Schwagstock 41 is this weekend, dudes.
I remember when the city of Morrison, Colorado, banned Phish from performing in the mountain town for 10 years, thus barring the band from Red Rocks Amphitheater, because of the legions of patchouli-scented, dog-toting, brownie-selling hoards that descended upon the town and its limited resources in 1996.
That’s why I was surprised to hear that the deputy sheriff of Shannon County, Dewayne Skaggs, has very few negative things to say about Shwagstock, the summer concerts that lure thousands of travelers through teensy Missouri towns like Eminence (population: around 550) and Salem (population 4850ish) on their way to Camp Zoe.
“For the three years I’ve been here, they haven’t been a lot of trouble,” says Skaggs of the Schwagstock fan base. “The staff at Camp Zoe is pretty alert. When we get a call that some kid didn’t make it home on time the next day, we get the vehicle make and the name and give it to the Camp Zoe security staff and they hunt ’em down. They’ve had a 100 percent success rate so far.”
Camp Zoe is nestled within an an Ozark valley, where Sinking Creek feeds into the Current River, hemmed in by national forest on one
side and a private timber reserve on the other. The property is owned by Jimmy Tebeau, a founding member of The Schwag, the Grateful Dead cover band that’s been playing since ’91 (and boy are their fingers tired). He lives on the Camp Zoe property, which he bought six years ago from a Texas evangelist who had been using the grounds — unsuccessfully — for a church camp.
