Bill Orcutt Quotes

It's hard to go out in front of people with an acoustic guitar and improvise for 30 or 40 minutes, but I had a compulsion to do it. I just had to in a way that I can't really explain.

I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.

I was working at eBay, so I would just troll the vintage categories, find old amps and what have you. I was buying a fair amount of stuff and playing with it and then selling it back.

There's a difference between music that's original and music that's retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it's Kraut-rock or... I've heard people suggest that we're kind of retro 80s.

I don't think I had a specific moment when I thought, "I'm not going to play music anymore." I just played less and got involved in other things.

I've found that since I've been playing the acoustic, listening to a horn player has left me thinking, well, what can I do with that? But somehow piano players, I feel more of a connection to , now that I'm using the acoustic.

In high school I was a jazz nerd, listened to a lot of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk and stuff like that. Maybe in Harry Pussy I was listening to more horn players.

With Fred McDowell, I just love the way he articulates the notes. I'm hardly unique in that, but there's just something about that that I love.

I did pull out my old Telecaster, and have been thinking I'd like to play that loud with a drummer. But I haven't actually done that yet.

The nice thing about solo is I don't have to coordinate with anyone else's schedule, since it's hard for me just to have a free 15 minutes here and there.

I'm uptight in general, and it's hard for me to play in a situation where I'm not rehearsed or I feel like I'm not prepared. So it's always hard for me to come away from those and think it was the best thing I could do.

I had opportunities to play with other people and give my self some sort of security, but for some reason I wanted to play solo and just put it out there.

I had a guitar sitting around, and it just happened to have four strings on it, and I would sit around watching TV and playing it. I ended up writing bunches of songs around four strings.

With a four-string, the middle range is less of an option. That kind of 5th that you play on those A and D strings isn't there. So a lot of traditional rock sounds, you can't play them. But to be honest, there was no particular intention when I started playing with four strings. It just worked out that way and it sounded cool.

A horn has that voice quality, and an electric guitar can emulate that. But playing an acoustic, the notes don't sustain like that.