Girls Rock Camp!

Girls Rock Camp | Video

One of my oldest and dearest friends is Brady Smith. I met him when I was a 20-year-old camp counselor in college and he was a 14-year-old camper at Hidden Valley Camp. We overlapped at camp for two summers and he and his friends demolished my funny bone with their renditions of Monty Python skits during talent nights. Four years later - 27 years ago - we ran into each other on the street in Seattle and we've been great friends since.

Brady married Julie who had daughter Gilly and together they had daughter Isabel. Brady was a member of Hazel, a Portland, Oregon band that saw some success in the 90s. Brady's former band mate subsequently helped form the original Girls Rock Camp in Portland in 2001. Later, both of Brady's daughters attended. I always loved the concept: engender self-esteem in girls ages 8-18 by, in one week, teaching them an instrument, forming a band, writing a song and then performing it at a real concert.

Well, now I have an 8-year-old girl. And Girls Rock Camp has spread to more then 40 cities in multiple countries including Boston. When I asked Audrey if she wanted to attend she said yes instantly.

I have to be honest that this is one of those instances where I project my own ambitions on to my offspring. I would have loved to go to rock camp as a kid! I may have been more excited about it than Audrey.

Prior to camp they sent a survey asking for a few facts about the camper and what instrument the camper preferred. Audrey surprisingly chose vocals. Surprising because she had never sung in public before other than in class performances at school. But it's about empowerment, remember? So Carol and I didn't say a thing. We fantasized that the environment of camp might somehow magically overcome Audrey's shyness.

Camp was not far from my office and ran from 8:30-5:30 for the five-day week. I drove to work all week and dropped Audrey off and picked her up. It was fun in itself to have that much one-on-one time with her. That's also the longest sustained activity Audrey has undertaken so far in her life. She was pretty exhausted at the end of the first day, but also completely jazzed.

Apparently on the first day they gathered the vocalists and started teaching them how to sing into a real microphone. Audrey was not too keen on that so they discussed switching her to keyboard. On the second day that switch was confirmed and she was off and running.

Audrey is never one to give us much detail about her day but we could tell she was having a good time. I'd ask about progress on writing a song and learning keyboards and I could at least gather that the week was progressing as expected. One detailed piece of information Audrey gave me on the third day was that she wanted me to buy a keyboard that night. She insisted she could identify the exact keyboard from thumbnail images on the internet. I taught her about model numbers and the next day she faithfully memorized the model number of the (donated) keyboard she had played. I looked it up and it was more than ten years old and no longer available even on Craigslist!

The culmination of the camp was a showcase concert on Saturday afternoon in a real nightclub with a real stage and lights and sound system and maybe a couple hundred parents and friends of the 60 campers. I could tell Audrey was a little nervous about it but she was also excited. She wanted a purple streak in her hair and she picked her most rock-n-roll clothes. Carol painted skulls on her fingernails.

The concert was very cool. There were 12 bands. They ranged from completely avant garde unstructured noise to pretty polished songs with real structure and performers with amazing stage personality.

Audrey's three-piece band was named "One More Minute" and their song was "One More Minute (of Summer)." You can see the whole concert on video here with One More Minute starting at about 10:55 (click the "Download" button to be able to enlarge the video). Audrey played her part very well. She was quite stoic on stage. Perhaps she's already practicing to be a sullen rocker ala Robert Smith. We were so proud of her for not freezing when faced with a large, loud audience.

Audrey can't wait to go back next year. She won't be the youngest kid there next year and she'll know what to expect. Also, we used some coupons from camp to buy an inexpensive electronic keyboard for the family. Perhaps she'll have written a few of her own songs by then!

Click here for the video.