The Beat Goes On

I remember watching the Partridge Family on television in 1970. I was 10 years old and I tuned in to watch Shirley, with her shag hairdo and gaggle of five kids, sing “C’mon Get Happy.” I wanted to be just like her—a rock star.

By the end of the 1970s, I was so busy cutting Peter Frampton’s picture out of magazines that I never got around to learning how to play a keyboard. I went from wanting to be a rock star to dreaming of dating one. I ended up marrying my college sweetheart in 1981. John was not a musician, but at the time he was a dead ringer for Roger Daltry and that was good enough. I gave up my childhood dreams, had a couple of babies and was content to being nothing more than a member of the audience for the next 20 years—until I went to a show that changed my life. In 2002, I saw Jack White (of The White Stripes) play guitar in, of all places, the gymnasium of my sons’ elementary school. White had a niece who went to school with my sons and he performed a small concert as a favor to her. In between playing “We Are Going to Be Friends” and “Apple Blossom,” he spoke to the kids about what it was like to be a musician. And as he did, my Shirley Partridge imaginings came flooding back. I know White was trying to inspire the children and not their parents, but I could not help myself. I signed up for guitar lessons the very next day.

As a full-time working mom, I had little free time. I went to a music store in a strip mall during my lunch hour on Tuesdays for the next month and a guy named Kemp taught me how to play a few chords. But that wasn’t enough. At a Memorial Day neighborhood picnic (with four guitar lesson under my belt) I bamboozled a few of my suburban Detroit neighbors—Kara Rasmussen, Paige Gilbert and Pat McGough—to form a rock band with me. An all-mom rock band.

This was no lark. By the end of the summer, four middle-aged women (who had no prior musical experience) were rehearsing in the laundry room. I bought an electric guitar, Paige borrowed a bass, Pat found some drumsticks (she used a laundry basket as a snare drum until she could afford the real thing), and Kara sang. Kara’s husband (a real deal 1980s punk rocker) wrote catchy little three-chord ditties for us. We learned songs like “Soccer Mom Stomp” and “Take Out the Trash” while our kids were upstairs trying to flush silverware down the toilet.

We decided to call ourselves the “Mydols” (a name my husband came up with) after rejecting suggestions like “The Snotwipers,” “Momzilla,” “Hot Flash,” and “Midlife Crisis” from (sometimes snickering) friends and neighbors. I came up with a logo and we ordered four dozen t-shirts. After all, nothing screams “I’m a Rock Star” louder than a fluorescent t-shirt that says “I’m a Rock Star.” The only thing left to do was book a gig.

As luck would have it, as unconventional as it may seem to start a “mom” rock band, it was the lessons drawn from raising children that ultimately helped place us in the spotlight. Years of bragging about my kids had made me an excellent publicist. I discovered making gig flyers was like making invitations for a five-year-old’s birthday party. Writing a song lyric was just like writing poems for homemade baby books. And I knew as a former School Fair Chairperson, if I could get hundreds of people to give up their Friday night and pay to attend a function with lame food, games and prizes, I could get those same people (with seemingly nothing better to do) to come to an establishment that served BEER and watch (even the lamest) band play for FREE.

In addition, our children acted like a “street team.” My son Willie, and Paige’s daughter Meredith, drew pictures of the band for our website. (We could not afford band photos. Unfortunately, unlike a school fair, a band does not come with a $500 budget. So you have to be creative.) My son Dylan designed CD artwork. Pat’s son Ryan never left home without a Mydols t-shirt on and Kara’s 5-year-old daughter Taylor used, “So what’s the name of your mom’s band?” to break the ice with other kindergarteners. We were a promotion machine.

And so, after less than a dozen rehearsals, we decided we had what it takes to perform in front of an audience. The Mydols signed up to play three songs at an open-mic night at a bar called The End of the Park. By our advertising campaign, you might have thought we were opening for The Rolling Stones. We hung posters at soccer domes, grocery stores, gas stations, preschools and the YMCA, announcing the Mydols’ first show, and people came on a Wednesday school night. For the first time in my life, I was on the bright side of the spotlights, and folks were applauding for me and not the other way around. I looked into the audience and saw John grinning from ear to ear. Pat clicked us in, “1-2-3-4!” and we thrashed out three punky tunes. Our bass player, Paige, later recalled, “Maybe it was the kitschy ‘surreality’ of the show, our overwhelming enthusiasm in the face of zero stage experience or the sheer gall of a bunch of middle-aged mothers who wanted to be rock stars, but we packed that room, wowed the crowd and it was magic.”

The rest as they say is history. We had “mommy schtick” and we laid it on thick—like peanut butter. Soon the local media caught on. A Detroit entertainment magazine, called Jam Rag, warned that even though our music was very basic it would “stick to your head like school-house paste.” The national media followed. A Wall Street Journal headline read “Mommy Loudest,” and we had tiny appearances on The Today Show and CBS Early Morning, followed by a full blown celebrity-like exposé on Inside Edition with Deborah Norville. Before I knew it, I was reading about our band in supermarket tabloids while I was standing in line buying Lunchables. And then the unthinkable happened. Our sophomore CD titled “Born to Iron” was nominated for “Best Pop/Rock Recording” at the 2006 Detroit Music Awards.

Time seems to have rushed by, and a band that should have lasted five minutes has now been around for over five years. Sure, we’re not hanging gold records next to the kids’ soccer trophies, but we have had more than our share of “rock star” moments, proving you don’t have to be young and thin to follow your dreams. Today, “Mom Rock” is defined in the hipster Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com), but we never forget the most important word in “mom rocker” will always be “mom.” In the end, it’s our street team that is our greatest accomplishment. Shirley Partridge would be proud.

Judy Davids is the lead guitarist for the Mydols and the author of Rock Star Mommy: My Life as a Rocker Mom (Citadel Press). She lives in suburban Detroit with her husband and two teenage sons. 

~Judy Davids