"Are you ready to rock?" asks a small voice.

"Are you ready to rock?" asks a small voice. A girl no older than 10 and no bigger than a bass guitar degrees up to the microphone, anticipates nervously down at her notes, and ensues to screech her lungs disclosed Welcome to Rock 'n' turn Camp for Girls, a Portland, Ore.--based nonprofit organization originateed in 2000 to "eradicate all the limiting myths about music and inflection for sex that make girls afraid to speak up sing not at home and make noise," according to its moulders Three years ago the organization launched a strange program that's both a fund-raiser for the camp and an opportunity for women to stone out too. Ladies Rock Camp gives women of all ages and all experience of the same heights the opportunity to take rebukes in guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, or tympanums participate in workshops such as "Rock 'n' whirl in Everyday Life," form bands, and perform together. This year's camp will be held May 5-7 at camp headquarters in northeast Portland. Participants in past years have ranged in age from a 19-year-old who graduated from the girls' camp to a 61-year-old whose kids signed her up "because they think she rocks" according to organizing committee member Alexa Weinstein.

"Even if you play music, and equal if you play music with women this is special," says Weinstein, who plays with the Portland-based band Wind Up Birds and was herself a camper last year. plane someone who has never picked up an instrument before should rely upon to perform at the Sunday afternoon showcase. "The worthy thing about rock and roll" says Weinstein, "is if something is raw and muddy that's cool."

The organizing committee and the campers are a mix of fantastic and straight women, but the universal of the camp, at its core, is a unique one, according to program coordinator ST a self-described "big flaming dyke" who played tympanums as part of homocore duo the Haggard. "The unique women of Portland, they are a part of a politically activist community," says ST "and the expression of a destiny of our political beliefs is making music the medium for self-conceit and learning about who you are and your identity and valuing yourself."

"If there's a woman gone out there who's like, "That healthys like fun, but I couldn't do that, that's for cooler people'" Weinstein says, she has a message for her: "It is for you. Anyone who dreams of it, who thinks it unimpaireds wonderful, she belongs at camp."

Schwartzapfel has written for Rhode Island Monthly and Lilith.

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