Omigod, did you quit the band?

No. This is the new space for Chick Drummer. If you got here from www.shortpunksinlove.blogspot.com, then you’ve been reading Chick Drummer on the website for Short Punks in Love. I’m still in Short Punks, so don’t fear. The band hasn’t ended.

The Chick Drummer blog was an accident of sorts. The blog was started by the website designer who created the short punks website (www.shortpunksinlove.com). Brian was the one who initially attended to the technical aspects of the band (myspace, blog, e-mail, etc), and he started writing the blog. But as the year went on and Brian became busier with other things, I started writing more posts most of which were about my experiences as the drummer. And since I’m a woman that meant I had a lot experiences that weren’t always typical of your average male’s experience of gigging. It was only at a recent conference for women bloggers that I realized there was potential for Chick Drummer to be about more than just drums (although, that’s a lot too).
I created this new wordpress blog after attending the Blogher Conference in August 2007 (http://www.blogher.org/). The conference was a great experience: 700 women bloggers and me (give or take some corporate reps who weren’t bloggers). I learned at the conference that it’s important to invest in the blogging equivalent of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and create a space for myself where I can write about topics directly related to being a woman and a musician. So what does that mean? Well… for instance, and this is just off the top of my head, how about a whole post about how hard it is to find the right clothes for playing drums on stage? Or one about make-up that doesn’t sweat off when you play? Or what it’s like to playing the same night with two other male drummers? Do they compete? Are they helpful? Do they offer to set-up my drums? These are ideas that I may not have been as comfortable writing about on the Short Punks blog because on the SPiL blog I was writing to help promote the band. Here, I’m writing to help understand my own experience as a woman and a drummer. Nothing else. No promotion. No PR. Just me and what it’s like to keep playing the drummers while I finish a doctorate, teach my classes, share a house with Brian and 2 cats, and live my life.

Chick Drummer then is a new space for exploration. If you just started reading, then I hope you stick around for more. If you’re mostly interested in the life of the band, then www.shortpunksinlove.blogspot.com will give you updates on the activities of the band (rehearsals, shows, recordings, tours, etc). But I hope you’ll keep reading (and sharing stories) about life as a chick and a musician (or artist, poet, student, psychic, mother, etc).

Thanks for reading!

Chick Drummer (chickdrummer7@gmail.com)