Anna Knecht, 15, (center) rocks out on "Louie, Louie" with other girls in the beginner guitar class during the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp at Hutchison School. It was the second year of the camp in the Memphis area.

that's my niece, Anna, in the center.

Music campers get in touch with inner rocker
By John Beifuss (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Saturday, August 9, 2008

Nine-year-old Caroline Crocker of Memphis had never heard "Louie Louie" until Wednesday, when she played in a mass all-girl strum-through of the garage-rock riff made famous by the Kingsmen's version of the song in 1963.

Caroline liked what she heard.

"I think it could be a hit," she said.

The second annual Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp-Memphis took place this week on the campus of The Hutchison School in East Memphis.

Seventy-one Mid-South girls, ages 9-17, participated in the camp, which offered a five-day crash course in musicianship, songwriting and rock "herstory," with side dishes in teamwork, empowerment and self-esteem.

The girls pounded keyboards to Spoon, drummed along to "Wipe Out," struck Pete Townshend poses and staked a claim to a piece of the future of Memphis music.

"I hope this inspires a whole new generation of musicians," said this year's Memphis camp director, Angela Horton, a drummer who has played with such bands as The Satyrs.

Tonight, the camp's "graduates" will celebrate by kicking out the jams during a public concert that will give each of the 13 bands formed during the camp a chance to be in the spotlight for at least one song. (Band names, created by the girls, include Misfits in the Making, the Hot Pink
Paperclips and the Arcadian Sugar Plumz.)

The showcase begins at 6 p.m. in the Wiener Theater at Hutchison, 1740 Ridgeway. Admission is $8, with proceeds going to support the nonprofit camp, staffed primarily by volunteers with borrowed instruments and equipment.

The Memphis rock camp is an offshoot of the six-year-old Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp in Murfreesboro, which was the first spin-off from the "mother camp," the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Ore., founded in 2001.

Overall, 14 loosely affiliated rock camps for girls now operate in North America and Europe. The camps are linked through a relatively new support network, the Portland-based Girls Rock Camp Alliance (slogan: "We Put the 'Amp' in Camp").

"Not only are you making a difference in the lives of girls, but you're also being part of a worldwide movement," said Kelley Anderson of Murfreesboro, who founded the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp six years ago when she was a "recording industry management" major at Middle Tennessee State University.

"The reason it's so important to me is I have felt so informed and empowered by music," said Anderson, who plays in an alt-country band called Those Darlins. "That confidence has carried over to every other aspect of my life."

Anderson and other Murfreesboro rock camp veterans were at Hutchison this week to help organize the Memphis session, which doubled in enrollment from last year, when the camp made its debut at the Gibson Guitar Factory.

Hutchison is a roomy and comfortable place. But as the word "camp" suggests, the event was not without its hardships.

"That's from yesterday," said Shelby Moser, 13, taking a break from playing along to a Jane's Addiction song to proudly display the red rawness of her hands, a result of hefting her stepdad's "heavy" Yamaha bass.

"I want to be somebody who, if I get in a band, I can play every instrument," said Shelby, a beret on her blond head and a Black Sabbath button on her vest. "I don't want to be in one of those bands that's in it just for publicity and money. I want to be in it because it's fun."

Shelby's rock camp band, Ready for Take Off, will perform an original song tonight "about, like, this girl who, this guy likes her, but he also likes another girl, and she's telling him, 'You better hurry up or we're both gonna leave.' "

Anneliese Sloves, 14, who wrote the song, said the lyrics were autobiographical.

"Middle school's full of drama," she explained.

About 40 male and female volunteers -- including many professional musicians -- worked with the girls, offering beginning, intermediate and advanced lessons in guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals, as well as lessons in recording technology, fanzine-making and songwriting.

At the camp were girls named for Bob Dylan (Dylan Beasley, 10), Bob Marley (Marley Bagley, 12) and even Flannery O'Connor (Flannery Harper, 12).

Lauren Riddick, 11, wore a plush snake around her head like a bandana. "No one's snuck up on me yet, but if they do, it'll bite 'em," she explained.

Meanwhile, Kacey Alexander, 12, was learning the chord progression to Warrant's "Bed of Roses" on a Fender Telecaster.

After lunch, campers enjoyed live music, courtesy of such acts as the Ultracats and "rockabilly filly" Rosie Flores. On Wednesday, the Faintly Red Mollies -- a guitar-and-drum combo -- bashed out songs about dynamite, gasoline and Lincoln Continentals with such frenzied abandon that a couple of dozen girls rushed to the front the stage, pogoing (more or less) and screeching with that high-pitched girlie wail of enthusiasm that can strike the adult eardrum like a hot needle pushing through a pane of glass, if a hot needle were cute as a bug's ear.

The cost is $250 per camper. "We make pennies scream," said Anderson, who added that the Tennessee camps have never received an individual donation above $500 or a corporate donation above $1,500.

Horton said the camp had to cut off registration, turning away some would-be campers because there weren't enough volunteer instructors to ensure every girl received personal attention. She said she hopes that the Memphis adult community will turn out to support next year's camp.

Those who do may help to hone the skills of such young musicians as Dylan Beasley. Her band will perform a song tonight called "Rock Out." Sample lyric: " 'Rock out, rock out, rock' -- and for the guitar part, we do 'Louie Louie,' but really fast," she said.

For more about the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp, visit sgrrc.org

She's too young to sing the real words to "Louie, Louie".

Other than that, congrats. Looks like she is having fun.