MUSIC

The Dosey Doe Coffee House presents The Gourds. MASON LANGFORD Opens 7:45.

Austin, Texas' The Gourds have never been much on sentiment. Since the band started defining Gourds Music, as it has come to be known, with Dem's Good Beeble in 1997 and the quirky Stadium Blitzer in 1998, they have chugged through America fueled by music and a near-pathological need for a good time. And while songwriters Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith have written the most dense, reference-laden country songs of the last 10 years and almost single-handedly made a place for deep thought in a genre of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonks" they have, for the most part, shied away from the tear-in-my-beer ballads that made country music a commercial powerhouse over the last 50 years.

With obscure references to everything from desmond dekker, black adder, folk mythology, Oregon motels, baby gramps, Curtis Mayfield songs, Spanish poetry, u.s. currency, leadbelly, isopropyl alcohol, various controlled substances, sex, food, arachnids, insects, archetypal psychology, NFL, liquid gold, Sufis, preachers, old testament bible stories, mud, betrayal and masturbation's, The Gourds seem to let their music fry just long enough before they turn it over and brown it on the other side.

Photo by Andy Goodwin.