Shows have been Cancelled For This Weekend 1/12 & 1/13

Unfortunately we are not able to open up yet and won't be able to have shows this weekend.

I just got word from Kim (co-owner), this afternoon (Thursday) she met with a structural engineer and we still have to put up a wall in a portion of Rox's. The paperwork needed has been okay'd and now needs to go to Boston. We thought we would have to lift the building (floors) but the building is safe and has just settled over the years. We will continue to make required renovations and then some.

The town is more or less trying to keep us from opening but we are going forward and taking care of everything that needs to be done so they have no way to keep Rox's closed.

All the electrical issues have been taken care of by a licensed electrician, fire exit signs are up, fire extinguishers have been put up, push bars are on the required door, the basement has been cleared of cardboard debris... there isn't much else that needs to be done.

While we are closed, Kim is going to get a permit to build a stage and we will have that done shortly.

We apologize again for the inconvenience but we are working on everything that needs to be done after we had the inspection the beginning of January.

If anyone has any questions, you can contact Kim on this myspace account. Kim has been working diligently getting everything required and fixed to get Rox's up and running again, so bear with us.

Thank you,

Gail
Gorilla Sound

hahahahah...same shit as last weekend, and i'm assuming next weekend.

that town does not want them open at all. everytime they reopen after a liquor license shutdown, they're forced to close within two weeks...and now they're on their ass about building permits and shit? this club's been doomed since it opened.

it sucks since it's a cool place, kind of in the middle of nowhere, but a cool place nonetheless. well worth making the drive for the atmosphere and cheap beer

I actually think it would be cool to see more shows in this area since it's not too far a drive from me and I get to take back roads pretty much the whole way there.

Now if only they weren't in BARS...

hobby rox shows?

does roxs have a draw? or is it a dive?

sacreligion said:

If they're getting shit about liquor licenses then why not think about turning it into an all ages venue? I would love to see more of those. I know everyone here pretty much hates Drifters because of Christian but it's somwhere for kids to go, the sound is great, the admission could be better, but over all I didn't think it was that bad of a place, we've had some of our best shows there. If they make it an all ages venue, get some touring bands with some draw then they could do a pretty decent job making some money I feel.

cav said:

dive.

SteveOTB said:

I actually read something on the Bridge Nine board a while about about them opening a new venue in nearby Uxbridge that was all ages. But then again, I read about it on Bridge Nine, so it probably sucks.

sacreligion said:

They had better not be closed next weekend, or I will be very unhappy.

Fri Jan. 19 - Pillar Of Autumn, Pray for an Atrocity, Our Darkest Day, Nocturnum, AnomiA, Legion Of the Dying, Downfall, 21+. Rox's Rock House (Oxford, MA)

If they do end up being closed next weekend, I know of at least one band that will be able to say that they've had 2 of their shows cancelled at Rox's within less than 3 months.

SteveOTB said:

I've thought exactly the same thing. A lot of the shows there would appeal more to a younger crowd anyway.

As for whether or not Rox's has a draw, it really depends on the night. I've been there when the place is completely packed, and I've also been there when hardly anyone is there other than the bands.

the place really isn't a dive at all. they have some hit or miss shows, but get a couple of good worcester bands in there and i'd be surprised to see less than 75 people.

it'd be cool if it were all ages, but as we all know, 99.9% of club owners say "FUCK ALL AGES" because they usually make all of their money selling booze

the thing with their liquor license is the cops fuckin sneak around up there and wait to find people drinking out in the parking lot(whether they're under 21 or not), but that's rox's own fault for not keeping better track of that shit

the town of oxford is filled with yuppies that don't want metal around their neighborhoods. we played a backyard party down the street from rox's over the summer and the cops shut it down at 3pm

yeah its unfortunate that its in fucking Hickville Oxford. that place is a fucking dump. its funny when you drive through Auburn into Oxford because Auburn is basically little Worcester, and as soon as you cross the border its like driving into another world. it becomes a run down shit hole. Rox's could be a great place but its just not run very well.

they did all ages shows for a little while, i guess the turnout was OK

most kids around here will just go to moshcore shows at the qvcc because they don't actually like music, they just wanna look cool 2-stepping in front of the other scenesters

The police in towns like Oxford don't have such exciting jobs like the cops in Worcester do, which means that they have to occupy their time with other things, like hanging out in Rox's parking lot. Maybe if we shipped some of the Worcester scum over to Oxford, they would have worse things to worry about than a club that hosts metal shows.

I would like to see Rox's get someone else to do their sound, like they did several months ago. I mean, it's pretty bad when you ask the person working the soundboard to turn up one of your band members, and they don't know how... so they "fix" the problem by cranking up the master to the point where there is an excruciating bass feedback overpowering the actual music. They have decent sound equipment, but I think they would be better off hiring someone with a considerable amount of experience running the sound, who can take full advantage of the capabilities of the equipment they do have. Bands don't really like it when the sound isn't what it should be, and the crowd isn't too fond of it, either.

yeah that dude seemed so clueless every time we played there.

WOW! Rox's just posted this myspace bulletin. It's safe to say that they're pretty unhappy with the town of Oxford.


From: Rox's The Rock House

Date: Jan 12, 2007 3:14 PM
Subject Attention Massachusetts Musicians and club goers - read!
Body: Attention Massachusetts Musicians and club goers - read!

Please forward this to everyone on your list. It is imperative we make this effort.

How many people remember what happened at the Station night club in Rhode Island. One of my best friends, and a clear industry professional Dr. Metal, Mike Gonsalves, the guy who got me into the music industry back in the mid 80's, perished alongside 99 other lives in what music can be consider to be the biggest tragedy to hit a stage in history.

Keep that in mind as I talk about this situation please, and please read and consider all of this.

ROX, the club in Oxford that everyone is having issues with is my topic here.

1. Oxford is a crooked town, always has been, always will be. We had an issue there a few years back where the State Police had to come in and run the town because of the backwoods officials. There are issues there that extend beyond a simple fire code, but they are unavoidable at this time .... or so you may think, i have a small plan.

2. Neither Roxanne nor Kim are cocaine addicts - the club is NOT run on drug money and rumors like that only hurt. I understand the frustration that people are feeling about the situation with bands getting performances shut down, but do NOT say it's a drug bar, it's a clean establishment that two people are trying to use for the hard rock industry, the performance industry and local bands. I can give you a list of clubs in Massachusetts that over the years suffered by dying for the art - let's not let Rox be one.

3. Recently there was an underage drinking sting in the area, one of the corrupt things that the town does is plant minors and sting. It happens, shit happens - it caused a liquor licence issue before the Thanksgiving holiday and screwed ROX. You think your band losing a local show is detrimental, try losing a holiday weekends worth of income that supports your club. Basically I'm saying - welcome to the world of music. If you didn't get to play your rinky dinky cover set for your 7 biggest fans and your girlfriends; imagine how i felt the day I was opening for Def Leppard and Joe Elliot cancelled because his throat hurt. Rox lost thousands of dollars of income potential over the holiday - it was crafted to do so by a town official trying to close the club by blocking income potential.

Now it comes around again and Rox is in the good, the liquor licence is in full effect and ready to go, now the town is sending in the fire marshall in to say that some extension chords are a fire hazard - this brings us back to the issue of the Station in Rhode Island.

No one wants to ever see that again. It was a shame and believe me, Rox and company are meeting and exceeding every compliance to make sure the club is safe. Media spin has led a backwoods fire marshall to say an orange extension cord is going to kill a hundred people. He is simply wrong. It has been okayed by a fully licensed electrician, a structural engineer has given the okay for the clubs floor and some very simple but minor costly issues will be taken on to override the towns questions of safety in the club. NOT A PROBLEM.

What I'm asking Sean McGorty and company to do, as a friend and fellow musician, please actually support the industry. If you don't have something good to say - please don't say it, and if you feel that strongly about losing your show - bring up the real issues, don't vent your frustration at the cost or expense of people who are actually trying to drive the industry to be beneficial to musicians and fans.

So here is an idea I am willing to make a personal effort for. I am willing to fight this issue with my own time and expense by starting a grass roots effort. It starts with a petition.

PLEASE EMAIL ME PERSONALLY AT JOEDOLAN@GMAIL.COM WITH A LETTER STATING THE FOLLOWING, YOU MAY CUT AND PASTE, WHAT I NEED IS YOUR NAME AND THE TOWN AND STATE YOU LIVE IN AND YOUR AGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.

------------------------- cut here ----------------------------

To whom it may concern,

As a person who enjoys seeing live artists performing, I understand that the town of Oxford has been having issues with the club Rox. I support Rox's in it's efforts to comply with the town and state regulations, and offer my vote to keep Rox open to public demand for a live music performance hall.

Please be advised that I have offered this letter as a petition to keep Rox open as a venue for artists and musicians to offer their trade to the public.

Name:
Town and State:
Age:

-----------------------------------------------------------------


This is an atrocity and is much of what hinders the industry. Too many people want their hands in the soup pot at the expense of rock and roll. Help me end this today and send this letter back to me at joedolan@gmail.com.

If you think it doesn't matter, spend a few more weekends at home watching Sex in the City re-runs and wondering why there is no live entertainment in town. Sooner or later, they will close your sports arenas, your local restaurants that have jukeboxes and the town park where you walk with your kids.

Please, send this back today and forward it to EVERYONE you know. It's a little effort on your part to be part of something bigger.

Thanks for your support.

Joe Dolan
www.northeastpr.com

PLEASE REPOST!

funny, i never heard any cocaine rumors. . . . . . . .

also, why bring up the station fire? i mean i get the whole fire code thing....but that's just toying with people's emotions

The tone of the email won't do them any favors, with the "play for your girlfriend and 7 people" remark. In fact, fuck them. I won't support their bullshit endeavor.

Sinistas said:

I didn't like the "If you didn't get to play your rinky dinky cover set for your 7 biggest fans and your girlfriends" comment, either. It was probably only directed toward certain people, but when placed within the context of that message, it comes across as being directed toward everyone.

I would have agreed with them if they had said, "If you didn't get to play your astoundingly marvelous set with the sound set up so that it would make Cannibal Corpse sound like a bunch of 15 year olds in a grindcore band, for your girlfriends and 12 of your friends, even though you're not getting paid..."

Here is another bulletin from Rox's:

From: Rox's The Rock House

Date: Jan 12, 2007 4:05 PM
Subject Town Politics?
Body: Just to let you know that Kim had the town's electrician come in today and he brought another electrician in with him and that other electrician tried to say that there were new things that needed to be fixed.

That's just the town trying to pull their bullshit! Once the inspection is done for the year and things are completed that they required, they Cannot come in again and do that.

It has been properly taken care of and that's it! Kim more or less reamed the town's electrician a new asshole!

She said, "I guess you have to sleep with someone on the board of selectman or donate money to the police department."

Oxford Tavern is owned by a selectwoman in town. Oxford Tavern was never supposed to get a new liquor licences but somehow they got one.

The Days' End (in Oxford) - dropped capacity to 95. That is against the law that means they don't have to do the inspection or sprinkler systems installed. The owner of The Day's End is sleeping with the chairperson of the whole board of selectman.

Fire chief stated that if a capacity at an establishment is 100 and there are 101 people in there at any given night, they will be fined $10,000.00 And a second offence it to close the establishment for Life!

North End makes donations to the oxford police all the time.

Get This!!! The town electrician is married to the Town Clerk!


Fire Chief replied the following when Kim questioned him about over crowding at The Day's End. "Well that's too late for me to get out of bed, I'm too lazy to get up at that hour to check capacity!" (and then laughed)


Another member of the board of selectman owns the Coffee Hop in town and he has been waiting for a liquor license for his Coffee Hop. There are not any available. Therefore the underage sting.

Consider this:

4 bars in town And Rox's is the only one that doesn't have ties with The Board of Selectman nor do we donate money to the police department, that's why they are Harassing Rox's.

You can come to your own conclusions....Pass it on!

wow, it'll be so easy to come to my own conclusion after reading their one-sided, unsubstantiated gossip

Yeah, fuck these guys. Guess what? You're not acting professionally, and THAT's probably why you're in the shit.

"If you didn't get to play your rinky dinky cover set for your 7 biggest fans and your girlfriends" Hey WTF? Fuck Rox's!!!

Gotta love the conspiracy theories too.

It may unprofessional but that shit is probably true. Happens all the time. Some small towns are run by very smallminded people.

We played Rox's last year and I had no complaints about the club at all.
The Oxoford PD however....total assholes. They were camped out in the parking lot all night just looking for excuses to fuck with people.

Good turnout. The guy may not know all that much about music but knows how to treat bands. And he knows that a paying customer is a paying customer no matter how uh, "questionable" they may be or look.

And we didn't have to ask him for our whiskey, beer, and pizza. He had it waiting for us. And even though our guarantee was only $500, he paid us extra since we drew more than that.


I would totally play there again.

yeah but you guys are the only national that's been through there, so obiously they'd treat you better

i still like the place, i had issues with one of the douches that worked there but they fired him for being a douche, so i have no personal problems with them anymore. i just think they should shut the fuck up and do what they need to do to open as quickly as possible.

Josh, you might be 10000% right, but acting like that isn't going to get them anywhere with said townsfolk if it gets back to them.

I have no idea how this double posted. Er...

sacreligion said:

The owner had no clue who we were. It was booked by some kid.
All the owner cared about was the size of the crowd.

yeah, i know...but he made the arrangements with the owner and all that jazz so he knew what the deal was. most bands don't get treated that well there(they're not treated poorly, but there really isn't special treatment unless you brought in 100 people, which rarely happens)

either way, my point was that they need to stop writing sympathy bulletins on the internet and just do what they need to

they're just wasting time

"If you didn't get to play your rinky dinky cover set for your 7 biggest fans and your girlfriends; imagine how i felt the day I was opening for Def Leppard and Joe Elliot cancelled because his throat hurt."

Oh yeah, it's joke time... What has 9 arms and sucks?





Def Leppard

Samantha said:



anal cunt

your second rate banter explains clearly why you are here on this posting board, and not out making the scene. either support the venue or enjoy playing with your rinky dink cover band. if you dont have all the facts - dont waste your time posting slanderous banter against the club.

so any idea when this place is gonna open back up. were supposed to play there at the end of feb??

I hope that they open up soon. There is supposed to be a good show there this Friday, February 2nd (Zircon,Throne of Hate,The Accursed,Unhallowed,Death Sick,Graveside Service, Hekseri, Deathamphetamine). They haven't sent out much information about their status this week, so it's hard to tell whether or not they will be open this weekend.

Also, I really hope that the anonymous person here is not actually someone who represents Rox's because they're only succeeding in making the club look bad by perpetuating the "rinky dink cover band" comment. Making condescending statements like that toward the bands that have played at the club (and may even be booked to play there in the future) will only cause those bands to be offended and, thus, less likely to support the club.

Honest opinions and constructive criticism are not equivalent to slander. In my experience, all of the people I've met who are involved with running Rox's have been very cordial. I would love to see Rox's thrive because I think the club has a lot of potential. It would be a shame if petty drama ran a club with so much potential into the ground.

getting treated like shit is nothing new. as long as we don't have to pay to play we will play there, in fact we are playing this place.

anonymous said:

If it's in print, it's libel. Moron.

Another update from Rox's:

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Rox's the Rock House
Date: Jan 31, 2007 4:34 PM


Rox's Will Not Be Open This Weekend (February 2nd & 3rd)

The Town of Oxford said that Rox's had safety violations.

Rox's had the fire safety violations taken care of.
Rox's had the electrical violation/issues fixed by a licensed electrician and that was approved by the town.
Rox's had a certified licensed structural engineer approve that Rox's was indeed safe and submitted that approval with the required seal......

But now the Town of Oxford is NOT accepting that. (ie. loophole)

Just to let it be known to all that Roxanne & Kim have spent over $6,000.00 to date to have these issues taken care of (the sprinkler system paperwork alone had cost approx. $3,000.00).

The Selectmen office held a meeting last week without anyone from Rox's present and mailed Roxanne a letter over this past weekend stating that they do not have the 106 Safety Inspection Certificate and therefore disapproved of Rox's liquor license for 2007 (Chapter 304?) and Roxanne & Kim have to reapply for a liquor license which can only be done during the month of November.

So that leaves 9 months with that (1) liquor license open for anyone to apply for. This will most definitely be scooped up by the selectman in town who wants a liquor license for his establishment in Oxford.

Roxanne & Kim had tried to set up a meeting with the NEWLY APPOINTED TOWN MANAGER OF OXFORD and they were told that "HE IS ON VACATION."

So Roxanne & Kim meet with the stand-in town manager at 1:00 Tuesday afternoon. After the meeting they had on Tuesday, there were discrepancies found in what the town did (as far as taking the liquor license away) so as of now it is still Roxs' liquor license and we are getting the structural engineer to come in tomorrow (Thursday) to write the proper letter and new plans. Then we will get the liquor license reinstated.

We will keep everyone posted.

PLEASE REPOST!!

depressing

what a bunch of fucking bullshit! that town sux ass!

I HAVE BOUGHT THIS CLUB AND IT WILL BE REOPENING SOON. KENNY'S "ROCK" HOUSE.