Thirty minutes before The District nightclub opened on a chilly Friday night, a tall-and-lanky Phoenix Vaughn hovered about to ensure that everything was in order. The lemons, the limes and the maraschino cherries were diced and prepared to be splashed in drinks. The oversized bouncers shared cigarettes and laughter as they took their positions out front, and Drake’s “Find Your Love” pulsated from a tall mountain of speakers.
As the clock struck midnight and the club’s peak hours arrived, Phoenix Vaughn morphed into DJ Phoenix and slid behind two turntables with a thick pair of headphones around his neck.
The lights flashed to the rhythm of the beat, the women rushed to the dance floor, and even the bouncers couldn’t resist an occasional on-tempo head nod.
For many, this was a crazy night. But for Vaughn, owner of Eugene’s only true nightclub, it was just another day at work.
While his club and his lifestyle are Vegas-esque, the 32-year-old DJ and club owner spent the first six years of his life on a commune in southern Oregon.
“My parents were kind of hippies,” Vaughn said.
He ran wildly and screamed his head off in the southern Oregon forests with childhood friends named Mocha, Prairie and Summer.
“Phoenix is my middle name — my first name can remain a secret for now,” he said.
I wonder what it is … Blanket? Apple? Seven?
Vaughn said spending his childhood on a hippie commune taught him to be open-minded and in touch with people’s energy — a skill he uses to this day, as he spins records to fit the exact feeling of the atmosphere and to get people going.
But he and his family moved from hippie-land to Eugene when he was around seven, and he eventually graduated from South Eugene High School in 1996.
Though Vaughn’s father was a DJ at various bars while he was growing up, it wasn’t until Vaughn got to college at Chico State University that he got his career started.
“He was invited to a fraternity party, and they asked him to play some songs off an old beat-up CD player that hardly worked correctly,” said his father, an older man with a pair of black-framed glasses wrapped around his face.
After playing tracks for the fraternity, more and more people asked Vaughn to play at their parties. He eventually purchased DJ equipment and started working on his craft.
His career took off, and he quickly developed a reputation for his timing and instinct.
“He has a presence that is unlike anyone else’s,” his father said. “Other DJs can be equally skilled as him, but it just doesn’t sound the same.”
Vaughn has spun everywhere from Portland to Las Vegas to Los Angeles, but he returned to Eugene to do business. Today he spins records and runs the show at The District alongside his family and various investors.
“It’s kind of a culmination of all my experience in the party and nightclub industry in the last 12 years,” Vaughn said. “It’s really hard to explain how it came together.”
This spot wasn’t always an oasis of fun, drinks and electronic music.
Before Vaughn and his family took ownership, the club was called The Indigo District. It had a terrible reputation for stirring up trouble and attracting a rough crowd. The old owners weren’t concerned with the community and didn’t care about the well-being of Eugene.
After a shooting occurred one night in the parking lot, business stooped so low that the club had to shut down.
When they re-opened it, they did it with its new name and under new ownership.
Since then, Vaughn and The District increased the number of bouncers, got rid of all the DJs who attracted a rough crowd and played music that tends to bring a more friendly group, in efforts to ensure the safety of his customers.
“We’ve rebuilt strongly on the college crowd,” Vaughn said. “Since I’ve started here, we’ve had very few problems.”
Unless of course, you count the many nights where the line outside the club stretches around the block, causing the bouncers to have to turn people away because the maximum capacity is already reached.
Phoenix Vaughn, aka DJ Phoenix, can be found every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, overseeing the happenings of The District and spinning Top 40 hits behind a glowing blacklight, to the right of a Wilson “Cast Away” volleyball.
And never gets old to him — not even for one second.
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