Since the University of Texas recently announced its decision to shut down both the Informal Classes program AND the Cactus Café (ouch and ouch), every performance at the Cactus is even more precious. (Austin isn’t taking this sitting down, and you can join the Save the Cactus Cafe site to learn more and join the good cause. Of course I’m completely there to see The Gourds, with bonus opener Otis Gibbs.....
Otis Gibbs is a guitar-playing singer-songwriter from Wanamaker, Indiana. He is also equal part stand-up comic and if you visit his website, impressive photographer too. Otis is no stranger to Austin, and he blends right in with his 6 inch beard, baseball hat, Buddy Holly glasses, t-shirt, and jeans. He delivered thoughtful and descriptive songs with a gravelly voice and solid acoustic guitar, and his lyrics are original takes on life: about people, places, life journeys, and feelings. His style ranges from occasional rhythm and blues to alt-country and folk, and comes across as nothing less than 100% authentic. His quick and articulate true stories between songs were side-splittingly funny in both conveyance and content—and just made me respect the life of a traveling troubadour in both its observational heartache and moments of comedy. Otis’ performance was complete with just his acoustic to back him up, but his recorded work has lovely additional instruments—definitely worth checking out.....
… The Gourds… how do I love, love, love this band? Let me count the ways.. well for starters, they played the Cactus Café during a time of struggle for the café. I’ve been feeling pretty upset about it, but found myself a little comforted when Kevin Russell simply pointed out: “cities grow and change”. How refreshing to hear someone not on the warpath—yet, the band members proceeded to tell nostalgic stories throughout the night about parking tickets and missed gigs at the Cactus.. reminded of the importance of letting your voice be heard, and at one point pointed out the Cactus is an “incredibly intimidating room”—(in a good way—I mean, for crying out loud, the one venue in Austin where every single audience member is listening!!)....
And let me count the instruments, or better, let me name them: acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass guitar, harmonica, drum kit, banjo, hand percussion (on what? I don’t remember..), electric guitar, electric keys, lap steel, maracas.. and although I didn’t see it that night, rumor has it there’s a double bass in Gourd-land too (I thought those were played only in Spinal Tap).....
You can count the albums (to date, 9)—which are wonderful, sometimes raw and sometimes polished—I have a special fanhood for their latest, Haymaker —but nothing can replace the energy these 5 musicians exude in person. To list the number of times and ways these fellows switched instruments during this intimate Cactus show would be ridiculous. With the exception of Keith Langford on drums (who actually did mix it up also part of the time), the other four players—Kevin Russell, Jimmy Smith, Claude Bernard, Max Johnston—mixed up their instrumental germs all evening long. Without hand sanitizer.
We can count the musical influences. If you’ve never seen or heard The Gourds, well, there’s no one word that could describe them. They blend a lot of Texas, and then some. The lack of a one-word category might be the reason they refer to themselves as “a rolling rag and bone pawn shop jalopy of song”. Bless their hearts. And go look up the word “jalopy”. The Gourds pull primarily from country, bluegrass, Cajun, and rock.. but weave in anything and everything extra (from blues to punk to 1960’s pop to..) ..They’ve got a definitive sound, but no one exact style—don’t give one or two album cuts a chance, just go see The Gourds live. They escalate their own merriment and I’ve never seen them fail to catch a crowd up in their fervor. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a pristine late-evening listening room or an afternoon Father’s Day barbecue—The Gourds will get everyone kicking up the dust regardless of venue.....
(Let me count the nuts in the audience!)....
The songwriters and the singers switch too.. with some of the most fun, original, poetic and celebratory songs of life I’ve ever heard.
The band wanted to know if there were any archivists in the room that night- -which I am not—but I did jot down some highlights of the evening, because I did know enough that they were hand picking songs from their repertoire over the years.. the opener, "Cold Bed" had a mandolin solo that knocked me out.. we also got a “Fine Leather Truck” with some impressive scatting.. “Ringing Dark and True”.. the traditional Appalachian folk song “In the Pines”, well over a century old.. “O Rings”.. “Everybody’s Missing the Sun”.. the showstopper, that really didn’t stop the show, was the frenzied bluegrass “Pine Island Bayou” with another knockout mandolin solo from Kevin Russell.. “Bean Bowl” into “My Time Your Time” into “Son of Bum”.. one of my personal favorites, “Burn the Honeysuckle”.. and “I Like Drinking”. Heaven only knows what I didn’t write down—I was too busy being enraptured and whooping it up, and I keep bringing up the mandolin, but damn, lots of great playing all around.....
The Gourds don’t just come out for an encore.. they let you forget the show is ending.. this encore was 5 songs long, including the heartfelt cover “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” and the already-classic “Tex-Mex Mile” (written about a stretch of Austin’s South 1st Street).....
Nothing makes me smile inside like seeing this band live—they tirelessly play themselves into a frenzy to the point where no one knows what hit us—I don’t think the band even knows what hits them. There is no band that makes me feel like everything in the world is going to OK more than The Gourds do—when I need a pick-me-up between shows, I reach for the album versions of “Country Love” or “El Paso”, and I’m back in my overalls in the sunset dust, even if it’s just in my mind.
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