Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls was founded in Portland in the early 2000s with a simple but powerful idea: to provide a space for girls and non-binary young people to learn to write and perform songs. There are now hundreds of these camps all over the world, but the one in Portland is changing. The original group has folded and is passing the torch to Friends of Noise, a nonprofit created in 2016 to give youth access to the music industry.
An undated photo of a Friends of Noise concert at a Portland farmers market.
courtesy of Friends of Noise
Andre Middleton, executive director of Friends of Noise, said he had mixed feelings when he first heard the news.
“It was a level of sadness, a level of realization of what impact the pandemic was still having on so many like-minded and similarly sized organizations, not just here in Portland, but across the country,” he said. “But also a sense of awe and respect that they saw Friends of Noise as being a logical and emotional carrier of that torch.”
Friends of Noise will inherit the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls name, email lists and all the equipment they used to teach generations of young women to rock out.
“I literally was at their storage unit two or three days ago looking at just a storage bin full of instruments, memorabilia, drums, guitars, amps, like everything that they needed and used to run their camp every year,” Middleton said.
Whether the music world still needs a camp for girls exclusively is something that the Friends of Noise board is still mulling over, in consultation with the youth the organization works with.
Fox Newey, a sound engineer who got her start with Friends of Noise, said the biggest need she sees right now is access.
“I think a lot of people just don’t quite have access to instruments or a space to practice or, you know, a way to get there, to songwrite or to figure out like, ‘Wow, I am interested in sound engineering or live sound,’” she said. “I think Friends of Noise does a very good job. … It helped me figure out a lot, and I think just providing a space where people can make mistakes and learn and then, you know, figure out, ‘Hey, this is actually something I’m really serious about.’”
Middleton said that no matter what, Friends of Noise will stay true to the values Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls espoused, while hopefully making the program more inclusive.
“The landscape has changed so much between 20 years ago and today. When Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp started, the trans rights movement wasn’t where it is today. People acknowledging that gender is just a construct, wasn’t where it is today,” he said. “It’s also fair to say that Rock Camp really did draw a very particular, majority white, majority upper middle class clientele. How do we expand that to include more BIPOC youth, more youth from East Portland, more youth from marginalized areas?”
Friends of Noise will be hosting a benefit show at JaJa PDX in Portland for their femme-centered programing on Friday, May 12 at 6 p.m.
