A Quote by Courtney Barnett

It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar. — © Courtney Barnett
It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.
Rock n' roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the 'roll' and called it 'rock,' which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It's just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it's sort of become like professional wrestling.
I wanted to get a guitar [when I was 13] so I could play punk songs because kid taught me power chords at summer camp. He was like, "You could play all punk songs if you just learn this chord and just move it around on the guitar".
That was exactly why people didn't want to give us any kind of life, because we were threatening their status quo, and they just didn't want to have room for girls playing rock 'n' roll. It bothered them. First, people just tried to get around it by saying, "Oh, wow, isn't that cute? Girls playing rock 'n' roll!," and when we said, "Yeah, right, this isn't a phase; it's what we want to do with our lives," it became, "Oh! You must be a bunch of sluts. You dykes, you whores." That's what it became. Then it became a name-calling contest.
I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.
I like rock and roll t-shirts, tight jeans, and sneakers or boots. Really just laid back, sort of rock and roll. I'm a sneaker person. I don't really like to wear high heels. I'm always really paranoid when I'm on stage playing guitar that I'm going to trip over one of the cords when I'm prancing around so I have on wedges or shoes that are not too high.
Guitar was just a hobby, but it seemed to me that the instrument had possibilities, not least of which was that there was no one else playing it. I could be, as it were, the best boy in an all-girls school.
We had incense and rock'n'roll posters, and we sold records and rolling papers. People could just, like, hang out. We had a cool vibe going.
When my guitar was growling, playing surf beat, you could hear it; you could feel it.
When I was nine years old, I started playing guitar, and I took classical guitar lessons and studied music theory. And played jazz for a while. And then when I was around fourteen years old, I discovered punk rock. And so I then tried to unlearn everything I had learned in classical music and jazz so I could play in punk rock bands.
For us Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp is bigger than the music. It is very much an experience that brings a lot of skills and discoveries about yourself together. In that respect, it also enables you to learn that being in a band is a lot tougher than sitting around and playing guitar in your bedroom.
Female artists I love the most are Fiona Apple, Paramour and Regina Spektor - those girls that really write amazing songs themselves, and they're younger and cool. I'm not quite sure I could ever write songs like any of them, but if I could, I would.
Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy.
Having been a stunt girl for so long, a big part of my job was to not just make the other person look as cool as they could, but also to act as a support. My job was to make them as safe as they could be, so that they could be as explosive and as emotionally engaged as they could be.
You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something.
I didn't think you could just become a rock and roll singer.
People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.
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