(song open: “I could be…whatever I want…”)
You Rock El Paso is a music camp that encourages young girls ages 10-18 to be whatever they want, or whatever kind of musician they want to be. It was launched this month by co-founder and El Paso musician Jim Ward. I went to check out the camp that was sponsored by and held at the Boys and Girls Club of El Paso. The camp’s director, Laura Valdez, told me about the camp’s launch this year.
“We’ve been planning it—Jim’s been planning it—I think late 2018, for sure 2019,” she said. “And you know how 2020 went; that was supposed to be our first year, and that got pushed back until now. So this is our very first year. We were just really hoping to have girls and gender-fluid kiddos come in and just really enjoy the space, put instruments in their hands, and just see them kind of explore and feel comfortable and make a really safe space for them to that.”
Any camp such as this is bound to have challenges in its inaugural year, and You Rock El Paso was no exception.
“So many challenges! But they’ve all been really fun. We’re considering this our beta program. All of this programming, the way we’ve set it up, we’re ready to throw it out the door or structure it stronger, or kind of build on what’s working. We’ve been really malleable in that sense. We knew it wasn’t going to be perfect, and we knew we had to kind of see it in action to really understand what the community needed and what these kiddos were responding to, and what was gonna work.”
The camp size was capped at 30 attendees, who got to choose what instruments they wanted to play, form their own bands, write an original song, and perform on stage. And what instruments did the girls gravitate towards in the beginning?
“You know, I had a lot of basses, which I wasn’t expecting,” she said. “We had a lot of kids wanting to play the bass, and we were so excited about that! The drums as well. A lot of kiddos wanted to play the drums—you know, instruments that aren’t naturally put in young female or identifying female’s hands. Usually when you turn ten, you’re given a guitar, a flute—something like that. Which are all really great instruments. But to be handed an electric guitar, a bass, or something like that, it’s just so powerful. Or some drumsticks as well.”
Elise, whose band was called The Statik Girls, was one of those girls who chose the bass guitar, and told me why.
“It sounds really good, and Paul McCartney played it,” she said. Did she know how to play the bass at all, or any other musical instrument? “Uh, no…I found it kind of easy, but it was kind of hard to learn where to put my fingers on the instrument.”
Many of the music camp’s volunteer instructors and counselors were professional musicians themselves, such as drumming instructor Maya Linney. She told me why she felt You Rock El Paso was so important.
“I wish I had something like this when I was younger,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of opportunities for me as a young girl, and somebody who’s looking to break into rock when you’re younger. It helps to have somebody to help facilitate that. So I was really excited to be…someone who could give them direction, help them explore their creativity, and have another woman as an example.”
The camp gave the girls lessons in stage practice, instrument instruction, and even offered a class called Ego Death, given by instructor Abeni Janae.
“Having an ego is not inherently a bad thing,” Hall explained to her Ego Death class. “Especially as musicians. It’s a sense of self and confidence. You need to be confident as musicians especially when you get up on that stage. You don’t want to seem scared…even when we are!”
You Rock El Paso’s co-founder Jim Ward expressed his feelings about the camp and its first year.
“I would say, mostly I just found it incredibly rewarding, to see these kids come and instantly figure out what they’re doing and instantly start creating and instantly make bonds with each other,” Ward said. “That’s the most rewarding part, for sure. They’re picking up an instrument without formal training, they’re getting taught very quickly, they’re gonna very quickly perform…We don’t have a big long time for them to learn and get polished or anything like that. This is gonna be very off cuff. I think it’s inspiration-driven, right? Which is the best.”
Is it too soon to ask if there will be a second year of camp?
“It is not too soon to ask: yeah, absolutely!” Ward replied. “All we want to do is keep building this community.”
Camp director Laura Valdez told me what we can expect Friday night at the Plaza Classic Film Festival.
“Each band—we have a total of four—they’re gonna perform their own original songs that they created together since day one of this camp,” Valdez said. “We’re so excited to go out there and support them. We keep reminding them: You’ve only been doing this for two weeks. It’s not gonna be perfect. But they are putting so much effort into it. They are striving for perfection, that’s for sure!”
And from what I saw and heard at You Rock El Paso, there’s no doubt that they will achieve it.
