Sunday, November 23, 2008 – Santa Cruz, Ca

We are still alive!

Sorry about that looooong hiatus in our website updates, I realize we left everyone hanging out in New Mexico. Great place, though, New Mexico, if you had to be left somewhere…

No, really, I do apologize to everyone who has been checking the website, and I sincerely thank you for your support. What happened was that Tross, our tireless volunteer webmaster, needed some time off. He built our website from nothing, and for nothing. He volunteered countless hours editing our updates and arranging our pictures, putting up our songs, while at the same time accommodating all our suggestions and demands. We can never thank him enough, and anyone who has enjoyed the website must certainly appreciate the work he did for us.

So, for the last few months, control of the website has been in transition from Tross to Scott. Yes, you heard me correctly: Scott Conroy, or Bog Thistle fame, is taking over the website. I know…I’m scared too.

But, the first order of business: finish off the tour story. So, where were we…

Right, we had just played our last two shows in Clovis, New Mexico. We spent the night before in a campground in the desert. Warm, but not too hot at night. The next morning I roused Scott at the crack of dawn so that he could make good on his promise to manufacture 30 Bog Monster CD cases. He wasn’t too happy about it:

We played our last two shows on the same day there in Clovis. At the first one, a small place with just about 10 residents, there was a lady who was pumped. We were bringing in our equipment and she said, “It looks like we’re going to have a ballgame!” So Scott and I were enjoying ourselves, and I said, “Yep, the rest of the team will be here in a minute.”

For the whole show we spoke in baseball-commentary style. Halfway through one song, a decrepit old man in a recliner came to life and reached out to grab my microphone stand and tried to pull it over. The crowd, in so many words, went wild. Here is Scott on the site of our very last show:

So, with all our shows done, we were in sight-seeing mode. It was a nice change of pace. We visited some ruins in central New Mexico, where I did some archaeological theorizing. The colors in New Mexico are just mind boggling.

I lurked around the ruins and discovered some pot shards that had been unearthed in gopher back-dirt. The piece on the left is unglazed, the one on the right is glazed.

I theorized that I had discovered the exact moment of transition from unglazed to glazed pottery, and that this shift represented a foundation-shaking reorganization of kitchen-ware’s aesthetic importance. I dated my finds, taking into account their position in the soil, the width of the burrow, and the estimated age of the gopher, and determined that this horizon of new kitchenware coincided with the first broadcast of “The Martha Stewart Show”.

We spent that night in a campground by a strange reservoir in western New Mexico. Woke up the next morning to find a herd of horses grazing around the tent. Scott, as usual, didn’t wake up at all:
From there it was really just two days driving back to California. We ate some Chinese food, saw a plane crash land on the interstate, visited the scenic armpit of Bullhead City, Arizona.
We played on KPIG radio on August 17th. That was a blast. They recorded the show and made us a copy, which has become our new demo CD. We drove home after the show and put on our end-of-tour concert at Chorro Park in San Luis Obispo. That was a fiasco. Let me explain:

Months before the tour I had contacted a lady from the Botanical Gardens about the use of their outdoor amphitheatre. It’s a really nice little setup, with shade awnings and stadium seating. She said that it would be ready for us on that day, but that we would have to carry all the chairs over from the building ourselves. That was fine, and my uncle Mike and friend Claude and others helped us carry all the chairs into the amphitheatre and set them up. Then Scott and I set up all our equipment and I arranged the merchandise table and we were all but ready to go when…we had no power. The power to the amphitheatre is controlled by a switch, which of course was locked inside a little shed. So we were royally screwed. It was showtime, everyone was there, and we couldn’t play.

But, the collective goodwill of the concert goers saved the show from certain disaster: everyone in attendance helped carry the chairs, the equipment, the instruments, the briefcases…everything…over to the group barbeque area of Chorro Park (about 100 yards). We plugged in, power was there, so we started playing. But, that was not the end. When we started our first song, and I began to sing, the rest of the sound cut out, so that the only thing playing over the speakers was my voice. We started the song three times or so and the same thing happened. Scott and I had no idea what to do. We told jokes and made fools of ourselves for a while, but we couldn’t prolong the inevitable: equipment malfunction, show’s over. But, once again, were saved at the last moment.

Really, we weren’t so much saved, as I happened to notice a small knob on the mixer that was turned to ten. On closer inspection, this knob was called the “VIP” control. It’s function was this: when the VIP was turned up on the first channel (my voice), the system would make sure that my voice was always clearly audible. What happened then, when other instruments and vocals started getting louder, the mixer would automatically shut them off, so that the VIP voice could still be heard. Well, long story short, we turned the VIP off and played the dang show.

Thanks to everyone who came out for that show. And thanks for bearing with us during our numerous technical disasters – we really weren’t that unprofessional for the whole tour.

The highlight of the next week was our triumphant return to the Wyndham, the site of the tour’s kickoff show, in Grover Beach. The Wyndham is where Scott and I got our start years ago, and the staff and residents there hold a special place in Bog Thistle’s heart. Just look at the sign they made for us:
And, of course, all our friends were there to meet us. Here we are with the dynamic duo Devri (left) and Gayla, who have been so kind over the years.

And here (below) we are with the charming miss Norma Mitchell, another of our most dedicated supporters.

This last shot from the Wyndham is with two of our dearest fans: Justin Ranger and Anna (don’t know her last name). Anna is always requesting songs of mine, even ones I haven’t played at the Wyndham for years, like the Pismo Song.

Once we had played at the Wyndham, we knew we were home. Reporters from the Santa Maria Times were there, and we were interviewed after the show. Apparently, Devri had been doing some promoting while we were gone, and convinced somebody to cover the story of our tour. It appeared in the paper in Arroyo Grande and Santa Maria. Thanks for everything Devri!

I will leave you now with two iconic photos from the tour. Scott and I agreed that one of the best parts of setting up our equipment was taping down cables. Everything looks nice and organized, and the professionalism is off the charts. Here is Scott, doing what he loves, even after 55 shows:

Finally, here is a picture of me behind the wheel. The trip totaled 7300 miles, of which I drove every single one. There was not a boring moment.

That concludes the tour coverage. But Bog Thistle is far from finished. Tune in for the latest on our weekend “mini-tours” and news about the band. Bog and Thistle look forward to hearing from you.

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