Award-winning drummer Sandy “Sledge” Kaye will lead a rare drum clinic for women in August aimed at creating “experiences that you will not easily find elsewhere.” Get the lowdown at Local Spins.
Breaking the Stereotype: Sandy “Sledge” Kaye doesn’t want to be an anomaly as a female drummer.
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Sandy “Sledge” Kaye has always believed that women are natural percussionists.
What better way to solidify this belief than having a group of women practice and perfect their drumming skills together surrounded by nature?
Kaye, her good friend, Natalie Gaza, and Pugrocker Productions will bring this opportunity in August to women of any skill level in Southwest Michigan in something dubbed the “She-Bang” camp.
Natalie Gaza
Located at Gaza’s Airbnb, aka The TinPug Cottage, guests will bunk in a group cottage environment with access to a swimmable lake and fire pit for nightly drumming circles.
The Buchanan Township location – a 20-minute drive from the Lake Michigan shore in Berrien County – is surrounded by vineyards, distilleries and breweries.
The camp, which will run Aug. 10-12, encourages attendees to bring their drumsticks, practice pad and anything else they would like to bring to bang on while sitting around the fire.
“There is an expectation that girls can’t keep up. That they have no power. That it’s a guy’s instrument even to this day,” said veteran drummer and camp coordinator Wendy Whitmore, who formed Pugrocker Productions a few years ago to bring some of Natalie’s professional music and comedy connections to the area for various projects.
“So, carving out some skill time with a powerful award winning female drummer feels like a great way to counter that narrative. More and more women are playing, but very few clinics are focused on them.”
‘YOU LITERALLY JUST HAVE TO DO IT’
Other productions presented by Whitmore and Pugrocker include shows at the Acorn Theatre, a songwriting retreat last summer also held at TinPug and music videos. Overall, the goal, in Whitmore’s words, is “to create experiences that you will not easily find elsewhere.”
Gaza and Whitmore previously teamed up with the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago for a successful songwriters retreat. This year, they wanted to try something different.
TinPug Cottage
“We may run the Old Town event again next summer. Perhaps other camps with a spin for sober songwriters and female comedy writers. We may even run two each summer each year if this one goes as well as the last,” Whitmore said.
For $600, attended at the She-Bang camp will receive a bed in the cottage or a tent spot, all meals, full workshop admission, group learning and jam sessions as well as individual, half-hour lessons with Kaye. (As part of the package, there are kayaks and paddleboards available and access to a beach.) Get details and more information online here.
Kaye and Natalie Gaza met in Los Angeles in the ’90s through fellow musician friends. The two became closer when they were both in the Alice in Chains cover band called Allison Chains. Kaye plays all styles but insists that her heart is in hard rock metal and progressive rock.
“I’ve always been an anomaly and I don’t like that,” she said.
Kaye and Gaza work together to encourage young girls to start training to be drummers to dispel the stereotype that women don’t’ play drums. Gaza, an elementary school teacher, encourages her students to try every instrument offered at the school regardless of gender.
“I don’t mean to quote Nike here, but they summed it up well by saying, ‘Just do it.’ This is how you will break a stereotype,” Gaza said. “Sometimes stereotypes are based in historical happenings so in order to break it, you literally just have to do it.”
Register and get more camp details online here.
VIDEO: Sandy “Sledge” Kaye, “Bash!”
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