Lessons in rock 'n' roll climbing

ATLANTA -- A small hand appeared at the door, followed by a small boy, his black T-shirt falling almost to his knees. He looked around at the other children, and asked, in the bell-clear voice that precedes puberty: "Is this the punk class?"

It was.

The teacher, the 20-year-old guitarist for a band called Genghis Tron, was introducing a roomful of students to the throbbing power chords that form the backbone of punk and heavy metal.

A few doors away, a professional voice coach was helping 14-year-old Cory Blanchette rehearse a song he had never heard: "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which was recorded by The Clash eight years before he was born.

And in every direction, along the halls of a Jewish day school outside Atlanta, children of the suburbs were being instructed in speed-metal, death-metal, ripping, shredding, maniacally insane guitar solos, and jumping onto the bass drum for dramatic effect without hurting yourself.

It is a sign of the times that parents in the Atlanta area lined up this summer to send their children to Camp Jam, a $495 weeklong day camp under the direction of Jeff Carlisi, guitarist for the arena rock band .38 Special, which had major hits in "Hold on Loosely"' and "Rockin' Into the Night."

'Lots of Rock'

In his weaker moments, Carlisi wondered if his concept -- the camp's motto is "No Canoes - Lots of Rock" -- would find the right audience in a culture that has moved away from high-voltage rock 'n' roll.

But the 9-to-17-year-old campers who showed up here recently wore their hair over their eyes and spoke with reverence of Jimmy Page. Their taste for hard rock had been nurtured by baby boomers -- parents able to see heavy metal and punk as a wholesome, enriching after-school activity.

"Ten or 20 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to do this," said Carlisi. "Now I have parents coming up to me and saying, 'I just want to thank you for what you've done for my child. You've changed them.' "

Carlisi and his business partner, Dan Lipson, rented space and tested their theory this summer in the heart of Atlanta's wealthy northern suburbs. Applicants were required to have six months' experience playing or singing "in a semi-structured environment," but they were not expected to have played in a band.

Many of these campers looked like they would be more comfortable in Little League. The first time they were asked to stand on stage, said one instructor, some trembled.

That day, the counselors sat together and, in a single, intense hour, grouped them into bands. The rest of the week proceeded like a particularly loud psychology experiment.

"These kids, they want to rip, they want to shred," Carlisi said. "They're hungry for all of it."

Grunge anthem

Josh Bell, 11, stood in front of vocal coach Felicia Sorensen, singing, in the sweet tenor he had cultivated in a church choir, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Kurt Cobain's grunge anthem.

Sorensen, who has sung backup for Usher and Amy Grant, watched critically from across the room. When she works with young vocalists, she trains them to "bring up emotion" from their lives. She and Josh were working on anger.

"Remember," she told him, "You're a rock star." The students at Camp Jam pose a considerable rock 'n' roll dilemma in that many of them are, frankly, adorable.

By Wednesday, 13-year-old Jennifer Wright and her band had practiced "Should I Stay or Should I Go," so often that it began to sound polished.

It was all wrong. Instructor Alan Yates, a singer-songwriter in a black T-shirt and silver hoop earrings, took them aside. "Make it more rocking. A little more dirty, and not so pretty," he told the band. "It's not a pretty song."

They disappeared into a practice room, where they figured out something important: If they learned the song well enough, they could start "messing around and making weird noises," as Jennifer put it. The next time the band got on stage, the sound was ragged and a little distorted. Yates approved.

Their inhibitions fell away. Jennifer, 13, played so hard she broke guitar strings.

At 6 p.m. on Friday, the parents filed into the auditorium to see their children perform. The parents had their own reasons for sending their kids to rock 'n' roll camp. Julie Iarossi, 43, gave a dreamy smile when she recalled her 10th-grade boyfriend, who played the drums.

John Kennedy described his 13-year-old son, Drake, as "an extremely fine conversationalist," but worried about his tendency to shyness.

As Cory Blanchette finished singing "Should I Stay or Should I Go," his mother, Gail, felt her eyes well up with tears.