{"id":38255,"date":"2017-03-16T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=38255"},"modified":"2017-03-09T16:14:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:14:29","slug":"do-it-yourself-oxford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/do-it-yourself-oxford\/","title":{"rendered":"Do It Yourself, Oxford"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oxford music community has been a hot topic as of late. Our interviews with Jace Hughes<\/strong> and Ben Ricketts<\/strong> put a spotlight on the problem and a Facebook<\/strong> post by Bill Perry<\/strong> curated an exceptional amount of comments and criticism regarding the lack of stages for live, original music in town.<\/span><\/p>\n

A portion of the criticism was, both directly and indirectly, aimed at business owners who had previously supplied stages for performers. Though an equally represented opinion was that it was the musicians\u2019 responsibility to nurture and rebuild the music community.<\/span>
\nTate Moore<\/strong>, local musician and owner of Square Pizza<\/strong>, half-jokingly offered a free slice of pizza to any musician that came in and played an original song on piano or guitar. Ben Ricketts<\/strong> decided to go a step further and is organizing a show at the pizza joint on the night of March 23. As of now this is the only show Moore has scheduled.<\/span>
\n\u201cOf course I’m not against another one,\u201d said Moore. \u201cNot selling alcohol limits what the space can do. Maybe make it like preservation hall?\u201d<\/span>
\nOwner of local record store End of All Music<\/strong>, David Swider<\/strong>, offered his own perspective on the problem.<\/span>
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to come across as a know-it-all or anything like that,\u201d said Swider. \u201cI do think there\u2019s a lack of coherence to [the music community]. There\u2019s some great musicians in town, both that have been here for a long time and that people don\u2019t even know about. I think where the problem is, is in venues and outlets for people to successfully play shows, book shows, and go to a party. I think that is where, as a town, we\u2019re falling short\u201d<\/span>
\nSwider has made efforts to book shows at the record store thr<\/span>oughout the year for both local and touring bands.<\/span>
\n\u201cAs a record store I\u2019ve tried to provide that outlet for people when I can, but the bottom line is we\u2019re here to be a record store and not a venue,\u201d said Swider. \u201cSometimes I can provide a space for that and sometimes not. It usually revolves around whether they have a record to sale, because I\u2019m not, for lack of a better way of putting it, in the business of just giving someone a stage.\u201d<\/span>
\nFor most businesses, especially those located on the Square with high property values, the bottom line is the deciding factor.<\/span>
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what the fix is other than there\u2019s got to be a new crop of kids with the hungry, DIY attitude, and I haven\u2019t seen that really come yet\u201d said Swider. \u201cWhether it be the Dude Ranch or something I wasn\u2019t even privy to like the Zoogma house or before them like the Cooters house.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Oxford’s legendary Punk Metal band, The Cooters hosted house parties with local and touring bands for many years. This photo was taken in 2005 and in the audience are future members of E-meters and The Unwed Teenage Mothers. Photograph by Mike Namorato <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHaving the \u2018Farmhouse\u2019 was a huge thing for us,\u201d said Justin Hasting<\/strong> of Zoogma<\/strong>. \u201cAt first we were just using it as a practice space to write and record material, but as the \u2018after party\u2019 scene started to develop again with the rise of electronic music we decided we should try having one there. The first one was a late-night after Boombox played at The Library. This one was all word of mouth and we ended up having 100 or so kids come out, and we set up and played there until about 3 or 4 in the morning until the cops came and shut it down\u201d<\/span>
\nWhat made the Farmhouse so dear to Hasting wasn\u2019t just having a huge party house, it was the people who filled it up.<\/span>
\n\u201cThe coolest thing to me about the Farmhouse was that you had all kinds of people there together enjoying themselves; hippies, hipsters, frat and sorority, ROTC, young kids, [and] older \u2018townies\u2019,\u201d said Hasting. \u201cPeople just wanted to have a good time\u201d<\/span>
\nSince our conversation with Swider, it seems members of Oxford\u2019s music community have gotten at least a little hungry.<\/span>
\nA house many in Oxford will remember as the Young Buffalo<\/strong> house has a new set of tenants who want to help fill the hole in Oxford\u2019s DIY scene.<\/span>
\n\u201cI found myself saying \u2018Man, somebody needs to do something for the music scene here\u2019 and I was just as guilty as \u2018them,\u2019\u201d said Mario Martinez<\/strong>. \u201cSo, after talking with Patrick McKee we both got super stoked on the idea of hosting a house show series\u2026that’ll hopefully at least fill a minute part of the void.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The venue is known as Rose Room<\/strong> and has its inaugural show schedule for March 4 with Woolgathering<\/strong>, Nadir Bliss<\/strong>, and Scapes<\/strong>.<\/span>
\n\u201cThere’s just too much music and art in Oxford to not have an outlet such as this for it,\u201d said Martinez. \"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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