Your very own, very first gig is the highlight of the Willie Mae Ladies Rock Camp, an intensive three-day workshop in New York City where women learn to play instruments and meet fellow female musicians. But camp is about more than the music. These women are also hungry for a taste of what a little rock and roll attitude can do for a gal. In the era of Hillary and Condi, you might think that women are through with what used to be called empowerment. But some women, such as the 50 at camp this year, will take all the help they can get, especially if it means a break from the daily grind. Consider this: of the 4,000 different “fantasy” camps listed on GrownUpCamps.com, only 100 are for women only—and just one is a music camp for women. After a weekend of drumming and strumming, these women are ready to make some noise back in their daily lives, too. “Seeing them grow from beginner tadpole to rock chick is so much fun,” says volunteer vocal coach Beth Eisgrau Hoff, who wears a silver Tiffany dog-collar-style necklace and calls herself a “punk sophisticate.” (By day she calls herself an artist relations coordinator at Getty Images.) “Just watching these women sing and find their voice—literally find their voice—is so gratifying.”
The three days are structured more like high school than a freewheeling camp, not surprising since the camp is held at an actual high school in Brooklyn. The ladies go to class (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals), workshops (silk-screening T shirts, music biz 101) and band practice. Bands are formed on the first day when the campers meet, though some show up together, like the trio of rockabilly-loving friends who came all the way from Sitka, Alaska. Campers team up through a “speed dating” exercise: each participant gets one minute to chat with every other camper and decide if they want to be in a band together. Some bands end up with three guitar players instead of one or two, others with a drummer who might not know which end of the drumstick is up. But that’s OK; the normal rules don’t apply in rock and roll—or at rock camp. The weekend’s big finish is a live showcase, where 10 newly formed bands, with their newly swollen blisters, perform at a New York club—roadies included.
The women at rock camp are a motley crüe—sorry, crew: hipster twentysomethings, stay-at-home moms, working, busy professionals. Their reasons for coming are just as varied. Valerie Gargano, 36, who fronted a band called Tough Love Award, is going through a divorce. She hasn’t sung in 10 years and says coming back to it has been a catharsis. Margo Donohue (of The Entrees) bought herself a guitar as a reward for quitting smoking, and now she wants to master the instrument. She struggled with the chord positions during Saturday’s beginning guitar class, but by Sunday night’s showcase, Donohue’s studied concentration at the frets has been replaced with confident glee. And she’s got the black jeans and stilettos to match.
The camp is named after Willie Mae Thornton, which itself is emblematic of women’s overlooked place in the annals of rock. Thornton was one of the first women to play the music that became rock and roll, but hardly anyone has heard of her. Out of the top 10 best-selling musical artists ever, there’s just one woman—Shania Twain. “We think it starts in the beginning,” says camp president Hanna Fox, an attorney by day who’s also in two bands on the side. “When you got your baby-sitting money, did you think of buying a guitar with it? Did you even consider that it was possible?” And while participants may not make s’mores or earn merit badges at this camp, the ladies do learn some killer new riffs to show off at their next gig, should they have one. Some do. The band Royal Pink formed at camp last year and are still together, still playing gigs; last month they held a party for the release of their debut album. It beats singing “Kumbaya” any day.
