Girls Rock! Chicago shapes new music, self-image
Annual camp unplugs boys-club notion of rock ’n' roll
Everyone needs their 15 minutes of fame, and the girls at the Girls Rock! Chicago summer camp are about to get theirs. After a week of concentrated work, 68 musicians in 17 bands will make their rock dreams come true when they hit the stage at Metro on Saturday afternoon.
The young performers have worked on their music in hot, cramped classrooms all week at the Inter-American Magnet School. As Saturday draws near, the excitement is mounting, says Girls Rock! board member Melissa Oglesby.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Girls Rock! Chicago
Girls Rock! Chicago End-of-Camp Extravaganza
3:30 p.m. Saturday
Metro, 3730 N. Clark
Tickets, $6 (all ages)
(773) 549-0203
“On a big stage looking out into a crowd of people, they’ll feel like rock stars,” Oglesby said. “It’s a big deal to play Metro when you’re only 10.”
Girls Rock! Chicago was founded three years ago around the idea of using rock music to foster girls’ creative expression, positive self-esteem and community awareness. At the camp, the group’s biggest event, volunteers share their experiences as women involved in some form of making music.
The campers, ages 8-16, spent the week practicing their instruments, writing a song and coming together as a band. The two-hour band practice at the end of the day is when all the work gets done.
Collaborating with girls you’ve just met is one of the challenges. Kayla DeSouza, 13, especially likes the task of creating a new song.
“It’s not hard but it’s not easy, either,” Kayla said. “Everyone is so different. We have to collaborate and try to incorporate everything everyone wants into the song. It’s fun to see it all come to life.”
Kayla’s camp band, In Case of Emergency, also includes Shelan O’Keefe, 14, on drums; Natalie Palmart, 12, on guitar; and Sarah Parker, 16, on bass. Third year camper O’Keefe, usually a guitarist, stepped up to fill a shortage of drummers. She’s a novice but looks like an expert when she starts banging away and swaying to the rhythm.
“I’ve noticed most people are really tense when they start playing,” O’Keefe explained. “I’ve found that if you go into a dance mode and move to the beat it’s much easier.”
Their music coach, Joyce Chun, says these girls are especially excited because they are taking it a step farther this year by incorporating a violin into their song.
“The girls were talking about their backgrounds, and the violin came up,” Chun said. “It’s amazing how far they’ve come in just a few days. It’s huge.”
In another classroom, Stephanie Levi, the drummer in the band 8 Inch Betsy, has the slightly more intense task of closely instructing the three young girls who make up the band Dark Sunrise. She’s a natural, patient teacher always ready with a smile and encouragement.
As their song takes shape, drummer Lois Chermansky, 8; bassist Zoe Samila, 9; and guitarist Abigail Czajka, 10, listen to Levi’s advice on song structure.
“It’s your band and your song,” Levi said. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to ask permission.”
After a successful run through of the first verse of their cute, hard-rockin’ song, the girls suddenly loose focus. Their attention turns to the building being demolished across the parking lot. “Cool,” says Chermansky, as the girls ditch their instruments and hang at the window.
“We call this band breakdown,” Levi said, laughing. “It happens to the best of us.”
The work of the Girls Rock! performers sometimes goes on to even more success. Jagged Tulips, a band from the 2006 camp, which included DeSouza and O’Keefe, found its way back to Metro — for a second gig. The club asked the band back to open for rock singer Nina Hagen.
“They got up there and played their one song like pros,” Oglesby said. “It was a wonderful experience for them.”
And as a surprise for the campers, Oglesby’s group Lemmy Caution performed the song during an after-lunch performance on Wednesday.
“It was really cool to hear them play our song,” said DeSouza.
From beginning to end, Girls Rock! is filled with positive role models for the girls, from the music coach who tells them it’s important to “continue to learn all your life” to the volunteer mom who helps them find the bathroom. The importance of these role models is not lost on girls’ mothers.
“You rarely see these sorts of affordable programs, especially for girls,” said Mario Soto, whose 13-year-old daughter Nicole Carmona is a second-year camper performing guitar with the band Sweetartz. “This experience will really help her when it comes to meeting new people and making new friends.”
Lois’ mother agrees. “It’s just very affirming for young girls to have an experience like this,” she said. “My theory is the younger the better.”
Just wait until Chermansky sees her daughter, now a confident novice drummer, leading off her band’s song at Metro with a quick clap of the drumsticks and the chant — “One, two, three, four!”