As I sat down on the couch inside the Giles family’s living room in Carmichael, I wondered, How much could two grammar school kids actually rock? Thirteen-year-old Gwendolyn was itching to play from the moment I walked in the door, her fingers absent-mindedly plucking her guitar strings and her unshakable smile quietly peeking out from either side of her microphone. Her eleven-year-old sister, Lucy, bounced non-stop on her drum stool, speaking only through her mic and feeding off the energy of hearing her own voice amplified. After chatting with them a while about what it’s like to be in grammar school and in a band everyone’s talking about, I asked them the question they’d been dying to answer, “Would you guys play a song for me?”

Sam, their dad/roadie warned me, “They’re really loud.”

Right before they launched into one of their originals, “The World is Not a Game,” I thought, how cute that these two young girls have put together a little family band, but when Lucy started beating on those drums like they owed her money, I quickly understood: this is way more than cute – this is rock and roll.

PARTY PLANNING
The girls started taking music lessons two years ago, with support from their parents, Sam and Angela, and they were more than content with their solo musical pursuits. Then Zach Gooden, from Half of Nothing Records, stopped by one evening. “A friend of our parents’ came over,” Lucy recalls. “He said, ‘You guys play together, right?’ and we were like, ‘Nooo…’” Before Gooden left that night, he had taught the girls to play “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and opened up a door of musical possibility. The two set to work writing a couple of original songs to play at their school’s talent show, and Dog Party was born.

The band began as a “summer sport.” Both girls play soccer in the fall and ski competitively in the winter, so music fit in neatly with their “off-season” – that is, until the band started to really come together. “Ultimately,” Sam says of their increasingly busy schedules, “it’s their choice of what has to fall off the plate: ski racing, soccer… hopefully not academics,” he adds with a half-joking glance at the girls.

Over the past year they’ve played in clubs, parks and schools around Sacramento. Gwendolyn and Lucy agree that their favorite all-ages place to play is “Luigi’s Fun Garden!” As for the few bars they’ve been able to play in, Lucy says, “I hate the smell of them.” No matter where they play, they wow crowds and other bands alike. “The support they’ve been getting from other bands is tremendous,” Sam acknowledges with a proud smile. That list of encouraging admirers includes local favorites Agent Ribbons, Vivian Girls, Autumn Sky, and The Poplollys.

As they finish the song, I notice how much my jaw hurts from the huge grin I’ve been wearing the whole time. These girls have chops and the confidence to serve up fun, energetic live performances, but more importantly, they have heart, enough heart to draw in an audience and make even Sac’s most jaded concertgoers feel really great about life.

Jason Adair enjoys writing, performing and making stuff (including music) with his family in Auburn.