As a former student at Miami, I learned first-hand how people become a product of their environment. The number one concern of most Miami students is to have a good time, all the time. Partying in this college town starts on Wednesdays and ends on Sunday evening. There aren't too many options of how to spend the weekend in Oxford.
You can:
1.) Drop a bunch of money at one of the 8 local bars uptown, while desperately reaching out for any type of personal interaction (this tends to be the norm)
2.) Stay home and wait for your local Oxfordian drug dealer to get off work at the pizza shop so you can get your goods
3.) Take a stab at performing in the local music scene (or lack thereof) while working at the pizza shop
Daniel, Trevor and I chose the latter.
(pictured left to right: Daniel, myself, Trevor)
The three of us, known in those days as The Del Preston, had gigs booked every week. We worked hard all day at our jobs and played hard all night in the corners of bars and the basements of house parties. We made decent money performing our music. When money couldn't be offered we were paid with booze and asked to come back the following week. We didn't care; we just wanted to play. Those who came just to see us enjoyed our music and respected what we were doing. Everyone else just wondered when the fuck we were going to get off the stage so the DJ could get back to playing top 20's. Needless to say, we were not in a "music town".
Oxford was a dead end road and we knew it. We made the mistake of going there in the first place. After I was admitted to the U, the three of us decided to give Salt Lake City a shot. All we had to do was make it til Christmas...
It was a Saturday night in November. As usual, we packed up our equipment, had a smoke and watched some football til it was time to go sound check. Tonight was going to be a great night. It was alumni weekend and the town was bursting at the seams with people. A lot of old friends would be in town to see us play and we couldn't wait. Tonight was going to be a great night...
CJ's was pretty empty as we walked in. This two level dive bar had the same stagnate smell week after week. As always, the floor was sticky from spilled drinks and lord knows what else. First I laid down my huge blue rug, which we set everything on top of. Next was my kick drum and the PA speakers. Now that our performing boundaries were set, we could all dive in. The usual Saturday night bartenders were filling the coolers up with ice. Matt brought over our first three Budweiser's.
So what are the sets looking like for tonight?
All the employees at CJ's seemed to like us. That is probably why we had a gig there every weekend. Whenever we played the whole bar just let loose and enjoyed the music!
The bar began to fill more and more as we wrapped up sound check. We would go on in about 15 minutes, so in the meantime we made our rounds saying hi to friends and acquaintances. We knew that tonight was going to be a whole lot of fun...
The first set got underway. 80's Mark took his usual stance right in front of Daniel's guitar amp. Tonight it looked like he was on some form of hallucinogen. We were getting a good response from the whole bar. We knew that the set-break couldn't be long. If you break for too long, you lose the crowd.
Midway through the second set people were wall to wall. Tonight was "Fifty-cent High Life Bottle Night" so things were starting to get a little rowdy. Some guy by the staircase had his shirt off while his buddies poured beer all over him. All of our friends who said they'd be there were. We fed off of the crowds enthusiasm. When the audience is having a good time, nothing can go wrong...
As the night faded into morning we started wrapping up the show. We played the last tune, told everyone about the next show and began to pack up our equipment again. We sat at the end of the bar enjoying our last few drinks as Matt counted out our cut for the night. We made a cool $500, which always feels good. There was a true sense of accomplishment amongst us. We played a great show and the crowd actually liked us. It was almost an ironic feeling; the town we disliked so much seemed to come alive tonight.
Maybe Oxford wasn't such a bad place...
Hey, I'm gonna go get the car.
Cool, we'll wait here for you.
Trevor and I divided up the cash and finished our drinks while Daniel brought over the van. Nothing could go wrong tonight...
Dude, somebody fucked up our car!
What the hell are you talking about?
Somebody fucked up the car! Come on...look...
I can't believe this shit! Who the hell would do this?
The car was parked on the same street as the police station, a mere two blocks away and in plain sight. The cinder block that was used to smash out the windows laid by the curb in the street.
I wonder if it was that ass hole who was calling us Communists for not playing "Proud To Be an American"?
Man, he wouldn't know what our car looked like!
Un-fucking-believable!
The policeman who responded to our call didn't have too much to say. He took down our basic information and told us to file a written report.
So what are the chances of finding who did this?
Well, unless someone comes forward to confess, not very good. You know, this sort of thing happens all of the time out here.
Oh yeah? And exactly what are you guys doing about that?
Everything we can sir.
All we could do was bite our lips and hope that karmic retribution would take its' course some day. To call this a kick in the groin would be an understatement. Well, Salt Lake City, here we come...
