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DFO's been around long enough to have a history. We could let the village elders pass it down through oral tradition and the medium of dance, but we thought it might be a good idea to write something down...

Rob Davies (the chap with glasses on the right), gathered a rabble in 2004 for just one great event: Wadham College's annual music festival - Wadstock. "Dot's Funk Odyssey" was a big inclusive party, anyone could join if they wanted to. We weren't doing it for money, we didn't have any expectations, we were young, we were free, we were naíve. But this new 15-strong mass of clueless tambourinists and backing vocalists was held together by some great talent and experience. Take, for example, the bassist Tom Makin (near right).

Above: Tom Makin and Rob Davies, founding fathers

Above: Charlie Walker

And so, after half a year of the occasional jamming session and a lot of faffing, DFO nervously marched on to headline Wadstock with barely seven songs prepared. Many of the members had never performed before. But the 800-strong crowd loved it, and the experienced core members like Tom, Rob, and vocalist Charlie Walker (left) helped pull everyone together. Next thing we knew, we were booked for a ball in St. Hilda's College the next week. DFO was turning into a great thing... everyone loved performing in it, and audiences loved dancing to it. By the time of our third and last gig that year, DFO had become a well-oiled funk machine.

But then everyone left. Nearly all the core members had been in their final year at Oxford. Starting again in 2005, DFO was left with just a handful of the less experienced younger bunch: amongst them was the second tambourinist, a guitarist who could only play three chords, a trombonist who'd lost his trombone, and no vocalists. We still had the incredible Tom Makin on bass, the safe trumpet player Olly Whyte, and Mike Sprack moved on from the djembe and turned out to be a very good drummer. But Rob, our inspirational leader of the first year, was gone. No one had a plan or was in control. We just had a memory of good times and we wanted to make it happen again.

Above: Martha Kearney

Above: James Duboff leading vox as DFO play at the JSoc ball.

And so the few remaining members tried to reform the band "as Rob would have liked it" - a big inclusive party that anyone could join. A whole host of friends and new students filled the ranks. Now with over twenty members and no less than seven vocalists, things were chaotic but sort of working. Pretty soon we were playing again at smaller gigs such as charity events. Within just a few months we gave many of the new members their first experience of a "proper" gig with the JSoc Speakeasy ball (left). Many of those new members subsequently stayed with DFO for many years, for example the vocalists Martha Kearney (above), Hannah Schling and Helen Whale (see members page). Although still a rabble, we'd kept DFO alive.

There was no election or anything like that, but gradually it became clear that Pascal Odent (right) was doing most of the organisation and decision-making. By the time it dawned on him that he was now in the driving seat of DFO, he'd built this website, picked the brains of managers of other leading big bands, scoured the record shops for the best music to play, and was writing out musical scores for all the horn players. Taking overall responsibility, Pascal even started calling DFO "my baby". Other big players included new front-man and lead singer James Duboff (above), who acted as go-between for several gigs, and old hand Tom Makin, sorting all the technical stuff. By the time of Wadstock 2006 - the event we were originally created for - DFO were well prepared, having already played six gigs together that year. We received an even bigger reaction than at the first year's festival.

Below: Pascal Odent, former leader

Above: Mike "Ambrosious" Taylor, leader of DFO 2007-2008.

After that, we did things differently: we auditioned our new members, we recruited even from beyond Oxford University, we had enough demand to choose where we wanted to perform, and we bought all the equipment we needed. With some amazing new talent such as from Danny Hutton-Ferris, Rob Dixon, Faye Duncan, Tom Seymour, and Nick Juravich, and with the return of Sarah Madden from a year abroad, DFO were sounding better than ever. And with more and more members falling in love with the funk and wanting to drive DFO forward, responsibility was increasingly shared. For example, Penny Sarchet (below) sorted out the horn section.

Below: Phil Hall, Solid Bassist

Now established as one of Oxford's most loved acts, DFO has gone from strength to strength since 2007. We've performed at more college balls, parties and charity gigs than we can remember, but we've never lost sight of our roots, headlining Wadstock every year since 2006. Even though we're not the big inclusive party we once were, we've still got a soul and personality that you won't find behind Oxford's identi-kit big brass swing and jazz bands, and we still have a good time and give audiences a good time. Pascal handed over leadership to self-confessed goat-farming taxidermist "ambrosious" Mike Taylor (above) in 2007, followed by Penny Sarchet (right) and Phil Hall (left), with Joe Paddison and Anna Ploszajski DFO grandmasters as of 2011. DFO has come along way since 2004 - the end is nowhere in sight, but the journey has been a soulful one. Let's hope we can keep this great thing alive for years to come.

Above: Penny Sarchet, Queen of Horns