Most of the participants in next weekend's Girls Got Rhythm Festival agree: There's no great need to showcase women's ability to rock 'n' roll -- not in this day and age, and especially not in the Twin Cities music scene.

However, there certainly still seems to be a want for such an event.

Scheduled Friday and Saturday nights at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall -- and newly expanded to a third, all-ages show next Sunday -- the inaugural festival features a cultish, record-collector-type lineup of rock acts from different cities and eras, all of whom happen to feature women. Foremost among them is Ronnie Spector, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who gave us "Be My Baby."

There is certainly a nobody's-baby attitude behind Girls Got Rhythm. As the name suggests -- it's taken from a song title by sexual-innuendo masters AC/DC -- the festival's feminist face is made up in a spirit of fun.

"We don't have any political message or anything to prove," confirmed co-organizer Dana Raidt. "It's just a cohesive, inspiring way of spotlighting some great musicians."

Raidt, 30, carried a similar mantra when she hosted the "Girl Germs" show on the University of Minnesota student station Radio K, which lives on as a podcast and blog. Now the editor of Metro magazine, Raidt dreamt up the fest last year with promoter and musician Travis Ramin, who runs the Ramos record label.

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The Muffs

The two longtime friends started out by booking underground acts Ramin had worked with, including Detroit pop/punk vet Nikki Corvette. Feeding their wildest dreams, Raidt said, they approached Spector's handlers about having her headline Saturday.

"I still can barely believe we got her," Raidt admitted. "They're saying she's into the idea of the fest."

And the rest of the GGR acts are into the idea of being on the same bill as Spector. Landing her helped the organizers secure Japanese surf-rock trio the 5.6.7.8's and Friday's headliners, the Muffs, an unsung Los Angeles band from the early-1990s alt-rock wave alongside Babes in Toyland and Hole.

Muffs frontwoman Kim Shattuck echoed Raidt's comments about the GGR Fest not making a feminist statement.

"I think it's cool to do thematically, and a lot of fun, but I don't think it's like the 1940s if we don't," she said.

Shattuck remembers going into a guitar shop to buy strings as a teenager and being asked by the guy behind the counter, "Are these for your boyfriend?" Otherwise, she said she's encountered few instances of sexism in her career.

"It might happen more than I think, and I just don't pick up on it because I don't care what people think," she said. "If people act like I'm a joke, then I figure the joke's on them."

Raidt wasn't willing to joke about her festival being a tough-girl answer to the often folky and flowery Lilith Fairs.

"They were important at the time," she said of the Sarah McLachlan-led tours of the late '90s, which promoted dozens of female acts at a time when narrow FM radio formats rarely played them. When McLachlan tried to revive Lilith Fair in 2010, though, ticket sales were lackluster -- possibly proving it to be an outdated idea.

Unlike the Lilith Fairs, Raidt is confident the GGR Fest will draw as many men as women, thanks in part to the festival's rockier/punkier style of bands -- but also to Twin Cities music lovers on the whole being "very open to seeing bands from all different genres."

"Gender," she added, "really isn't much of an issue here."

Follow Riemenschneider on Twitter: @ChrisRstrib