{"id":24889,"date":"2015-05-28T14:11:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T19:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=24889"},"modified":"2015-06-25T15:30:32","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T20:30:32","slug":"oxfords-new-school-of-rock-roxford-university-is-ready-for-summer-by-alex-thiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/oxfords-new-school-of-rock-roxford-university-is-ready-for-summer-by-alex-thiel\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford’s New School of Rock: Roxford University is Ready for Summer (by Alex Thiel)"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Memorial Day weekend, most students are anticipating vacations and a summer free of class. One school in town, however, is still preparing for a rather late, rather loud final exam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"0528-RoxUflyer\"<\/a>This Thursday, the students of the new Roxford University<\/strong> will play their debut show at Proud Larry\u2019s<\/strong>. Located on Mimosa Drive off of South Lamar, Roxford University aims to shake up the traditional format of music lessons. This show serves as the culmination of a semester of classes that focus not only on individual lessons, but also rehearsals in a band format.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an idea that we necessarily invented, because there are similar schools around the country,\u201d explains Tad Wilkes<\/strong>, who has headed the \u201cschool\u201d since its inception at the beginning of April. \u201cBut [we] thought that it was something that would really get a good response in Oxford, so they approached me to be the band leader and manager.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_4580\"<\/a>Wilkes (who performs locally under the name Moon Pie Curtis<\/strong>) is only one of several Oxford musicians lending their talents to the school. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other Professors include guitarist Eric Deaton<\/strong> (who has played alongside hill country legends R.L. Burnside<\/strong> and Junior Kimbrough<\/strong>), Patrick McClary<\/strong> (guitarist in such bands as Daybreakdown<\/strong> and The Minor Adjustments<\/strong>), drummer Kenny Graeber<\/strong> (of Mustache: The Band<\/strong>), and Newt Rayburn<\/strong> of The Cooters<\/strong> and Hawgwash<\/strong>, who Wilkes says will be performing on bass with some of the bands on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The school\u2019s three bands (The Wingits<\/strong>, The Mannish Boys<\/strong>, and The Rainbow Rockers<\/strong>) are sorted by the age and skill level of the students. Members range from seven to sixteen years old. Each band will consist of several different lineups\u2014for example, one band may have several guitar players that \u201csub\u201d in and out during a show, much like positions on a sports team.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_4677\"<\/a>\u201cWe see a lot of kids who\u2019ve had lessons before but have kind of lost interest,\u201d says Wilkes. \u201cI think being in the band kind of takes that boredom out of it, where you\u2019re not just practicing in a vacuum. It\u2019s like being on a football team now, there\u2019s accountability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also camaraderie. It\u2019s fun being in a band!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Roxford University does offer individual lessons, if students prefer not to be in the band. Wilkes estimates, however, that roughly 75% of students opt to join their peers onstage.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the music itself, Wilkes says that the setlist will feature \u201creally well-known songs\u201d that serve as a good foundation for kids just starting to play with other musicians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_4679\"<\/a>\u201cAs much as we\u2019d love to teach these kids some really obscure favorites, we want their friends and family who come to say, \u2018oh yeah, I know how that song is supposed to sound!\u2019 We mostly pick out the songs ourselves, but for inst)ance, with our teenage kids, we let them have some input.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think people may be the most impressed with the youngest kids, just to see what they\u2019re able to do. They have a smaller role in the show than the older kids, but I\u2019ve been impressed with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And just because summer\u2019s here doesn\u2019t mean that the music\u2019s over; Roxford U offers summer classes that follow a camp model instead of a regular weekly commitment. Wilkes says that they are offering three intermediate camps that are two weeks each, \u201cso if they\u2019re in town for two straight weeks, they can do it.\u201d They also offer an accelerated one-week camp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adults are welcome in on the fun, as well, with an adult camp that meets once a week for two months. In the fall, they\u2019ll return to their semester-long format, culminating in another show in December. The dates for the camps are available at their website, www.roxu.org.<\/u><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

The debut performance on the Proud Larry\u2019s stage will be at 6pm on Thursday, May 28.\u00a0 \"The<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

\"RoxfordFlyer_froMFebruary\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This article was printed in The Local Voice <\/em>#230 (published May 28, 2015).
\nTo download the PDF of this issue, click here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Memorial Day weekend, most students are anticipating vacations and a summer free of class. One school in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":24890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tlv-pdfs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/roxforduFEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}