I must say the Guerneville community really works hard to support its community church and radio station (fabulous KGGV 95.1) by doing the annual Strawberry Festival. It's a lot of work and requires a very diverse group of folks to dig deep and pull together. The Thugz were happy to be a part of it again thanks to Suki's gentle yet enthusiastic nudges. I felt a little guilty since I didn't want to do the Strawberry Queen contest, but, luckily, the perfect candidate won! The entertainment was great. The Spiralites were fantastic according to my spies. I didn't get there until Koobifora started their set. Their music was upbeat, skilled, and very interesting - all driven by our drummer friend Bradley. After Suki's dancers wowed the crowd, the Thugz did a set to close the day's festivities. We had fun, as always - zooming around setting up equipment, wondering about the sound, and playing freely. Mike said something very interesting as we were packing up about our Thugz sound - how we are quite different from other bands who are really tight. Our sound is a bit unusual and even seems unstructured at times - but there's a lot of joy involved. We all come from divergent musical backgrounds, and our blend isn't always what people expect. I like Mike's metaphor - we're like a bunch of beautiful pebbles gathered from a stream bed, not a sack of those polished rocks you can get at gem stores. We have plenty of glitches and odd moments along with our moments of glory. Thank goodness our fans are willing to go into the unexpected with us. Back to the Festival itself, the real heroes were our very own Drew and Maris. They've been active Guerneville community members for a while, and they rose to the occasion for this event. Drew transported all of our P.A. equipment from the theater and ran the whole show - all day! Maris worked with him and added her own loving touch with some lovely band snacks behind the stage. They win the talented duo contest and deserve the biggest gold star for their generous spirits. We can never really express all the gratitude we feel for their part in our Thugz projects. What a beautiful, long summer day it was - topped off by a huge full moon beaming down. There was so much light all around us - sun, moon, awesome folks - wow. Take care. Love, Sylvia