Thugz Invade The Pink
by Robert Feuer

Behind the stage at the Pink Elephant tavern in Monte Rio is a painting of an old-time bar scene in which a large-breasted, scantily clad bartender serves a customer while a similarly adorned woman dances with a bear in front of the bar.
  This picture served as the backdrop on a misty December night when the band, The Thugz, brought their road show to the tavern known to locals as "The Pink."
 The Thugz have been around since a 1999 engagement at the Blue Heron in Duncans Mills. The band's name is an abbreviation for the phrase "Tribal Hippie Underground Zone."
 Their music consists of mostly Grateful Dead songs, mixed with songs by Bob dylan, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Coburn, Donovan Leitch and other artists.
 Mike Campbell, who founded The Thugz, said he and the band members like the Dead because "their music encompasses so many styles and has an element of improvisation." The Pink Elephant is not spacious. To accommodate the band, the two pool tables had to be squeezed into a corner. The dance floor was alive with bodies, young and old, grooving to Mike  Campbell on guitar and Sylvia Murphy, the white-haired keyboard player.  These two do most of the singing, and they harmonize well, working from a repertoire of 150 songs. They are backed by Chris Lushington on a headless, 5-string bass(for an extended lower range), and newcomer Shawn Britton on drums, who likes to wear a top hat with a "Rat Fink" T-shirt.
 The Thugz opened with a 60s psychedelic Donovan number, "Season of the Witch," followed by the Dead's "friend of the Devil," whose chorus repeats the phrase "a friend of the devil is a friend of mine."
  Campbell was born in Bangor, Maine but was transported to Fremont, CA at age four by his parents. The family had a cabin in Cazadero where they took frequent holidays. When campbell fled Fremont in the 1960s to "escape the asphalt," he said, the river area seemed a natural connection to his past, as well as a place with many live music venues.
  "All the San Francisco bands like the Grateful Dead came from the city to play here," Campbell noted. He recalled long-gone venues like the old Rio Nido dance hall and the roller rink behind the Rio Theater.
  Nowadays, Campbell observed, the music scene is shrinking. "There are a lot of musicians but not many venues," he said.
  Campbell lives up the coast in Timber Cove where he found a good deal on a house. Murphy also lives in the Timber Cove area.
  Both Campbell and Murphy are teachers by profession. Campbell recently retired after 20 years at Tomales High School. Murphy, a Berkeley native, currently teaches at Fort Ross School.
  Murphy recently recovered from a bout with cancer. Throughout her chemotherapy treatments, she continues to perform on keyboards, although she temporarily lost her singing voice.
  Campbell, whose first instrument was a bugle his father brought back from World War II, found it a natural progression to join the school band as a trumpet player. He had learned to enjoy "making a lot of racket," he said.
  When the Beatles hit the scene, he immediately wanted a guitar, like everyone else. His parents told him only "riff-raff" play the guitar and bought him a ukulele instead. Campbell recalled with a smile that listening to him try to play rock music on a ukulele drove his parents "nuts," so they finally gave in and bought him a guitar.
  On a side wall of the Pink Elephant a naked temptress poses invitingly. On the opposite side, behind the bar, a pink elephant chases a man grasping a beer bottle through a jungle.
  According to Tim Parker, a native of Monte Rio who bought The Pink in August, the paintings, which were "donated" in lieu of an out-of-control bar tab, are from the forties. As a possible sign of changing times, Parker has painted the exterior of his recent acquisition green.
  Parker has big plans for the Pink Elephant. Along with his recent revival of live music, he plans to book comedy nights. The Pink is now serving food and awaiting a permit to add on to the rear of the building, which currently drops off precipitously to Dutch Bill Creek below. Until a few years ago, there was a storage room in the back that crashed into the creek during a storm, creating a sobering experience for bar patrons.
  Dilapidated buildings adjacent to the bar were recently demolished and have been replaces by a wooden fence with photos of Monte Rio in the 1920s. Pictured is a seven-story hotel, one of the first hotels in Sonoma County, when a railroad ran through the center of town.
  As the night wound down, the band did their version of Dylan's "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," and ended with "Bird Song," written about Janis Joplin. The hour was late, but the dancers wanted the show to go on forever.
  "When the audience gets into it, it's a journey," said Campbell. "Sometimes, on stage, I forget myself and I'm in another consciousness, like a meditation."
  In time Campbell looks forward to more gigs, more original songs, and some recordings. For now they'll be performing on Thursday nights at the Pink Elephant, and at other venues in the area.

This article originally appeared in the Russian River Monthly 01/01/07.