If girls – that’s girls, not ladies, women, or grrrls – fail to save rock & roll as planned, it won’t be for lack of instruction manuals.
Last year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls (intro: Carrie Brownstein) reflects the curriculum and philosophy of Portland, Oregon’s camp of the same name, established in 2001 with a mission to “build girls’ self-esteem through music creation and performance” (and since replicated by independent camps throughout the country); it contains inspiring essays and histories, as well as practical instructions for music-making and related matters: zine-making, self-defense, women and girls in rock history, and so on. It’s a guide with revolution in mind.
Robyn Goodmark‘s Girls Rock: How to Get Your Group Together and Make Some Noise (foreword: Kim Gordon), published concurrently, takes a sort of radicalized “making the band” approach, taking girls through the basics of forming a band and where to go from there, encouraging and empowering as it instructs.
The Girls’ Guide to Rocking (cover blurb: Joan Jett), written by Chicago music writer, musician, and O.R.G. (original riot grrrl) Jessica Hopper and published this past summer – girls rock camp high season – splits the difference. Hopper proffers empowering encouragement and history and tangential but important topics (music criticism, a guide to rock films), sure, but she also foregrounds loads of elemental information in a fun, unpretentious, straightforward way, helping girls demystify the coded signals still frustratingly present in what is still frustratingly a boys club.
Girls’ Guide starts with a throat-lumping quote by Patti Smith (“I wasn’t born to be a spectator”) and makes sure girls (and, really, boys and women and men) understand the tools it takes to get where they’re going – it’s a step-by-step on how to get your hands right on that noise.
Y’all can take it from there.
This article appears in November 13 • 2009.