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Girls rule, boys drool. Gail Silverman, lead singer of New York City's G-Spot, assembled a tour to showcase women rockers on today's indie music scene. Pop princesses and radio clones are nowhere to be found. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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Chicks with picks
GIRLS ROCK & GIRLS RULE
Wed., Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m.
Newport Blues Cafe
286 Thames St., Newport
$10 tax-deductible donation
(401) 841-5510
www.newportblues.com
BY OLIVIA SMITH
Girls with guitars are all the rage in the music biz nowadays. Or are they?
"There was kind of a surge in the '90s where there seemed to be a lot of attention given to women - when Alanis and Sheryl Crow and that whole group came out. And then since then, I think it's really gone in the opposite direction," says Gail Silverman, lead singer of New York City hard rockers G-Spot.
"It's really become more about the pop and about the singer-songwriter," she adds.
Which is why Silverman - also known as the national sponsorship director of the Newport International Film Festival - started the Girls Rock & Girls Rule tour five years ago to remind audiences that real ladies do play hard. The estrogen-fueled tour roars into Newport Wednesday, Sept. 26, for a night of rocking and raging at the Newport Blues Cafe.
"There are women doing a lot of things in our genre that are certainly not being showcased commercially. We're really trying to bring some attention to that."
The tour features more than 25 bands performing in nine cities up and down the East Coast. There isn't a submission process for bands; Silverman relies heavily on word-of-mouth in musical communities.
"We have four core touring bands from New York that I have worked with for several years. And then we look for local bands in each market that are a good fit with the type of music that we're looking to do. The caliber of talent that we've gotten that way has been really great."
The Newport show will feature local acts Beyond Blonde and The Lydia Warren Band. Also appearing besides G-Spot will be NYC bands Loki the Grump, RewBee, Marisa Mini and Emiko. They'll be playing to a crowd likely to be comprised of as many men as women. According to Silverman, crowds along the way have been about 50/50.
"I think that boys like to see girls rock out just as much as other girls do," she says.
A portion of the money raised will be donated to the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. The camp is designed to teach girls ages 8-18 about self-confidence through music.
"I thought that it was a really good fit for what we were doing - kind of bringing up the next generation of girls who rock," Silverman says. "It's really about empowering these girls and giving them the opportunity to really feel good about expressing themselves through music."
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