Artist: The Gourds
Album: Stadium Blitzer
Label: Sugar Hill
year: 1997, 2001
Reviewed by: Woodstock Slim

What? Who? The Gourds? Who are they?
Easy... remember Snoop Doggs tune, Gin and Juice? Well the Gourds covered it and became near legendary on the Internet and MTV relater goody gads circles. Of course they were already legendary song writers for a hundred years before Snoop or MTV. Jimmy Smith and Claude Bernard needs no introduction, he wrote just about every "tears in beer" song you ever did hear, or he inspired what he didn't write. Largely upbeat but the melancholy ones stand out and their hella good too, oh yeah. All the members play so many instruments on this record its almost hard to guess who be manning the banjo on which track.
Stadium Blitzer was a slow started for me and only really kicked my wind out at Track 7 with "Coppermine."  A Banjo/melancholy continuous stabbing from a stone in your boot making you remember that old girlfriend you didn't even like but it hurt you so bad when she left that hole in your heart... and on to the very next track "Maria" ooof! The song that will be your favorite song on Stadium Blitzer but you will never listen to it again, it hurts too much. I like the way The Gourds sound like they would share a stage with Pearlene just comfortably. I guess my Pearlene record will never arrive. It's been on order for almost a year. The band, not just the album is eclectic and pushes Classic Americana, Tex Mex, Honky Tonk and a lot of their own style and energy in a booming full sound I last heard in Eagles of Death Metal.
This album sounds like a compilation with the changing vocals and changing styles and genre's it's a real full house and impossible to get tired of no matter how many times you listen to it. From Austin, Texas... I thought they were Scottish first time I heard them, they have that side to side sway and that mackers rumble. I'm known to frown on too short albums and here is a good 16 or so tracks. By the time you hit "I pushed her down" you're nice and warm for the thumping thigh smackers towards the end. I've never heard any of the other Gourds but will look out for their older stuff in the 2nd hand shops, yum!


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