THE GOURDS

shinebox

CD, Glitterhouse

If you don’t know it, the Gourds might be the best alternative country-band around. With their wild honky-tonk-style, traditional instruments and talent abounding throughout their records, this is one record that won’t disappoint you. After two regular studio-albums, Glitterhouse now re-releases the legendary “shinebox” with rarities and collected oddities. All in all that is better than most regular albums by other alternative-stars, with more than just one ore two pearls thrown in between. “Shinebox” will make you laugh or cry, but it will also make you dance with your thumbs tucked in you waistbelt.

The Gourds might be my favorite alt.country-band at this point of time. And the fact that this opinion is fundamented in a current album, which is a rarity-compilation (and a re-release on top of that) on the one hand, and on the big question, what that actually might be – alt.country? – shows my sincerity in the matter as well as the quality of the Gourds honky-tonkin’. Rarely are the originals on a rarity-compilation as good as the cover-versions. Usually a rarity-comp is mainly bought for the fun-factor or for the completist-complex. With The Gourds and me it is both, since their music is uncannily funny and I want to hear every song they’ve ever recorded. Yep, they are that good.

Since the record starts with a cover-version, I will start with them as well. The opener is, believe it or not, an incredible dance-honky done over Snoop Doggy Dogg’s rap-masterpiece “Gin & Juice”, a track that will get you shake your booty in both versions. Then there is a freaky version of “Ziggy Stardust” (I don’t have to repeat the credits here, do I?), one tune by Nils Lofgren (whom you might remember as later guitarist in Springsteen’s E-Street Band), some traditionals and there is a beautiful version of the beautiful song “Two girls” by Townes Van Zandt. That is to show that The Gourds know their stuff, and that they know a lot by the sides. “Gin & Juice” and “Two Girls” are maybe the highlights of the album, who can really say that.

Five songs were recorded live at The Melkweg, Amsterdam for a radio-show called “Rumble” on VPRO. Here in Austria there are no radio-shows dealing with alternative country in any kind. We don’t even have private television, and apart from a few minority-radio-stations there is only formatted hitradio-shit blocking the airwaves. Maybe that is why I rarely if ever listen to radio. There is none worth listening to.

Well, up to now, you are still completely in the dark as what to expect from the Gourds, if you’ve never heard them. This five-piece will offer you the coolest mixture of honky-tonk, alternative country, old ballads and postmodern irony that several guitars, fiddles, banjos, slide guitars, organs and percussive embellishments can bring. With Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith there are two amazingly talented songwriters in the band, who both have their distinctive style. I’d like to know, how these two get on together in creative, musical terms, since they’d be enough talent for a band of their own each. The band will sing and wail, the will holler and scream, they will drive their instruments ferociously or let them melt down easy, all according to the song. They ain’t the most sensitive bunch around, but they also have their wild years behind them and they sure know what they do. From the short but groovy stomper “Trampled by the sun” through the hitsong “Maria” up until intricate highlights such as “Jones Oh Jones” or “I’m troubled” the Gourds will always take you by the hand carefully and they will always give the best to make this barndance a right well spectacle. Boy, I’d really like to see them live. And have a few beers with them.

www.thegourds.com

12/2001