While attending Miami University (1966-1970), I joined Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity – the Tau Kapps, as we jokingly called ourselves, although the official designation was Teke. (We had a perverse desire to distance ourselves from the national chapter for some reason.)
The first office I held in the fraternity was social chairman, which meant I planned all the parties, bought all the beer, and hired all the entertainment.
The social calendar consisted, mainly, of theme parties, which were held monthly on Saturday evenings, and “mixers,” which were generally held on Thursday afternoons, as I recall. Mixers were simply get-togethers with various sororities, although I also I came up with the idea of holding mixers with entire girls’ dorms at Western College for Women.
There was a guy from Cincinnati who handled bookings for many of the bands in the area, but I avoided dealing with him if I could. On one occasion, a kid named Mike Freshwater dropped by my room to see if I would book his band, The Patriots. They were all teenagers from Hamilton.
I liked to give young bands a break, so I asked him how much he wanted. He told me the booking agency charged $140. Curious, I asked him how much the band’s share was. He said $65. So I told him if he broke away from the booking agency, I would pay him $140.
Mike, who must have been 15, considered my offer for a few minutes, and then said, “$130.” He wanted the lower rate because it was easier to divide by the number of guys in the band. And that’s how I came to hire the Patriots to play for one of our parties. (The actual contract is at left.)
As it turned out, they were pretty good band and went on the record a couple of 45s. The next time I saw them, they had a limousine parked along the street near the Boar’s Head in Oxford.
Other bands I have specific memories of were D.C. & the Capitals (aka The Venoms), The Rapscallion Circle, Little Roger & the Vels (with Roger Troutman), and Borrowed Thyme (a horn band from Pittsburgh). I tried to talk Borrowed Thyme into relocating to Cincinnati. I also hired a Columbus band, The 13th Dilemma, and a number of others I can’t remember right now.
