Carnival of Soul

The music shop recently hosted its annual Rock Camp Pro, part of a week-long music camp experience.

“We have a number of camps throughout every summer for kids ages 3 and up,” owner Tim Spicer said. “And this is our Rock Camp Pro, which is more experienced musicians – ages 12 to 18. We put them together in bands and they learn cover songs off the radio. We bring in a professional songwriter, and they write their own original songs.”

The Friday night performances are where they play what they’ve been working on for friends and family.

Due to the pandemic and social distancing concerns, the staff at Spicer’s were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to have camp this year.

“We kept going back to the drawing board, trying to figure out how we could still offer camp, but in a safe way,” Spicer said. “We just have so many positive interactions every year and seeing the kids grow and develop, we want all capabilities to be able to do camp in some sort of fashion. We’re excited to still be able to offer camp in the midst of everything going on.”

The camp usually has around 40 to 50 participants each year. This year the number was limited to 12 participants, split into three bands. To give the bands enough space to practice and be socially distant, this year’s camp was held out of the Bottling Plant Event Center in downtown Opelika.

For their performances that evening, each band spent the week learning and practicing two songs by popular radio artists like the Weeknd and Lewis Capaldi to play. Additionally, local songwriter, Johnny Powell, worked with the bands on writing original songs that they would perform.

Mia Rogers has done Camp Rock Pro for the past three years. After moving to the area from Prattville and hoping to continue her passion for music, she found an outlet in the camp.

“I thought it was very cool and I just like the all-over experience because you got to do everything, it was a live performance and it just gave you everything you needed,” she said. “The camp has helped me build my confidence and definitely my motivation to continue doing guitar and singing.”

After a poor experience at a classical music camp, Ian Cannon found a better fit with Rock Camp Pro. Cannon also takes music lessons at Spicer’s Music.

“I like having to be sort of under pressure to have to get it done in a week,” Cannon said. “But I’m also someone who doesn’t prepare a lot because I feel like you can set yourself up for failure. When you don’t prepare as much, you can improvise when something doesn’t go right.”

Isaiah Coleman initially came Spicer’s Music all the way from LeGrange in search of a new guitar and having heard about the good music shops in the area. He learned about the camp during his visit and thought it sounded like a good idea.

“I already play piano and guitar, this is my first time playing bass guitar,” Coleman said. “But I’d like to learn how to play other things like electric guitar and drums.”