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December 17, 2007 12:20 pm
Die-hard indie rock types gathered at Union Pool in Williamsburg last night for a benefit show in support of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. Blast-from-the-past buzz band Babe the Blue Ox topped the bill, and all it took was a few post-rock tempo changes for the whole room to start surfing a wave of nineties college-radio nostalgia. “Babe was one of the first shows I ever booked,” recalled Dawn Barger, manager of acts such as Nicole Atkins and the Sea and the National. “They crashed at my place. But I doubt they remember.” You could almost forget, too, that the whole point of the show was to help foment the next generation of Liz Phairs and Kim Deals (and Chan Marshalls and Alison Mossharts, for that matter.) But that fact didn’t slip the mind of Babe the Blue Ox drummer Hanna Fox, who also serves as president of New York’s local Willie Mae franchise. “It’s an empowerment program,” she noted of the camp. And I have to tell you, it works. All we do is say yes to these girls, and at first, they just can’t believe it. They’ll ask things like, even though I’m taking the guitar class, can I still play piano for my band? And we say yes. If you’ve got an idea, go, run with it. Rock on. That’s the whole point.”
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