MOMz Hot ROCKs

I was thinking about the Mom thing, and how

Punked out, rockin’ mamas: MOMz Hot ROCKs screens at the Naples International Film Festival

you’re shoved into this box, and you’re marginalized

and silenced and alienated and exhausted, and

you have all your resources stripped from you. And

I was like: Damn! That’s like being a punk rocker!

Rachel Yellow of Placenta

I LULlabies and patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man, guess again, baby.

Moms can be about strapping on a Fender Stratocaster, cranking the dial past 10 and blowing out the speakers.

Sure, there’ve been rock stars who became mothers and continued performing: Bjork, Madonna, Patti Smith, Wynonna, to name a few.

But “MOMz Hot ROCKs,” a documentary by Kate Perotti, looks at women who become rockers after they’ve started their families.

These all-woman bands sport names such as Housewives on Prozac, Frump, Placenta, Black Flamingo, Candy Band (a play on the name Candy Land, a kid’s board game any mom will tell you they’ve played all too many times) and The Mydols (because after all, they reason, if there’s a band called The Cramps, why not The Mydols?).

This inspiring documentary can be seen at the Naples International Film Festival at 11:30 a.m. and 8:45 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at Silverspot Luxury Cinemas, with the latter show including a Q&A with the director afterward.

The inner rock star

Ms. Perotti was in the process of writing a narrative comedy about a fictional group of women who start a band when she read in the Wall Street Journal about real-life mothers who had created bands. She got on the Internet and looked up Joy Rose, who started Housewives on Prozac.

“She called me right back and we talked for about an hour and a half,” she says.

And suddenly, Ms. Perotti was making a film about groups of women across the country who were discovering their inner rock stars.

These women are lively, talented, selfaware — and funny.

Ms. Rose wears pink streaks in her hair, feather boas, a heart-shaped tattoo with “Mom” in the middle and “big-ass platform shoes.” After battling lupus, undergoing chemotherapy and getting a kidney transplant, she took a good look at her life and decided to follow her dream of starting a band. She loves her four children, but she knew motherhood was only one of her roles in life. Music, she says, was the difference between living and dying.

Housewives on Prozac perform songs such as “Eat Your Damn Spaghetti,” “Mrs. President,” “I Don’t Think Like My Mom Anymore,” “Chemo” and “Gay Girls Make Great Moms.” The Housewives have played venues as diverse as the YMCA for Music for Mommies, a 9/11 fundraiser for Long Island firefighters, and the now-defunct CBGB’s in New York City.

As she realized there were scores of other mom bands across the country, Ms. Rose — a woman who obviously doesn’t know how to dream small — started Mamapalooza, a festival of mom bands and like-minded women performers.

Filmmaker Ms. Perotti was there for the first Mamapalooza organizational meeting, as were women rockers Rew, who has a band called Black Flamingo, and Alyson Palmer of the trio BETTY.

Judy Davids founded The Mydols after Jack White (of the White Stripes, Raconteurs and The Dead Weather) played at her son’s school and talked about songwriting. He inspired Ms. Davids to learn how to play the guitar when she was in her 40s.

Kara Rasmusen fronts The Mydols. Her husband, John, was in punk bands in the ’80s and writes many of their songs.

The Mydols recently played with KISS in Detroit and will be on Gene Simmons’ cable show, Ms. Perotti says. “It was refreshing to me that they didn’t have an ego,” she says. “It was, ‘Oh, we’ll play anywhere.’ And they were able to cater to different audiences. The Mydols could play in the best Detroit bars, and play with KISS, and also play at the Detroit Zoo on a Saturday for Family Day.”

Mamapalooza is now held in cities across the country. In addition to her band Black Flamingo, Rew has an Internet radio show called “Rew and Who,” and plays regularly in New York. Frump disbanded, but some of its members now perform as Mary and the Moodswings.

‘Refreshing to work with’

The entire “MOMz Hot ROCKs,” project took five years. Ms. Perotti filmed from 2004 to 2007, and she says it was one of the smoothest productions she’s ever done. The only problem she ran into was logistics: She’s based in Los Angeles, while the bands were in New York, Detroit, Nashville, Dallas.

“I would’ve liked to have spent more time spontaneously with them,” she says. Calling the women bands “refreshing to work with,” she adds, “I love the sense of humor that basically everyone brought to the table.”

The women in the film are alike in their love for music; most are moms, but some aren’t. They’re married, divorced and single, straight and gay, women with a wide variety of careers: lawyer, bartender, custom framer, schoolteacher, boutique owner, dean.

Ms. Perotti intersperses old advertisements of moms cooking and cleaning with interviews with band members and clips of their rehearsals and performances. She named it “MOMz Hot ROCKs” in honor of the Rolling Stones’ album, “Hot Rocks.”

Audiences love the film.

At the recent Rhode Island Film Festival, “MOMz Hot ROCKs” won the Viola M. Marshall Audience Award for Best Documentary.

And last month, when Ms. Perotti was in New York and met Gloria Steinem, she was surprised to learn that she had heard about the film.

“The reactions have been lovely, a really rewarding part of it,” she says, adding it’s not just women who love the film. “Men love it. People have not had a bad reaction. Audiences have a great time. I love being in an audience when people are laughing out loud. ‘Inspiring’ is the one adjective I often hear.”

She hopes the film helps people realize that it’s never too late to follow your dreams, and that, “It’s worth it to do something if it really makes you happy. 
.. if you go
>> Naples International Film Festival
>> When: Nov. 5-8
>> Where: Various locations, all in Naples:
The Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5833
Pelican Bay Blvd.; Silverspot Luxury Cinemas in
Mercato, 9118 Strada Place; the von Liebig Art
Center, 585 Park St.; and the Norris Center, 755
Eighth Ave. S.
>> Cost: $12-$29
>> Information: www.naplesfilmfest.org
>> More: “MOMz Hot ROCKs” will view at Silverspot
Luxury Cinemas at 11:30 a.m. and 8:45
p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, with a Q&A with director
Kate Perotti after each screening.