The Girls Can Jam

1/8 Newly formed band Push is ready for the cover of Rolling Stone with their band shot. Photo: Sarah Race.

2/8 Learning the camp song. Tess demonstrates the proper arm motions for rocking in the front. Photo: Sarah Race.

3/8 Loaning or donating a guitar to rock camp means Jen gets to practice on a variety of gear, including this Telecaster. Photo: Sarah Race.

4/8 Lilly holds down the beat for her band, 8-9-10. Photo: Sarah Race.

5/8 The whole camp piles on stage for the camp song at the Final Showcase. Photo: Sarah Race.

6/8 Astrid shows off her just-made band t-shirt for Toxic Vomit, as well as their new mascot. Photo: Sarah Race.

7/8 A volunteer preps for afternoon assembly, where the camp learns new verses to the camp song every day. Photo: Sarah Race.

8/8 Myriam, often mistaken at camp for her twin sister Harriet, has just learned black metal picking on the bass. Photo: Sarah Race.

Previous Next

[Editor's note: The photo essay of Girls Rock Camp that runs with this article is by Sarah Race.]

"Hey, where does this go?" A friendly young woman with blue streaks in her hair struggles through the front door carrying a bass amp. Have I met her? I can't remember. Over the last two days I have met about 40 new volunteers, and tried (poorly) to remember their names.

"Just against the wall there, thanks." I grab one end to make sure she's okay, since my arms are already bruised from carrying bass amps and drum kits all weekend. She waves me off. "No, I'm fine."

We begin getting the space ready for the campers' arrival later on this, The First Day. More volunteers stream in, and the place is soon a hub of bustling ladies plugging in gear, setting up sound boards and eating bagels. Our soundtrack is the "brrrm brrrrrrrm" of sound equipment being tested, the "smash kong smash thump" of drums being tested, the whine and hiss of microphones. The bass amp goes into a tiny 10-by-7-foot room in which five equally tiny bass players will learn to hold and play disproportionately large bass guitars over the course of one week at camp. This size difference will prompt the tiniest bass player to politely email us later in the week, claiming "all the people are bigger than me and they can all reach the tuning pegs but I can't," and also "the blackmetal picking is really hard." Roger that.

These instruments are not easy, and most campers, who are eight to 18 years old, will have never played them before. Which makes it more impressive that these girls will be throwing themselves into a scary new place to learn a totally new thing. Equally impressive are the volunteers, who are committing an entire week to coaching these campers through that most difficult process called "Forming a Band and Getting it to an Actual Stage and Not Strangling Each Other in the Process."

By the end of the week, not just one but seven bands of young women will play to a sold-out crowd at the Cultch Historical Theatre in Vancouver. But first, they have to meet each other.

Same day, about two hours later

A swirling mass of girls are screaming out genre names in a small room.

"Pop!"

"Rock!"

"Rock-pop!"

This is part of a process called "Band Formation," which will result in campers sort of organically coalescing into groups of three to five people who are vaguely like-minded in terms of musical taste. The older campers are doing the same thing next door, but with more complex and angsty genres, like "Shoegazer" or "Post-rock." The littler ones tend to stick to names we've all generally heard of, and can put a well-calloused finger on, musically.

"Rap!" they continue.

"Hip-hop!"

"I just lost a tooth!"

I stop writing the genres on the white-board. A young camper with long blonde hair is calmly holding her bloody molar high in the air. "Look!" she says. "Here it is!" Everyone cheers. I quietly add "Punk" to the list. And then see that she's taken to see a nurse.

Some explanation of what exactly this camp is all about

"Rock music is a male-dominated industry -- we're never going to close the gap if we don't empower women to make music," explains Aili Meutzner, one of the camp's head organizers.

The whole idea is that most girls get told to be quiet, either by teachers, friends, bullies, or indirectly through magazines, movies, and the messages they carry. Messages like "It's not attractive for girls to talk a lot," or "Hey, I know you want to play drums, but why don't you try these pan flutes instead?" So Rock Camp started to help them get loud in a supportive environment. "The original organizer of the first Rock Camp for Girls in Portland saw a need for female mentorship, and the creation of space for young girls to express themselves," continues Aili. "The medium is music, but the emphasis is on expression."

The most common criticism -- and we'll just get this out of the way right now -- is that girls can be loud around boys too, so why aren't we letting boys into the camp? The short answer is, yes, girls can totally be loud with boys around, but many are just too shy until the boys are removed from the room, and you say "Hey look, there is an empty drum kit, maybe you could please put down the pan flutes and play as loud as you can?" There is now a clear and boy-removed path to the instrument, upon which they can commence rocking.

It's something that's hard to know for sure until you see that first room full of girls all playing guitar through distortion pedals, laughing and casually helping each other out. "I think the group environment is really positive," explains Laura Hatfield, who taught drums at the camp. "There are fewer reservations, and it's much easier to just dive in since there's a lot of support, and no one's talking down to each other." This environment can often lead to quick learning. "I couldn't believe it – they were holding down a full rock beat on the drums by the end of their first lesson!" claims Laura. "It was amazing to see that happen."

This environment is rare, not so much because people are going around actively taking amps away from girls, but more because they're just not giving them amps in the first place. According to statistics from the late '90s in the U.S., far more men than women joined bands before high school graduation. In high school, playing instruments like bass, drums and guitar is difficult without access to expensive equipment and jam spaces. As a teen, I was lucky to have a drum kit in my basement, but trying to find other girls with equipment or places to jam was like pulling teeth. Which is how I ended up playing in an all-male Blink-182 cover band in high school, and never did jam with my girlfriends. This is also how we end up with a music scene where girls are often encouraged to sing quietly behind acoustic guitars, and leave plugging in to the guys, who have been doing it since they were teens.

Even Lidia, at 10 years old, notices the need for more women in rock music. "It's more about the guys in rock," she says, hanging out with her new friends at the button-maker one morning at camp. "A lot of men are in it, more than women."

"Why do you think that is?" I ask.

"Because rock isn't meant for women, probably. Back then, women were always at home, cooking and cleaning," she explains.

I smile to think that the heyday of rock music is now "back then" to a ten-year-old.

"Do you think maybe rock music is meant for women, too?" I ask.

"It should be!"

A scenario in which campers demonstrate the ethic of collaboration over competition

Camper A, B, and C have formed a band, and are working on their song in an afternoon time slot known as "Loud Band Practice." Their volunteer Band Manager and Band Coach stand nearby, armed with tambourines to bring them back on beat in case of rhythmic emergencies.

Most band coaches and managers will be happy to let you in on the secret of helping out a new band, which is to let the band help themselves. If you do much more than toss in the odd bit of advice, twiddle the knobs on the PA, stop any violent scenarios, and sing along, you're not really letting them be a band. "You make sure they don't cry," explains Aili, who was also a Band Manager. "And if they do cry, you try to make it stop."

This may sound simple, but this job leaves Band Managers totally sweaty and out of breath by the end of practice. I can best liken the process to that of attempting to steer a shopping cart full of groceries down a very large hill. The cart is going to get to the bottom of that hill somehow. You are there to make sure it gets there intact.

In this particular scenario, a debate is raging within the band about their song lyrics.

"I think it needs more barf," says Camper A, seriously, from behind the drum kit.

"But it's not about barf," says Camper B, who is singing.

"Yeah that's why we need more barf in it," points out Camper A.

"What do you think, Camper C?" asks the Band's Manager.

Camper C thinks about it for a few seconds, then disappears underneath her keyboard for a while. The other band members become worried. A discussion follows about the relative artistic merits of barf, and how it may or may not fit within their vision as a band.

It appears that Camper C needs a good think, or perhaps just some juice after a long hot day of musical instruction. The Band Coach takes her out for a quick break, while Campers A and B attempt to practice their song in her absence.

"This sucks," points out Camper B. "We need a keyboard."

"Yeah, where is she?" agrees Camper A. "We sound crappy." They laugh, and begin constructing an entirely new song, entitled, We Suck Without You, Camper C.

By the time Camper C returns, juice in hand, Campers A and B have completed the song.

"Listen to the song we made for you!" they yell, jumping up and down with excitement. Without waiting for a response, they launch into an upbeat rap-style number complete with dance moves.

Camper C stands in the doorway, sipping.

"Cool," she says.

The three campers continue working on the song, with keyboard, but without barf.

How it all began

Vancouver's camp is by no means the first Girls Rock Camp. They are now dotted in various incarnations throughout the U.S, with some in Canada and Europe. The best way to think of this network of camps is as a fungus, originating in Portland, Oregon eight years ago, and steadily spreading through an underground network of lady musicians since then, popping up on the surface whenever they have gathered enough energy to start a camp.

Portland's Camp is still the flagship, and runs a variety of programs through the year. They've boasted some serious Riot Grrrl star power through the years, like Beth Ditto from The Gossip and Carrie Brownstien of Sleater-Kinney, to name a few. The notoriety of many of Portland's instructors initially caused Vancouver's organizers to encounter questions like "how many rock stars are teaching at camp?" This raised the important issue that the camp is not about star power, or cultivating rock stardom, but about allowing regular people to teach other regular people how to have a great time playing music. Our "rock stars" were local bands who happen to rock really hard. If you happened to drop into one of our Vancouver Camp's lunchtime shows, you might have found Nu Sensae playing to a crowd of dancing and hair-thrashing 8-18 year-old girls cradling burritos in their hands, the tiniest ones wearing giant industrial earmuffs to prevent ear damage.

Incidentally, this was also the show that broke the camel's back in terms of sound levels, causing the desk workers on the other side of the wall to finally break down and storm into the camp demanding to know what the %#@* was going on.

One of the perturbed visitors asked our volunteer Aimee to explain. Recalls Aimee: "I said that we were having a rock camp, and she said 'Well, I'm just wondering if it's going to get any quieter?' and I said 'Well, no!' I apologized for the oversight, handed her the box of earplugs, and wished her the best of luck. That was the last we heard from them."

Showcase night

"My happiness level was about 10 out of 10," explained Eli Leary, the camp's main director, who I am guessing drank more coffee than anyone else at camp.

"The place was just full of this energy that made your heart want to explode with goodness. There was no real awkwardness like a lot of rock shows. Grandma's, grandpa's, siblings -- they were all cheering."

And her stress level before the show started?

"Pretty much a nine out of 10. No - wait, maybe a 10."

Backstage before the show, the campers raced around buzzing with excitement, applying hairspray, practicing dance moves, and generally freaking out about facing 250 screaming fans.

When the promised hairstylist didn't show, the older campers stepped up and shared their black eyeliner and hair accessories with the tiniest of campers, patiently painting bat wings and black lips on their young friends faces. The resulting army of tiny goth bands sprinted through the backstage area of The Cultch, wrapping themselves up in curtains, eating cookies, and singing, all with their Band Managers hot on their heels yelling "Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! They can HEAR YOU!"

Stagefright, so apparent in the minutes before each band performed, seemed to melt away as each band walked up to face the audience. The band I coached took the stage to the sound of the crowd chanting their name, "TOX-IC VOM-IT! TOX-IC VOM-IT! TOX-IC VOM-IT!" and then launched into the most energetic and bang-on performance of their song I had ever heard. Honestly, this song would have made Ian Curtis jealous.

I watched from stage left as the drummer leaned almost out of her stool to slam the toms as hard as humanly possible for an eight year-old, face showing an expression I have rarely seen outside of Norwegian Death Metal. I believe this may have stemmed from the advice I gave her the previous day. "The more scared you get," I said, "the harder you hit those drums, okay?"

Some of the night's song titles included "I Don't Want To Go To High School," "Girls Rock Force," "Best Friends," "Electric Brain Waves," "(Poison) Things From Your Diary," and "Jailbird." The song structures varied from the traditional Verse-Chorus-Verse model to the very popular Solo-Chorus-Solo model, or even the "Verse-Verse-Screaming" model that my band went for.

At the end of the night, I headed upstairs to clean up the dressing rooms, and found a small group of teen campers lounged out in Dressing Room B.

"Hey guys, sorry, we've got to clear out now," I said, using my best Responsible Adult Voice.

Their faces went instantly into that hurt puppy expression I got at the end of every day of camp, the "but we want to do this forever!" look that I had secretly come to love.

"But we're like never going to see each other again!" one camper exclaimed. "Can't we stay for a bit?"

It was true, they might never see each other again. I told them all to make sure their parents knew where they were, and packed up the last of the strewn clothing left on the dressing room floors.

A few weeks later, I heard that this same group of campers had decided to keep their band together, and were looking for a practice space. It was at this point that we decided that we had no choice left but to organize an after-school program, so that more bands could do the same. It means a serious commitment to grant-writing, space-finding, paper-filling-out, and more amp-carrying. But after a show like that, how could we not?

For behind-the-scenes audio footage of the camp, check out Sarah Buchanan's podcast.

For more information about the Girls Rock Camp here in Vancouver, visit their website.