NYC Rock Camp Director Karla Schickele Is Badass: The Autostraddle Interview
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This is the second time I’ve interviewed Karla Schickele, executive director and founder of Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in New York, but last time we spoke I didn’t get to say the words “gender binary.” That’s the difference between interviewing Karla for my day job at a parenting magazine and interviewing her for you rockstar queers at Autostraddle. Read on to learn more about why Karla started the camp, what makes her cry every summer, the camp’s kick-ass non-discrimination policy, and much more rockin’ goodness.
karla schickele
What made you decide to start a girls rock camp in New York?
I volunteered at the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in 2003 and 2004 as a bass teacher and band coach. I just immediately got hooked. It was the most extraordinary environment that I ever found myself in. The whole thing was so inspiring… it completely blew my mind. I knew that it was what I wanted to do with my life, so after the second summer I asked the organizers there if it was okay if I tried to start [a camp] in New York. I got their blessing, so a group of us started working together and the following summer we had our first session in New York. It just felt like a good thing for the world–beyond music–that I really wanted to be involved in.
When you started Willie Mae, were there already a lot of girls rock camps out there?
There were very few. We started in 2005, and in 2007 there was the first convening of rock camps and there were seven of us, including a camp in Sweden called Popkollo that had started up around the same time as the Portland camp but didn’t know the Portland camp existed. It was just sort of an idea whose time had come. And then we just had this year’s conference last month, and there were 40 camps from all over the world and more than 100 people. It’s been a complete explosion.
big mama thornton
Why did you decide to name the camp after Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton?
We were interested in giving it a name that was a little bit more poetic, and also specific. We try to use everything that happens at Rock Camp as an opportunity to educate people about some of the pioneering women of music, and Big Mama Thornton felt like a good example because she made some great music and also had some difficulty as a woman–and as a woman of color–in the music industry, and had to overcome a lot of challenges in order to make her art. And we liked the sound of “Willie Mae”; it felt like a musical sounding name.
How did Ladies Rock Camp evolve?
It came out of Portland, like the original program model. They started it as a fundraiser for their activities, and also because so many adult women say, “I wish that Rock Camp been around when I was a kid.” Our first Ladies Rock Camp session was pretty early on and it was really well received. We’ve been doing them ever since, but last year we made a pretty big change: we changed it from a fundraising event into a program. Now it’s offered with sliding scale tuition, like all of our youth programs.
Tell me a little bit about Ladies Rock Camp. What can people expect when they sign up?
They can expect joy! [laughs] And to have any nervousness that they might encounter at the prospect of starting a band on Friday and playing your first gig on Sunday completely met with encouragement and support and cheering on by everyone around them. We do instant bands at Ladies Rock Camp but we also do instant community. It’s really extraordinary how by the end of the first day there’s a real community of people who want to rock, and also who want to encourage each other to try something new and take some creative risks and to not be afraid to play a quote unquote “wrong note”, or to put out a lyrical idea that they might feel shy about. All of these things that feel so daunting in every day life become very possible and much less scary in an environment like Ladies Rock Camp.
lady rockers via brooklynvegan
Is there a typical “Ladies Rock Camper”? Is there anyone who should NOT go to camp?
I mean, I think that camp is for everyone. We have a lot of shy and nervous folks, but then we have folks who come in who say, “I’m a rocker, I know all the chords, I know everything,” and then by the end of the weekend they might learn some new stuff that they didn’t even know was out there to learn. The experience really lends itself not only to musical beginners and to people with a lot of experience, but also to a range of personalities. We have some people who come and say, “I’ve been daring myself to do this for four years, and this is the first year I finally got up the nerve to really do it.” I guess the only person who shouldn’t come to rock camp is the person who’s dead set against supporting other people. That wouldn’t really jive with us.
So there’s no average profile?
No! And that’s one of the great things, that there’s no average profile at all. We’ve had campers who are 19 years old and we’ve had campers who are in their 70s and then everyone in between, from all backgrounds and ranges of experience. It was cool, there was one band that had a young person in her 20s and then some older campers who were in their late 60s, and they wrote a protest song. The different members of the band wrote from their own backgrounds of protest music which spanned all these decades of music.
karla and her brother, matt, via karlamusic.com
That’s so cool! Like a history lesson.
Yeah, really cool stuff like that can happen. People get nervous that camp isn’t long enough, but we feel like there’s something to be said for not having too much time to over-think stuff. You join a band on Friday, you write a song, and then you rock it on Sunday. The experience of just jumping in and doing something like that can be really empowering for making change in other areas of your life.
Let’s talk about your awesome super-inclusive non-discrimination policy that appears on your mission page. It feels very deliberate and I’d love to hear how it came about. (Guys, you can check out the full text here, but FYI here is a teeny tiny portion of what it says: “Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls welcomes campers who self-identify as female, trans, and gender non-conforming…The organization welcomes the support of male-identified allies, and expects male-identified allies who would like to volunteer to respect the importance of leadership by women.”)
Questions around gender are something that are really important to us as an organization and something that we’re actively in conversation about as an organization. Our policies and statements reflect a lot of values that we hold that we don’t consider to be mutually exclusive. We value the importance of there being a space for female-identified people, and we also value the importance of creating an environment that is inclusive of trans-identified and gender non-conforming folks. So that’s the reason behind our policy. You know, it’s called Ladies Rock Camp…but we feel very strongly about creating an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of people who may not identify as female.
What has been the most rewarding thing for you about starting and running the camp?
Oh man! You know, the Girls Showcase is always really moving to me, but it’s at the Ladies Rock Camp Showcase that I always cry. I’m so blown away by the bravery, and the arc of amazingness that I see in a group of 50 women who on Friday are not sure what they’ve gotten themselves into, but are such total rock stars on Sunday. It just kind of blows my mind every time.
Sign up for Ladies Rock Camp. Karla suggests signing up sooner rather than later so you have a better chance of getting your first choice instrument (you will be asked for your preference, but there must be a balance so it is a first come first serve situation.) Karla also suggests that “giving the gift of rock camp” makes an amazing Mother’s Day gift (OMG imagine sending your mom to rock camp)!
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Rock n’ Roll Camp: Volunteering Is The Purest Form of Awesome
This is our second post about the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. To read all our “On Camp” posts, click this image:
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I went to college thinking I’d be an environmental scientist, but by the spring I’d switched majors to communications and was quietly revisiting old dreams of being artist and working with musicians. I’d been running off to New York on the weekends, going to shows and just walking around, taking pictures, when a tuition refund of $3,000 turned my life around. It was more money than I’d ever had or even thought I’d have, and the possibilities seemed endless! Suddenly, this city I’d been pining for — that life — could actually be mine. In the span of a few days I found a sublet in a collective in New York City and filled out a form online for my one planned responsibility for the summer: Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. I’d kept WMRC in my heart since stumbling across it when I was 17, and now I was going, for real.
morgan in NYC
A couple months later, I was navigating New York like a pro — reading in the park, finding odd jobs on CL and going to bars that served free food. But I didn’t really have many friends, thanks to a shyness that I couldn’t seem to shake, despite the young confidence I had backpacks full of at the time. I didn’t know where all the people like me were, or how I would even talk to them if I saw one in the wild.
All of that changed during the training session for first-time Rock Camp volunteers. We stuffed into a small high school cafeteria and started learning what camp meant. It was more progressive, more in-tune and more supportive than I thought possible. Everyone, myself included, was so enthusiastic, and it felt so much easier to interact in that air. There was direction. I was quiet, but instead of ignoring me, the people around me made an effort to include me and ask me what I thought. These were my people — these women with books in their purses, smiling queers and confident ones who raised their hands to clarify the meaning of “people first language.” We talked about intentional safe space, and what it meant to build that with bare hands. It was a day that crackled and buzzed with revelations and language and feelings. It was a primer for the shock of rock camp.
My life was so changed by Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls that in memory, I exist “before camp” and “after camp.” I’d been in spaces labeled “safe” before, but nothing compared to WMRC. The environment of camp gave me the most effective model for forging affirming and supportive spaces within my own life.
One of the most mindblowing facts about the Rock Camps across the world is that their summer programs are staffed almost entirely by unpaid volunteers. (Just kidding, we’re actually paid in burritos, Luna bars and happiness.) We do almost every job at camp — from working the kitchen to wrangling kids — and even though the camps are music based, no music experience is required to volunteer. From the first year I was there, I realized that Rock Camp was like a secret world where suddenly everyone I interacted with had good taste in music and a cool bookshelf at home, also probably a pet with a funny name. Their ‘day jobs’ were just as awesome as they were: social workers, badass zinesters, incredible nannies, award-winning writers and journalists, groundbreaking artists and of course, musicians. I mean, these are the people who change the world.
Here’s a list of bands with members who volunteer at Willie Mae Rock Camp in NYC!
Rock Camp Volunteers, Totally Relevant To Your Interests
Slothrust is a NYC-based blues-influenced grunge band made up of WMRC volunteer Leah Wellbaum and bandmates Kyle Bann and Will Gorin. The three graduated from Sarah Lawrence with Jazz and Blues degrees. With their irresistible punchy momentum and undeniable technical precision, Slothrust updates grunge to a new territory without giving up any lo-fi ground. They’re currently booking a national tour so keep on the look out for a show in your area! For those in NYC, they play Glasslands on May 10.
Slothrust
Sabrina Chap has the voice of a “whiskey angel”, an apt description of her soulful, playful powerhouse of a voice. She has volunteered at Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls for three years and performed at the Girls Rock! Chicago. Her newest album, We Are the Parade, is described as a “queertastic horn explosion” and that sounds really exciting. Sabrina is also the editor of the Lambda-nominated compilation Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, which features many people loved by Autostraddle, including Sara Quin, Eileen Miles and (rock camp volunteer!) Cristy Road. The book is going into its second edition and adding pieces by Margaret Cho and Amanda Palmer and other people you might care about.
k. is the music project of Karla Schickele. Karla is the Executive Director of Willie Mae Rock Camp and a former volunteer of the Portland’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp for Girls. Her band mates, Ruth Lockwood and Matt Sutton are rock camp veterans, too. The music of k. shines with calm and confident melodies ridden by the purity of Karla’s haunting alto. The sparse but insistent percussion creates the perfect backdrop to their album History Grows, bringing the multi-instrumental talents of the trio to the forefront. They’re releasing a new album in May! For those in the NYC area, k, is having a record release show at Zebulon May 12 and you should go.
We’ve featured Clinical Trials in the past and band members Somer Bingham and Caryn Havlik are familiar faces at WMRC. Both also have the stage energy of legends and really endearing smiles. Crystal described their latest album Bleed Me as “a panther; it’s a little dark and dangerous, it stalks and menaces and makes my heart thump that tiny bit faster” and there aren’t words better than that. You can catch Somer on the upcoming season of The Real L Word!
Starina is a Chicago native who has volunteered as a band coach and guitar teacher at WMRC for two summers, currently works as part of the year-round Music Lab after-school program, and previously volunteered at Girls Rock! Chicago. Her album The Snow Years comes out on July 1, 2012 and she plays a free show at Pete’s Candy Store on May 19th.
Naomi Less
The Shondes have gotten a lot of attention— from VH1’s Best Week Ever Blog to Pitchfork and Entertainment Weekly, who called them “giddy garage melodics with Sleater-Kinney twist”. The Shondes played a lunchtime showcase at WMRC this summer and their guitarist Fureigh has volunteered as a guitar teacher since 2006. They played a bunch of shows at SXSW this year, and they’re heading off to their first European tour this year. They’re currently on tour in the US to promote their album Searchlights, check their Facebook to see if they’re coming to your area, they’re not to be missed.
Naomi Less is a Jewish rock musician and writes for pre-teens, teens and adults. In addition to volunteering at WMRC every year, she has a unique project called Jewish Chicks Rock, doing music workshops with girls at camps and in schools. She wants to inspire more girls to pick up instruments and express themselves.
Keyke is a singer-songwriter and a vocal standout. Her urgent twang and simple inspired lyrics developed through an uncommon writing style. She improvises all her music and transcribes herself later. She has a lot of stories and a cat named Juniper.
Jane Lee Hooker’s name is a twist on John Lee Hooker, the blues legend who is one of their influences. Another is Big Mama Thornton, who Willie Mae Rock Camp is named after. Their drummer and rock camp drum teacher, Melissa, was picked for the band before finishing her audition. All five members are mad talented ladies with stage names like “T Bone” and “Hail Mary”. Between the five of them they’ve had about 100 years of experience touring in the US and abroad. They play rad rock covers of blues songs.
Glass Anchors
Glass Anchors is the band of WMRC volunteer Annie Sicherman (and currently features another rock camp volunteer on bass!). Her music is crafted to break your heart in a good way; Annie’s velvety voice coaxes the pieces back together. Glass Anchors is signed to Cakeshop’s in-house label Capeshok.
Volunteers Relevant To Your Intersts Playlist
We Are the Parade – Sabrina Chap
Are You Ready – The Shodes
Sparrow – Glass Anchors
Stevie – k.
Animal – Clinical Trials
Bobbie Joe Watkins – Keyke
Shouth ’em Out – Naomi Less
Before We Began – Starina
Shake Mix – Jane Lee Hooker
7:30am – Slothrust
Volunteering is such a great way to experience camp as an adult. Find your local Rock Camp and see what you can do! Share your own Rock Camp volunteering stories in the comments, and if you’ve been as a camper, tell us about your awesome volunteers!
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Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls: Role Models, Riot Grrrls and Revolutions
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Feature image from Dania Maxwell / The Oregonian
I was never a kid who went to camp. My parents were broke, and I wasn’t a fan of having to wake up early in the summertime anyway. But when my dad read about a brand new day camp, he clipped the article out of the local alternative weekly for me. Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls cost only $20 for the week, and he hoped it would inspire me to learn to play the used drums he had bought me a few weeks before to celebrate my eighth grade graduation.
I filled out the application, got my acceptance letter, and wrote the dates of the camp on my calendar in marker. At 14, I was a painfully shy and very insecure kid. I had few friends, thought I was hideous, and spent most of my time reading books, watching Buffy and listening to music. I wanted this camp to turn me into a rock star.
Now there are Rock ‘n’ Roll Camps for Girls all over the world, but the first one happened in the summer of 2001 in Portland, Oregon. I didn’t know that the camp would eventually have its own building, that the idea would spread all over, that there would be a documentary and all sorts of press for years to come. I just really hoped I would fit in and also learn to play the drums.
I quickly figured out this wasn’t a place where I had to worry about fitting in — everyone accepted each other. There were girls who were dressed punk, and girls who looked like they were the popular girls at their schools, in Gap and Abercrombie, and girls who looked like they didn’t care about clothes at all. Weirdly enough, clothes didn’t end up defining who hung out with whom. It wasn’t like anything I had ever experienced. I had discussions with counselors — all volunteers, mostly in their twenties — about feminist issues and they talked to me like I was smart and what I had to say was interesting. Most of the girls were learning new things and taking risks and we were all working together because at the end of the week we would be on stage at the showcase. We were also all working together to figure out what room we were supposed to be in — the first year of camp took place on a huge college campus and everyone was constantly getting lost. There was no time to tear each other down.
that's me at 13!
I learned about zines from Nicole Georges, I learned about fat-positivity from Nomy Lamm, I discovered riot grrl music years after it happened but at the exact time I really needed it in my life. There was a self-defense class that made me feel like I could be physically powerful, which was not a feeling I had experienced before. We stood in a circle and took turns screaming and I discovered how loud my voice could be. I got to know adult women — musicians and camp volunteers — who were awesome because of who they were and what they did, not because of how skinny they were or because boys liked them. For the first time in my life, I had actual role models.
via victordom.tumblr.com
In the fall I started high school. I was still shy, but I was excited about playing my drums. I listened to Sleater-Kinney CDs in my bedroom nonstop. I spent a lot of time thinking about Carrie Brownstein. A lot of time.
The next summer, I went back to camp. It was even better than the last year. It was held in a small building they rented, instead of in random rooms all over a college campus. It felt organized, like a real summer camp instead of a class project. Everyone being in such close quarters inspired more socializing and spontaneity, like impromptu lunchtime dance parties in the yard to Le Tigre songs. As Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls grew up, I was doing some growing too. My shyness was slowly fading. I was excited instead of terrified about the showcase, and it was easier to make new friends.
This was the year when I started to realize a lot of the camp volunteers were probably not straight. It was also the year I started thinking more and more about how I might not be either. It didn’t seem as scary anymore. Near the end of the week, I was chatting with a friend I had gotten close to the year before, who was also learning drums. She was older and wiser than me and I was amazed that she wanted to be my friend.
“Who’s your favorite drum teacher?” she asked.
“Umm I really like Rachel, she’s so nice. But I think Jordan is the cutest,” I said, feeling like it was a very daring thing to say. Jordan looked like a tiny butch elf. I had listened to her band’s music and it just sounded like noise to me but there was something about her that I liked.
“Jordan is really cute,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling more confident. “I have a crush on her. I’m bisexual.”
“Yeah, I’m bisexual too,” she said.
That was the first time I came out to anyone, and it was pretty amazing to do it in an environment where I knew no one would judge me. Not that I made a general camp announcement or anything, but I could have, and it would have been fine. I felt lighter. The whole world just seemed less frightening.
That week Sleater-Kinney played a benefit show for the camp and I was invited to dance on stage along with some other girls. OK, so I was too shy to actually dance on stage. I just stood there. But it was still amazing.
brave enough for a dykey haircut at 15
The third year I went to camp, I was about to turn 16. Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls finally had its very own building instead of a borrowed space. I had survived two years of high school. I was still shy, but I had an inner confidence that I didn’t have before. I was starting to accept my body for what it was, with the help of so many talks about body image at camp. I was beginning to suspect that maybe, in a post-high school world, being queer would actually make me cooler instead of making me feel like more of an outsider. I got to have a conversation with Carrie Brownstein and I tried to be chill about it even though all I was thinking was, I want a girl like this to be my girlfriend. (Carrie, if you’re reading this, I’m 24 now so it’s not creepy if you want to hang out sometime.) I decided to branch out from the drums—I had been taking lessons for a while anyway—and learned to DJ instead.
I really want to live in a reality where every girl has the opportunity to go to a Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, or at least has an experience where she feels completely accepted, has positive role models and gets to meet Carrie Brownstein. Sometimes I try to imagine an alternate reality where I never went to camp, and I see a life full of crash diets, being afraid to leave my apartment and hating my queer self. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, and I could have figured things out on my own eventually, but I know Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls had a huge impact on who I am today. As an adult I’ve volunteered and given money, and I tell every girl I meet she should go. I figure it’s an investment in the future, because of course I want a future where all women are strong and confident and know how to rock out, or at least scream really loud.
this post is part of our extended coverage of rock n' roll camp for girls!
Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.