Think you have what it takes to rock? You do! Photos by Alicya Tebo.

If you haven’t seen the 2007 documentary Girls Rock!, do yourself a favor and check it out. It tells the tale of a rock ‘n’ roll camp for girls aged 8-18, where it’s OK for them to “sweat like a pig, scream like a banshee, wail on their instruments with complete and utter abandon” and otherwise act like normal human beings — something a lot of young girls aren’t always encouraged to do.

That empowering, week-long model was adopted for Girls Rock Camp Denver, which wraps up its first-ever 25-person camp tomorrow, followed by a Girls Rock Denver camper showcase on Saturday at the Mercury Cafe, where the six bands the girls have formed will display their newly-learned musical prowess. (Doors at 3 p.m., with a $5 donation at the door.)

We spoke with Girls Rock Denver founder Monique Bourdage about the success of the camp, the campers’ awesome band names (think Kosmic and Sparkling Lemonade) and why the 2010 installment is only going to be better.

Did you get the idea for this after you attended the Ladies Rock Camp in Portland?

I actually had the idea before I attended the Ladies Rock Camp. I got it from when I was working on my master’s thesis at the University of Colorado at Denver about the electric guitar and gender. I spent so much time looking at the absence of female guitarists, and I was trying to figure out what kind of spaces had been created for women in music. I really gravitated toward punk and riot girls in particular.

And a lot of the people from that scene ended up founding the ladies’ and girls’ rock camps.

I have a hard time thinking of riot girls as influential, because it was such a short little phenomenon that kind of came and went really quickly, but I think their legacy are these rock camps. The people who are running them are the people who grew up when that scene was going on.

And now they’ve matured.

Most of us who grew up then are at an age when people are having children and now these kids will have access to music that we didn’t have access to when we were growing up. Riot girl provides a different role model than we had as kids, so it’s pretty cool that I’m getting letters from 8 and 10 years old girls when they want to come to our camp telling me that their favorite band is Bikini Kill. My parents didn’t have women like that in their record collection.

Were you concerned whether or not the camp would meet its 25-person goal? How late did that happen?

Oh definitely, especially this year. So much of how we advertised was really word of mouth and there were times when I’d be checking the mail and kind of freaking out that it had been two weeks and we hadn’t received an application. It didn’t fill up until the week before camp.

That’s pretty close to the wire. I’m guessing next year it won’t be such a struggle?

I think the word of mouth is just going to get bigger. We’ve got 25 excited girls here right now who are going to go back to school and tell everybody what they did this summer. We’ve had a lot of really great businesses and people from the community supporting us too.

Like who?

Like Sweet Action Ice Cream — they made a flavor for us and were helping advertise us. We actually got a keyboard donation that way. A dad went in there with his kids and found out about the rock camp and thought, “I have this old keyboard and they can use it more than I can.”

Girls not only learn to play instruments and write songs, but participate in workshops that build self-esteem and self-expression, among other things. Has anything surprised you about the way the girls are responding?

Some of the girls’ reactions in certain workshops have surprised me. It’s been kind of nice to know that they’re already on the same page of what we’re hoping to talk to them about. We don’t have to lecture to them, they bring the topics up themselves. We had a zine-writing workshop on Tuesday and the facilitators were just asking them about magazines, just really open-ended questions, and the girls were like, “They look fake. There’s nobody like me.” So it’s not that it’s good to hear — we don’t want to hear that people feel like there’s nobody out there like them — but it’s nice to know that they’re cognizant of that, or that they’re not thinking “I need to be this way.” They’re more frustrated by it than trying to conform.

How many bands do you have out of the 25 campers?

We have six bands. The band I’m managing at the moment is The Unknowne.

That’s an awesome name! What are the others?

Sparkling Lemonade, Trouble at Midnight, The Lighter Side of Dark, Kosmic, Rumbles and The Next Generation.

How does it break down, age-wise?

Let’s see, we have one 16-year-old this year, seven 8-year-olds, seven 11-year-olds… most are between 8-12. The average age is 9 1/2.

This kind of positive, female-oriented music event reminds me a bit of the Titwrench Fest last weekend.

Titwrench is actually donating some money to us. I got a phone call from them while I was in England so it took me about ten days to get back to them. But Sarah Slater from Titwrench might actually DJ at our campers showcase on Saturday. It’s just going to be a great way to get everyone together and party one last time before the camp is over.

Girls Rock Denver Campers Showcase: Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St. in Denver. Six bands. Doors at 3 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 1. $5 donation at the door.

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