BILL ORCUTT - Four Louies Live LP

"Upon seeing the Instagram post announcing the upcoming LP release of Bill Orcutt’s The Four Louies, an inspired mashup plonking excerpts from Steve Reich’s epochal Minimalist slo-mo phase variant Four Organs onto the Kingsmen’s equally canonical garage/frat/mumblecore chestnut 'Louie Louie,' I immediately commented 'Kingsreich as opposed to Qüeensryche' (not even realizing the Kingsmen and Qüeensryche both hailed from the Pacific Northwest). My bon mot was seemingly rewarded with a mailed copy, and upon receipt I luxuriated in Bill’s latest open-source leveling of rock and classical minimalist tropes, a worthy successor to A Mechanical Joey’s tautological tomfoolery. I was jazzed when a year or so later he inquired if I would be up for taking part in Louies live in New York. I wasn’t sure how familiar Bill was with my checkered history of untutored organ playing (both in Run On and solo contexts, not to mention a short-lived go at the pipe organ with Connie Burg and Haino Keiji), but he also tapped fellow guitarists/non-organists Wendy Eisenberg, Mari Maurice, and Cyrus Pireh, plus a couple of ringers (David Golightly and musical director Eli Knowles). So that’s already six organs instead of four, flanked by a full-fledged rock trio (the nimble Gumby’s Junk), a noise-tablist (Bryan Day), master percussionist William Winant, and frequent Orcutt sparring partner Chris Corsano—a veritable Orcuttstra, whose ranks exceeded the lineups of the Kingsmen and Qüeensryche put together." - Alan Licht