Ladies Rock Camp: Counting Down, 30 Days

First, Background:

Okay, I'll admit it, if it is not already obvious. I'm an introvert. My self-esteem is often quite fragile. I carry around a LOT of baggage, and it is most burdensome when I find myself in new and uncomfortable situations. That's where the play button gets pushed and the old tapes, recorded between the ages of 7 and 17, begin to play. Which is why, generally, I've tended to stay within my comfort zone. It's easy, of course, in the past few years, to blame it on school. I have no time to do these things that interest me, get involved, that is very true. But I have had this sneaking fear that I'm using that excuse to slip further back into my shell...

...on the other hand, I'm turning 40. Very Soon. I'm not sure how I feel about that, yet. Mostly positive, and the positive comes from a realization of my own internal locus of control and also of finite time. It's this realization that's exerting an opposite pull, to come out of the old shell, ignore what I think people think, how I look...ignore the fear.

Back in January, with both 40 and graduation looming in 2008, I signed up for Ladies Rock Camp, a weekend event to benefit the Rock Camp for Girls. The Girls Rock Camp has operated out of Portland, OR, for several years now. There are now camps sprouting in other cities around the country, as well as a few outside of the States. The week-long camp takes girls between the ages of 10 and 17, teaches them to play an instrument, has them form bands, write an original song, practice, ending with a showcase event at the end of where all the bands perform their songs. From the Girls Rock Camp website:

"We want to eradicate all the limiting myths about music and gender that make girls afraid to speak up, sing out, and make noise. We want to abolish all the obsolete traditions that restrict many girls' and women's free musical expression and obstruct their access to the world of music. We seek to demonstrate—through lessons, mentorship, positive examples, and the shared experiences of the staff and volunteers—that every genre of music from the heaviest to the most delicate, and every technical job and creative endeavor in the music industry, is available to any girl or woman who wants to explore it."

It's more than about music, but it centers on music. When I first heard of this, I thought how awesome! And then I thought, I wish I had something like this when I was kid. Then I read a year or so ago about how they had done a Ladies Rock Camp weekend open to women 19 and over to raise funds for the Girls Camp, and I thought, well, I wish I'd known about that! I'd have signed up for sure!

In January, news about the Girls Rock Camp documentary had me looking around their website. Lo and behold, there was sign-up information about three sessions of the Ladies Rock Camp happening in O8. My excitement exceeded my trepidation (the sessions were months into the future, which helped). It felt sort of like fate, and...I was already shelling out a huge amount of money for spring tuition, what would a few hundred more dollars do, especially if it would go to a worthy cause?

This is where I am today: I'm signed up for camp at the end of May. I think I'm going to be playing either bass or keyboards (because I have no musical experience whatsoever, it was all pretty much a crap shoot, which is why I can't remember the order of my first and second choices. The old tapes did pipe in a bit, because really I think it would be cool to play lead guitar, but honestly? I have doubts about how much the camp can really accomplish in two days--I fully expect to learn something but I also expect to look ridiculous at some point, maybe several points--and I guess I'd rather be slightly less conspicuous about it. Maybe I should have chosen drums? I just don't know..!). I know what the schedule looks like, and I now know that the Showcase will be held at the Satyricon which excites me no end. In days of yore, the Satyricon was a punk institution--I've seen shows there myself. The club was the site, supposedly, of Nirvana's first paying gig.

I should be hearing from them any day now, to get the detailed information in advance of the camp (actually, while this post has been sitting in draft limbo for finals week, the LETTER arrived, but I'm going to make that another post). I'd like to document it all somehow, but I'm not sure, with school and all, how thinly stretched I'll be over the next few weeks. At the very least, though, I'll try to keep up with this blog, try to do a few pictures and perhaps some video to go with. We'll see. For now, the countdown has begun: 30 days.