There’s something new cooking for Gourds fans…
The Cucurbitaceae (kyew-curb-ih-tay-see-ee), also called cucurbits or the gourd family, are a plant family consisting of about 965 species in around 95 genera.
Cucurbipedia.org aims to be a comprehensive online hub where fans old and new can access the music, other media, information, conversation and community that feed their passion for The Gourds.
It was born in spring 2021, when a small group of hardcore Cucurbs (as Gourds fans call themselves) recognized the need for a one-stop site where content scattered across the internet and stored in physical-media archives could be curated and made easily available to everyone. We also missed sharing one of the most joyful parts of our lives and sought to reforge the bonds that have always made Gourds fandom feel like family.
It was clear from the beginning that lack of content would be the least of our worries. There are hundreds of live recordings, as well as photos and videos, trapped in CDs and old hard drives. The contents of previous, now-defunct websites — such as song lyrics and tablatures, setlists and discographies — can be salvaged. Collections of concert posters wait rolled in tubes, stowed away in old fans’ hall closets. Various incomplete histories of The Gourds and other written material are long overdue to be gathered, edited and augmented.
That doesn’t include the new content we plan to create, starting with a podcast by and for fans. Expect reminiscence and reflection, interviews and oral histories, interesting trivia, lots of laughs, and of course, at the heart of it all, an abundance of The Gourds’ music.
There’s so much that realizing our vision for Cucurbipedia is a long-term project. It will take time to make the site into the ultimate Gourds fan resource. The good news: That means we’ll be adding fresh content continually for the foreseeable future. It will be very, very hard for fans to run out of things they’ve never heard or seen before.
It also means we’ll be happy to get your help. Volunteers are welcome, and there will be ways for Cucurbs to contribute content and commentary and otherwise support the site’s growth.
Cucurbipedia is a passion project, not a scheme to turn a profit. We hope you’ll join us in indulging our shared love of The Gourds — without limits.
Cucurbipedia 