A Brief History of Rock ’n’ Roll School for Girls
The Melbourne Rock ’n’ Roll High School of the 90s is said to have inspired Jack Black’s School of Rock, but it has also laid the groundwork for women in the music industry and for the importance and popularity of the Girls Rock camps of today.
The second ever Girls Rock! Melbourne camp will kick off September 25. The camp is part of a world-wide Girls Rock! Alliance, that hosts programs to form bands, learn instruments and write music for female, trans and gender non-conforming teens. The Melbourne camp, however, is in a unique position, getting its cues not just from its international counterparts, but from the Rock ’n’ Roll High School of the 1990s.
Rock ’n’ Roll High School
In the summer of 1989 Stephanie Bourke, then a uni student, teaching classical piano, and later a drummer in band Hecate (which formed because of Rock ’n’ Roll High School), ran a summer music program at her house. Bourke said that her piano students “would ask to play the Pixies or ‘Can I play AC/DC?’”, and were looking to explore other instruments and genres to play, so setting up a place to make rock music seemed the best step.
Using borrowed gear to set up practice rooms and recording facilities, and employing friends to act as teachers, Bourke used the school to promote rock music and the DIY culture around it. After a year of this first iteration of her eponymous school, with around seventy girls continually using Bourke’s gear and space, Bourke went to find a more official place.
By 1990 Rock ’n’ Roll High School (RnRHS) was born, and a permanent space was found at an old milk bar at 186 Easey Street, Collingwood.
As a safe, and affordable alternative to other places and institutions of the time, RnRHS was the starting ground for over two thousand students to form bands such as Bindi, Midget Stooges, Sheraw, and Sourpuss. The school was both the go-to place to rehearse, and a doorway to wider exposure to the music scene.
Under the Rock ’n’ Roll High School Records label, four compilation CDs of recordings were released of the bands that frequented the premises. These compilations garnered recognition internationally and led to numerous label signings as well as sparking the interest of those part of the riot grrrl movement in the US. Bands such as Midget Stooges, toured with Dinosaur Jr. and lead singer and guitarist of Sourpuss, Brody Dalle, went on to form The Distillers after her move to LA (Jack Black reportedly got the idea for School of Rock after he heard about RnRHS from her future partner).
The coinciding of RnRHS with the riot grrrl movement, led to the increasing popularity of the place for Melbourne women part of the music scene, but as the movement grew, it also played host to a number of American bands. Sonic Youth, L7, and Babes in Toyland both donated to the school when they came to watch bands practice and check out the premises.
When Bikini Kill were featured in the 1995 riot grrrl documentary Not Bad for a Girl, they were alongside RnRHS who were gaining ever more recognition outside of Melbourne. This increased publicity, led to its regular gigs holding bands such as Fugazi, the Melvins, and Juliana Hatfield, giving students access to bands they would not otherwise be able to see, and a look into what they could be.
From 1990 until its closure in 2002, RnRHS acted as a space for predominately female youth to take lessons, practice, perform, and record their music, a space that is unlikely to be truly recreated. Members of Tuffmuff pronounced that ‘everything we are, is due to Rock and Roll High School’.
Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls
The Girls Rock! camps known today, began in 2001 when Misty McElroy, a former roadie, embarked on her senior project for Portland State University. The result was a day camp, held at her university campus, entitled Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls.
The idea quickly spread throughout the US, with camps created in states as far apart as Tennessee (Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp) and New York (Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls). By 2007 a Girls Rock! Camp Alliance was set up as an annual conference, acting as a place to share experiences and ideas between the ever growing number of camps. The first conference was made up of the five camps in the US, the Popkollo camp in Sweden, and Girls Rock! UK.
The Girls Rock! camps combined the band, writing and performance aspect of RnRHS with vaious workshops on things such as body image, self-defence, and the history of women in music. The camps have the express aim of not just giving girls, trans, and non-binary folk exposure to music, but empowering them through it.
Just as RnRHS had regular all-age gigs, the inclusion of lunchtime performances at Girls Rock!, with bands such as Gossip and Sleater-Kinney, has embedded Girls Rock! as part of the musical community. The support of the music industry, especially high profile bands, and the creation of the Girls Rock! “rockumentary”, has led to the global spread of the camps with over seventy camps running world-wide.
Girls Rock! Australia
The start of Girls Rock! camps throughout Australia began in Canberra, when the first camp was run in January 2016. After volunteering at various Girls Rock! camps in the states, Chiara Grassia decided to run one herself.
The Melbourne camp happened almost in opposite. After seeing the US Girls Rock! documentary a small committee got together to begin organising the camp. After attending the Girls Rock! Alliance conference in the US, as well as spending time working at various camps throughout the States, the first camp was held in January 2016.
Since 2016 there have been six camps (including the over eighteen Lets Rock! camp in Melbourne) run by Girls Rock! throughout Australia, a number only set to grow.
RnRHS has in many senses been mythologized among the Melbourne music community. Coinciding at the height of the riot grrrl movement, and thus the pre-internet era, RnRHS is relatively undocumented, mentioned only in passing conversation.
While for many the realities of RnRHS are unknown the DIY spirit and political turn of RnRHS have been taken on fully by the Girls Rock! camps, especially Melbourne’s. Its influence is clear in the passion that is put forth to ensure young girls get to, not just experience, but play music.
Already the Girls Rock! camps are an institution across the globe, one that will no doubt have an impact on the future generations of rock. In the words of a Girls Rock! Melbourne camper ‘ I owe it all to you’.
