Girls Rock Camp is the ultimate volunteer run project. Six women spend the year organizing a weeklong camp for girls ages eight to 18 to learn how to play an instrument and write a song; giving them a chance to form a band and perform on a real stage, all while instilling the necessary ideology that women are equal, women are awesome and they can do anything they set their minds to. It may sound obvious—of course women are important and capable—but the reality remains society, especially pop culture and mainstream media, treat women as objects, anomalies, and auxiliary citizens. What Girls Rock Camp seems to aspire to do is not only instill a healthy dose of feminism in these young girls, but also try to create an area, nay a culture, where there is a female presence. These young girls get to flourish in an environment of strong female leaders and encouraging male allies while developing new skills and a burgeoning self confidence that will be hard to rattle.
The Rio is a theatre like any other; a touch darker, a touch danker, but similar nonetheless. On this night, the night of the Girls Rock Camp Showcase, it was transformed into a venue filled with support, community, excitement and of course, the satanic forces that are rock ‘n’ roll. The screen was filled with pictures of the days that passed; photos of each band, the scream circles and music practice. The speakers blared the songs of last year’s bands, letting everyone know what we were in store for. Read More










Casiokids
with Light Pollution & Einar Stokka, August 21 @ Media Club
Review By Sally White
I’m not sure what I expected the crowd at a Euro electro-pop show to look like, but it wasn’t what I saw at the Media Club on Saturday night. Opener Einar Stokka, a college friend of the Casiokids and self described “melancholic act,” played his mellow acoustic rock with notable stage presence, despite the crowd of roughly 25 people tightly hugging the walls of the club. He seemed to think he was still in the US, but was forgiven for that slip after offering his CDs for free at the merch table. Up next was Chicago-based band Light Pollution who did their best to get the crowd up on their feet and “fill the void” with their scratchy, bouncy pop rock, managing to get one solo male jumping around front and centre to the song “Good Feelings.” Read More »