Today, I’m sharing a special clip from the archives of the as-yet unfinished documentary.
Neil Young performs a unique performance of the song “LOUIE LOUIE” during the legendary KFJC Maximum LOUIE LOUIE marathon of 1983.
This video clip was assembled from footage shot during the KFJC Maximum LOUIE LOUIE event, but I’ve used some creative liberties in putting this together. When Neil Young did this special performance, it was Sunday night, approximately 9:40 pm, or about 2 days and 3 hours into the marathon. There weren’t that many people at the KFJC studio, and I’m thinking Richard Berry, who you can see in this clip, had probably gone back to his hotel room to rest up before his train ride back to Los Angeles on Monday morning.
What you can see in this clip are a lot of KFJC people, including Kirk O’Connnell, who did a lot of work organizing the the various LOUIE LOUIE recordings sent in by the audience. Kirk had every LOUIE cassette recording specially coded for the broadcasting schedule to ensure that none of the 800+ versions would be repeated twice. Kirk was a tireless worker for the marathon, and unfortunately he passed away a few years after the event. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned him in this LOUIE blog, but he deserves a lot of credit for the hard work he put into this event.
I don’t know if I’ll be using this edited clip in the documentary, so it may just be a YouTube exclusive. It’s a fun little version that seemed appropriate for April First.
About five years ago, I actually had a chance to meet Neil Young in person at an art gallery show in San Francisco. We talked briefly, and he confirmed that it was indeed him performing this special rendition of the song, live over the radio….
That was one great weekend. I remember at the end of the weekend, my daughters, who were 4 and 2 years of age, playing Louie Louie on their toy piano.
I’ll pipe in here for clarification. Not an assistant manager, but the guy that runs the drum department at Starving Musician in Santa Cruz. Call me a worker bee…! Ah, the Louie Louie memories. Stretch
Hey Stretch, didn’t you play drums with the Windows of Silence at WORKS-SAN JOSE once many many years ago? Or was that some other guy from KFJC?