GRDC # 2: Hamster Rock

Jam Session from left: Mona Schamess, Maia Cafri, Starr Hill, and Skye Ray, with coach Jeanni Centofanti at bottom.

On Saturday, Aug. 16 the ladies of Jam Session stepped out under the blue and green lights of the 9:30 Club main stage and began their first performance by yelling out "We're Jam Session, and we love hamster!" Featuring frontwoman Skye Ray on vocals, Mona Schamess on guitar and vocals, Maia Cafri on bass, Starr Hill on drums, and Gigi Diaz on keys, the young women performed a complex piece that fused several tempos and styles and included some fancy beatboxing by Ray.

Like the other girls in the Girls Rock! DC inaugural showcase at the 930 Club in Washington, DC, the ladies in Jam Session met, formed a band, and wrote a song for the showcase all in the space of five days. Many of the girls in the showcase, including Cafri from Jam Session, picked up their instruments for the very first time that week.

I caught up with Schamess, Cafri, Hill, and Ray in the 930 Club's Moon Room after their song. I asked Hill about their fondness for hamsters, and she quickly explained that they didn't mean the small furry rodents pictured in their band art. They were referring to alternative hamster, a style of music that is "totally better than regular rock" because it includes "a little bit of everything." She said their band coach, local musician Jeanni Centofanti from the all-female punk band Mess Up The Mess, told them about it, and the band fell in love with it. Hill said the idea of alternative hamster inspired the band to include salsa, rock, and other styles in their song.

Ray told me that the best part of rock camp was making new friends, especially her band mates. The funniest? "In self defense (class), my friend accidentally kicked me in my back!"

Just before the young rockers made their way back upstairs to see their friends in the band Flaming X play, their coach, Centofanti, pointed out the glow-in-the-dark pinpoints decorating the ceiling and walls of the impromptu press room. A former 9:30 Club employee, Centofanti told her proteges that the Moon Room was painted to exactly match the sky on the night that the 9:30 Club was founded. The girls ogled the walls, then, armed with this insider knowledge, they ran up to join their friends in the performers-only balcony.

Skye Ray on vocals.

Maia Cafri on bass.

Mona Schamess on guitar and vocals.

Jam Session under the spotlights.

GRDC #1: Firsts and the attack of the killer reporter's notebook

Ed note: Ever have life pick you up by the scruff of the neck, shake you side to side for a bit, then put you back down again in a totally different place? This post is coming out almost 3 weeks after I wrote it because some of my neighbors decided to celebrate the afternoon with semi-automatic weapons just as I finished writing. See the next post for more details, but let's just say that the first six words here were prescient.

Post written 8/16/08

Today was a day of firsts: the first-ever showcase for the first-ever GirlsRock! DC rock camp for girls, the first performance for each of the eight bands and two DJs, and many of the girls’ first time performing the instruments they touched for the first time on Monday. It was also my first time slipping a “visitor media” tag around my neck as I walked into the 9:30 Club, squeezing through the crowd around the stage to shoot photos, and interviewing real, live band members. I think the girls may have been more nervous than I was, but it was hard to be sure.

Others have already written about rock camp and the amazing things the campers have done this week, culminating in the showcase I saw today on a stage that many bands only dream of setting foot on. My next few posts will have interviews, stories, and photos from the showcase, but I wanted to take a moment to write about my experience as well.

At just after 10:45 this morning I walked past the double line stretching around the club's corner and stepped right up to the doors. No ticket needed; I just called Ebony Dumas, Media/Events/PR Co-Chair for GirlsRock! DC, and she handed me a press badge at the door that let me come and go as I pleased.

My memory from then on is a bit of a blur. I shot hundreds of pictures, many of which didn't come out (see below). I managed to almost run over the same fifteen people at least twelve times as I dodged through the crowd between the stage and the interview area. I got to the interview area twice just to watch band members scampering away to hang out upstairs with their friends. I finally managed to catch Allegra from The Burning Flowers, which quickly turned into a four-way interview with her and her friends. As I finished with her, the girls from Jam Session came out, and I interviewed first one, then two, then four of them plus their band coach, Jeanni Centofanti, at the same time. Then it was back to the stage to get some photos, round to the interview room again to meet up with Ebony to go backstage, and suddenly it was all over. Two and a half hours in a blink of an eye.

I walked out of the club more hyper than a sugar-high six year old, slightly dazed, sweaty, ears ringing, and somehow covered in pen marks.

Now that my heart rate has slowed down some, I have a few lessons learned. Number one: I NEED A BETTER CAMERA. I’ve known for a while that my point-and-shoot is pretty puny as far as cameras go, but the combination of darkness, lots of motion on stage, and my slightly unsteady hand completely overwhelmed its meager capabilities. The camera only has one setting that could capture both the lighting and the performers on stage, and it requires a slightly longer exposure, which means absolutely no motion. In a jostling crowd that was simply impossible, so the resulting shots were about as clear as a college freshman’s eyesight at 3 a.m. on a Saturday.
(Picture has been cropped) The effect was oddly appropriate for the band Global Rave, but not so much elsewhere.

My camera also has an agonizingly slow shutter speed, which in a performance situation meant that I missed many of the coolest moments--such as when the frontwoman in Poison Control overcame her initial shyness and stepped up onto one of the speakers to touch the fingertips of her screaming new fans.

Lesson learned number two: I should learn more about the bands before I get to the concert. Granted, normally bands aren’t formed five days before they headline at the 9:30 Club, but it's entirely possible I'll get another interview opportunity with only half a day's notice. I could have made a couple of calls and pumped my camp counselor friends for info; it would have been nice to at least know the girls’ names before they stepped out under the stage lights. As it was, the only time I could talk to band members was after their sets and while other bands played. As mentioned above, I did manage to catch the drummer from The Burning Flowers and the members of Jam Session, so look for more on those bands over the next couple of days.

Lesson learned number three: trying to photograph bands on stage at the same time as I'm trying to interview other bands back stage is difficult. Now I know why reporters and photographers are usually a team, not one person. Unfortunately the set-up was beyond my control, but maybe next time I could bring a friend to shoot photos or just pick one or two bands ahead of time. Or bring a pedometer so I know just how many calories I'm working off as I run back and forth through the crowd.

Lesson learned number four may be a lost cause: unless I can somehow remember to put the cap back on my pen, I will probably end up tattooing my right forearm every time I do this. But hey, dignity’s a small price to pay for a great story, right?


Of course, the biggest lesson learned was pretty obvious: no matter how much I may convince myself I don’t know what I’m doing, in the end, none of that matters. I love this stuff and I can’t wait to do it again!

Interviews, pics, and stories from the showcase coming soon. :)