Girls Rock! Gear Drive This Weekend

By Lizz Kannenberg in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 23, 2009 4:00PM

Girls just wanna rock, but they need the gear to make their musical dreams a reality. Girls Rock! Chicago is a non-profit organization that seeks to give girls aged 9-16 an outlet for self-expression through music, and they've been doing it for four summers on the strength of support from Chicago's music community. It's time once again to show this great organization and its worthy young ladies just how awesome we are by donating any old or unwanted music gear to their annual gear drive.

Whole Foods all over Chicago will be accepting your dusty old practice amps and extraneous guitars, basses, drums, strings, cables, tuners, cases and cymbals this Saturday between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. The brand spankin' new flagship store in Lincoln Park will also feature live entertainment throughout the day and a chance to meet some of the organizers and former students.

Yours truly met a bunch of these folks a few weeks ago, when I volunteered to teach bass at Ladies Rock! Chicago. The weekend-long adult camp raised money for the girls' camp later this summer, and the dedication to raising the profile of females in rock music was pretty fucking great. This August they'll have the largest girls' camp ever - 76 young Kim Gordons and Kim Deals - so more gear is definitely needed.

Participating Whole Foods include Whole Foods Lincoln Park (Sheffield and Kingsbury), Lakeview (3300 N. Ashland), South Loop (1101 S. Canal St), and Gold Coast (30 W. Huron).

Remember, anything you donate is tax deductible and that warm, fuzzy feeling is totally free.