Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Road to Rock and Roll Drumhood

Hi, it's Marina. A few years back my husband and I had the great fortune of being in Austin to witness a Girls Rock Camp Showcase. It wasn’t planned, it just so happened that we were in town and our friend Spike invited us to the showcase not only to support the young ladies that were about to make their stage debut, but to also support our friend Esme, a cool gal and volunteer at Girls Rock Camp.  That experience was mind-blowing to say the least. 
To think that in the course of one week, most of these girls (ages 10-18, some younger) had picked up an instrument for the first time,  learned to play it, formed a band, wrote an original tune and then performed it on stage as the Righteous  Rock Babes was amazing.  The support and vibe in the room was just as impressive as the girls on stage.  That’s the moment I knew it wasn’t too late. I, too, would become a rock and roll drummer.
We came back home to El Paso and soon another sign that rock and roll drumming was in my future--A local drummer had a kit for sale for real cheap.  I now had met another right of drummer passage, a drum key on my key chain. Adam, the guy I bought the kit from gave it to me in a way that made me feel like I had just graduated or been knighted or something. I took this “Franken kit,” home and Adam helped me set it up in our guest room where it ended up sitting looking all cool and lonely.  Truth be told, I was a bit afraid of it. I just wanted to assume my “throne” and be able to magically play the thing. That wasn’t happening.
Fast forward to a few months ago when my friend Laurie from Austin posted something about Ladies Rock Camp, a rock camp for women that Girls Rock Austin puts on once a year to raise funds for Girls Rock Camp.  It was a no brainer, and another sign—Ladies Rock Camp was to take place during my birthday weekend.  I quickly went to my husband and said, “This is what I would like for my birthday.” The idea that I would finally learn to play drums, form a band, write a song and perform it in the course of three days seemed daunting. That soon faded after the first day.
We arrived to camp and became quick friends, I guess that’s what happens when you’re an older group of like minded ladies with no time for the “too cool for school” attitude.  Every woman there had a desired instrument and every one of us had our wish granted, and to top it off, there would be a two drummer band.  They split us into groups based on our instrument and off we went to lessons.  We had the good fortune of being taught by a bad ass lady drummer named Melodie Zapata. 
Right away, she made us feel at ease with our kits and had us playing in no time. Somehow, the fear and intimidation I had fell to the wayside the moment we started playing.  From that moment on, I knew that I’d be able to do this.  She broke it down to a level that made sense. Drumming is just a basic beat intercepted by fills—we even learned the Phil fill (can you sing, “I can feel it calling in the air at night”?…if so, pretty soon you’ll arrive at the Phil fill) you glue them together and pretty soon you have yourself a song.  Turns out you can ride on anything, as soon as I figured that out, I knew I’d be riding the floor tom.
We were formed into bands and off we went.  I would be playing with Sydney on bass, Felicia on guitar, and Amanda on vocals. We’d get a jumpstart on our song with help from the lovely and talented Americana artist Idgy Vaughn, winner of the Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competition.  It was a stream of consciousness thing. We each wrote something, traded several times and then circled the things that stood out.  For us it was Keanu Reeves.
We got on the Keanu wave and rode it.  Our song was called Keanu Wave and our band would be called Wyld Stallion, we gave ourselves a German twist and officially called ourselves Wilde Hangshtuh. All the references were there, Bill and Ted, River’s Edge, sad sandwich photos and our climax point that broke on “Point Break!!!” I should back track and say that we spent the other half of our first day writing our song and putting it together.
Second day of rock camp entailed more lessons with Melodie, discovery of even more beats, and more band practice.  Our song grew tremendously from day one to day two and it was incredible to all of us how it was all “happening.” Here we were playing instruments we were all new at (Sydney, our bass player is actually a drummer which really helped me to keep time—it’s good when your bass and your drums play nice), piecing a song together, adding lyrics, harmonizing back up vocals, trying out new sounds, etc.  By the end of day two we were fried, but confident. We still had no end to our song.  Day three was looming and we’d only have half a day to finish our song, do a run through performance and play a show at Cheer Up Charlie’s.
Day three arrived and we found our end! We’d go out on a build up and kill it. We even decided to project “Point Break” during our performance.  Amanda, our lead singer sported the most awesome gold lame dress and we were ready to rock.  And we did, and so did all the other Lady groups.  Sharing the stage with us were bands Mad and the Albrights (the two drummer band), The Skorts, Splosh, Red Headed Step Daughters, and Ladies Room who wowed us with two songs—their original and a cover of Dave Edmunds’ “I Hear You Knocking.”
It was so cool; our Austin contingency of friends was there along with all the ladies that mentored us at Rock Camp and the friends and families of all the local ladies in camp. Also present was our band coach—each band was assigned a cool lady rocker to help us get through our song.  Our coach was Deb a total bad ass who plays in a Guns and Roses tribute band called Paradise Titty as well as another band whose name escapes me (of course it would escape me, Paradise Titty is too good to forget).
We made good friends, were empowered through rock and roll and I set up my first of many El Paso drum lessons to come before the night was over.  I’m gonna keep riding this Keanu wave into rock and roll drumhood.


 Band Practice
 Kickin it at the show with our fabulous front-woman in an even more fabulous gold dress.
Ladies Rock Camp Showcase Band List. We were 5th in line.

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