. “When rock ’n’ roll first emerged in popular culture, girls were right there,” Sara Dougher reminds us in her essay, “Real Girls Rock”. “Their contributions span the whole history of rock, including some styles of music that are at the roots of rock ’n’ roll.”
Rock ‘n’ Roll also instructs readers on “Getting heard: how to set up a PA”, before evolving to subjects such as “How to make a press kit” and eventually “Why a girls-only space is important”. The chapters feature a grade school workbook theme, with sidebars on famous women in rock history and columns from provocative female musicians such as Cynthia Nelson. Between tutorials on female bands such as the Runaways and ESG, the authors beg questions such as “Can you think of girls playing music now who have a ‘tough’ image? What does that mean, and do you think it is important? ”
Whether offering advice on how to find the “right” guitar or deconstructing the notion of selling out, Rock ‘n’ Roll gives girls a much-needed space to redefine themselves by embracing ideas sorely lacking in much of today’s young female demographic. The book makes concepts such as self-worth and originality, which are coming-of-age values parents often struggle to convey to their kids, more accessible in the language of power chords and lyrics. Of course, the fact that the book is launching a legion of savvy young females into the increasingly competitive independent music scene, armed with technical lingo and industry guidance, is just icing on the publication’s revolutionary cake.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Rock 'n Roll Camp for Girls: How to Start a Band, Write Songs, Record an Album, and Rock Out! (Chronicle Books)
Edited by Marisa Anderson, Forward by Carrie Brownstein
176 pages
$14.95
Issue #35
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