The arc of this revolutionary player’s career, which began with an acoustic and led to post- and noise-rock, has carried him to an unforeseen home in avant-garde composition.
Bill Orcutt gets enough questions about his unique 4-string approach to the guitar that he once titled a compilation “Why Four Strings?” As it turns out, there were no intentions or inspirations when he chanced upon the setup in the 1980s. “My guitar was kind of neglected at the time, so it somehow ended up having four strings on it,” Orcutt explains. “I started noodling and writing around that random configuration, and a friend of mine who played drums wanted to start a band.”
Bill Orcutt - "The World Without Me" [official video]
From Bill Orcutt's self-titled solo electric album, from 2017.
That friend was Tim Koffley, who joined Orcutt in the post-rock duo Watt. “We played together for a couple of years, and that was all it took to take root,” says Orcutt. He followed his brief time with Watt with a successful foray into noise-rock with his notorious duo Harry Pussy, and, since their disbandment in the late ’90s, has gradually entered—and today, finds himself fully immersed in—the realm of experimental music.
On his latest release, Four Guitars Live, Orcutt is accompanied by a trio of virtuosic shredders from the world of experimental music: Wendy Eisenberg, Shane Parish, and Ava Mendoza. (Each of the guitarists plays their instrument strung with four strings.) You might have seen this quartet on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series last April, cramming their Telecasters and Jazzmasters into an office packed with knick-knacks. It’s a thrill to hear their spidery riffs interlacing and peeling off into solos, filling the room with rowdy whoops and claps. Four Guitars Live captures the same group seven months later, performing at Utrecht, Netherland’s festival Le Guess Who?
On Four Guitars Live, each member of the quartet performs on a guitar strung with just four strings.
The pulsing, Steve Reich-like minimalist compositions performed on Four Guitars Live first appeared on Orcutt’s 2022 solo album, Music for Four Guitars. The seed for that project was planted in 2015, when Orcutt was asked by a friend in Columbus, Ohio, to write some music for his guitar quartet. “I couldn’t come up with anything and wasn’t sure how to proceed, but the idea stuck with me,” Orcutt says. “After seven years of poking at it, I cracked the code. Then it took me a few months and it was done.”
Growing up in Miami without older siblings, Orcutt says he “didn’t like music” until his parents bought him a Yamaha acoustic guitar and a turntable. Reading record reviews led him to The Last Waltz, where Muddy Waters’ playing made an outsized impression. “[My parents] also got me guitar lessons, but I had no interest, so it was only a chore,” Orcutt says. “I didn’t enjoy it and there was nothing interesting about the material the teacher was presenting to me, so that ended pretty quickly.”
As he familiarized himself with the Florida music scene of the early ’90s, Orcutt bought his first electric guitar—a Japan-made Stratocaster copy—and met his now ex-wife, Adris Hoyos. Forming the duo Harry Pussy, they continued Orcutt’s 4-string journey, releasing their music on small independent labels like Siltbreeze and Chocolate Monk. “The music I made with Watt was very structured,” says Orcutt. “Even when I took a solo, they were kind of fixed. After a few years I decided I wanted to have more room to improvise. It wasn’t just me, either. Adris had never even touched a drum kit before we recorded our first single. We had this momentum that was like going down a hill.”
Following the duo’s separation, Orcutt spent a decade on filmmaking, software engineering, and electronic music, surprising listeners with his 2009 acoustic comeback album, A New Way to Pay Old Debts. With that and subsequent releases, Orcutt’s rambling improvisations on the Kay guitar he’s played since college have ushered in an awe-inspiring second act. “At that time, I was living in an apartment with kids,” says Orcutt. “I didn’t have access to a practice space, so the acoustic guitar just made sense. After playing it for a while, this thing I had for many years took on some kind of significance, and I mainly just really enjoyed it.”
The Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet's Gear
The compositions performed on Four Guitars Live were originally released on the quartet’s studio full-length, Music for Four Guitars.
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster – Bill Orcutt
- 1994 MIJ Fender Jazzmaster – Wendy Eisenberg
- Squier Telecaster – Shane Parish
- Novo Serus made by Dennis Fano – Ava Mendoza
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod Deluxe – Orcutt
- Fender Deluxe – Eisenberg
- Fender Deluxe Reverb – Parish
- Fender Blues Deluxe – Mendoza
Effects
- Electronic Audio Experiments Longsword V4.5 – Eisenberg
- Boss BD-2 Blues Driver – Parish
- 1990s Pro Co RAT, Joyo JF-13 AC Tone, Xotic USA Super Clean Buffer – Mendoza
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky – Orcutt
- D’Addario Pure Chromes .011–.050 – Eisenberg
- D’Addario (.010s) – Parish
- D’Addario or Ernie Ball .010–.048 – Mendoza
- Dunlop Standard 1 mm – Orcutt
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 358 – Eisenberg
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm – Parish
- D’Addario Duralin 1.2 mm – Mendoza
When Music for Four Guitars was completed, Orcutt realized it was the first album he had written without improvisation since his former band’s 1996 swan song, Ride a Dove. At that point, they were a trio, with the addition of second guitarist Mark Feehan. “After we became a trio, the question was how do we make a less obvious kind of structure?” says Orcutt. “It was difficult to organize something that seemed completely chaotic. We ended up right back where Adris and I started, with fixed solos and no improvisation.”
Performing Music for Four Guitars live was made possible by Athens, Georgia-based guitarist Shane Parish, who was commissioned by Orcutt as a transcriber. “At first, it was almost like a novelty idea to help sell the album—buy the digital download on Bandcamp and you get the PDF score,” Orcutt laughs. “So it wasn’t initially the idea that it would be used with a real quartet. I couldn’t quite imagine that, at that time!”
After completing his first European tour with the quartet, Orcutt discovered the stark differences between performing composed scores as a group and improvising. “There are spaces for improvising in our set, but it’s very different from going out and playing free,” Orcutt says. “In some ways it’s a lot less frantic. It’s more about focusing, feeling the music, and the other players.”
Orcutt chanced upon his 4-string setup in the ’80s, when his neglected guitar “randomly” ended up with four strings.
Reflecting on his unlikely transition from the noise-rock underground to NPR, Orcutt still catches himself in moments of astonishment. For an artist whose previous band channeled Captain Beefheart with the brute fury of Black Flag and the speed of Canadian teen punks NEOs, it’s hard to imagine making this kind of leap. But the beauty of Orcutt’s guitar playing has led him into mainstream spaces.“Harry Pussy did get played on MTV’s 120 Minutes when Thurston Moore hosted,” says Orcutt. “And when Nirvana played Miami, Kurt Cobain told thousands of people in the audience to go see us. But for the most part, we were so far out that even the indie-rock writers wouldn’t touch us.” As for his latest ascension, he comments, “I don’t think we ever believed that such a thing was possible.”
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: Tiny Desk Concert
Bill Orcutt is joined by Wendy Eisenberg, Shane Parish, and Ava Mendoza on NPR’s Tiny Desk, performing compositions from his album, Music for Four Guitars.
Day #17 has our fourth and final Revv Stompboxtober giveaway. Enter below for your shot at a G8!
Revv G8 Noise Gate Pedal
The Revv G8 Noise Gate is the new, simple, zero-compromise, solution to taking control of your rig. Noise comes from so many places – the room you’re in, your guitar, your amp, pedals, other pieces of gear in the signal chain. Dealing with that gets in the way of music live & in the studio. None of us like the noise, but we usually just deal with it because the solutions aren’t ideal. That’s why we had to build a flexible noise gate to keep your entire rig quiet with zero downside. G8’s controls will let you dial in that sliced & diced metal rhythm tone when you need it – but most importantly it is designed to maintain the sonic integrity of your guitar tone. You will feel the same & sound the same – all you’ll be wondering is where the noise went. Hear the silence!
Fast track your way to Jimmy Page drive sounds.
A compact, convenient means of gain staging. Thick, characterful, Page-style overdrive sounds.
The controls are simple enough, but the cryptic labels may frustrate some.
$229
Imperial Electrical Zeppelin
imperialelectricalpedals.com
The new Zeppelin preamp and overdrive by Imperial Electrical is an enthusiastically executed and thoughtful attempt at achieving Jimmy Page’s tones in an effects pedal—no mean feat if you can pull it off. In general, it does its Pagey magick by approximating the function of an Echoplex-style preamp and amp-style overdrive in a single box. Simple as that may sound, it gives the player a bundle of gain-staging capabilities.
Lead Balloon Takes Flight
The Zeppelin—like much about the band that inspired it—isn’t immediately easy to decipher. Two-letter acronyms beneath each knob are rendered in Zep’-inspired Art nouveau fonts. The knob to the far right labeled PL controls the gain of the Echoplex preamp, which is essentially a pre-overdrive boost. The right-side footswitch engages this circuit independently of the overdrive. The next three knobs from right to left are PO (plexi output), TO (tone), and PR (preamp, or plexi drive/gain control). The left footswitch engages this section. The status LED at the top-center glows red when the plexi side alone is on, green when the Echoplex alone is on, and orange when they’re running together. Coded control legends aside, it is a practical, streamlined array. And though the compact dimensions might be the cause of an occasional stomp on the wrong switch, most will find that risk a small price to pay to get this much effective gain staging into so little space.
Interestingly, though, it doesnail the throaty, thick, midrange overdrive tone achieved by pushing a Valco-made Supro amp into distortion.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the printed circuit board fills the whole of the enclosure, with nary enough room to squeeze a gnat in around the edges. That also means there’s no space for a 9V battery, so it’s adaptors only for the Zeppelin.
Hammer Falls
The Zeppelin’s big, ’70s-inspired, arena-rock-grade rhythm and lead tones are heavy, gutsy stuff. The overdrive side arguably sounds best with its PR (gain) control in the 11 o’clock to 1 o’clock range, where it generates low-to medium-gain overdrive sounds with a lot of body and clarity. Turning up the gain from there makes the tone denser and more saturated. But it can also sound a little bit raspy and guttural, and some note separation goes missing when this control is maxed out. This sound can be a lot of fun, but it’s a gnarly, heavy voice, for sure.
Although billed as a plexi-style overdrive, the Marshall-inspired side of the pedal doesn’t sound especially Marshall-y to my ears. Interestingly, though, it does nail the throaty, thick, midrange overdrive tone achieved by pushing a Valco-made Supro amp into distortion, which is, of course, the type of amp Jimmy Page used to create the sounds of Led Zeppelin I. Regardless of my perceptions, the result is substantial and grittily Page-like.
The Echoplex side of the pedal works really well, and the pedal often sounds best with a little of this pre-OD boost added to the overdrive. Modest-to-judicious overdrive levels respond highly to a bit of kick from the boost. And they rarely yield mud. Instead, the combination tends to add sweet saturation to the overall tone.
In classic Page style, I experimented with a Les Paul and Telecaster as drivers for the Zeppelin. The Telecaster’s single-coils were the best pairing when I wanted to highlight the eviscerating clarity in the Zeppelin’s overdrive tones. But, as you’d expect, there’s still a sharp edge to the tones you get from a Les Paul, and the Zeppelin is more than articulate enough to keep the fatter guitar distinct at reasonable gain settings.
The Verdict
The Zeppelin takes a creative approach to replicating Jimmy Page’s early Led Zeppelin tone recipes. It packs both a thick '70s arena-rock-inspired overdrive and a very agreeable preamp boost into one compact, well-made box. And though my ears hear the overdrive as more Supro than Marshall-plexi-like, the Zeppelin’s voice is no less enjoyable, practical, or Page-like.