THE LITTER — Distortions (review)

Album · 1967 · Proto-Metal

3/5 · 2015-07-02
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Thanks to The Litter, I have been able to draw some connections and fill in a big gap missing in my photo-metal education. I knew about The Kinks and The Who and I knew about The Yardbirds. There was also The Sonics. A few bands were into playing around with fuzz tone and playing a more aggressive form of rock, but I was missing out on the whole garage rock / freak beat scene. It wasn't until I heard this debut album that I realized what had been going on between the U.S. and the U.K. between 1962 and 1967. U.K. bands like The Who and The Kinks were into covering American songs and writing some originals. But then the British Invasion influenced so many American bands and suddenly all these American bands were covering British covers of American covers. The Brits wrote some originals which the Americans covered and the Americans had stuff that the Brits covered. It was a game of call and response and all the while this aggressive guitar rock scene was developing.

Not all garage rock (US) and freak beat (UK) music was the same. Some was more about melody and not much about aggressive playing. Others took a more energetic and even savage take on rock music. As I have recently been exploring the harder hitting bands of this era, I have found it interesting to hear The Who and The Kinks in a new perspective. And while many of these bands are considered proto-punk, I believe it's still possible to connect them with the evolving proto-metal scene.

The Litter was formed in 1966 in Minneapolis. Heavily influenced by the British Mod scene (soon the evolve into the freak beat scene) and British blues rock bands like The Yardbirds, The Litter covered many British songs. They had a friend who could get albums directly from the U.K. before they were released in the U.S. and learned to play the songs so that people often mistook them for Litter originals. Their debut album "Distortions" (so named by the producer because most songs used fuzz tone) included covers of The Who's "A Legal Matter" and "Substitute", The Yardbirds' "Rack My Mind" and "I'm a Man", and "I'm So Glad" which had been covered by Cream in 1966 and The Maze (Rod Evans and Ian Paice) in 1967. They also wrote several originals of which "Action Woman" would become their one top twenty hit.

"Action Woman" kicks of the album and it has become a garage rock and psychedelic 60's classic. It features some powerful fuzz toned guitar playing and a solid rhythm. The vocals have a gritty roughness to them, and this song has more edge to it than most of The Who's early output. "Watcha Gonna Do About It" is a typical garage rocker with one catchy clean guitar, one fuzz toned guitar and a steady beat. A little too upbeat for any association with heavy psych or metal but nevertheless a good example of the style at the time.

"Codine" is slower and an anti-drug song that reminds me of a more primitive but somehow similar concept to Steppenwolf's "The Pusher". "Somebody Help Me" has more of a light pop sound and cheery melody but the music still holds a level of power that seems to have a hard time constraining this to a pop single.

The Litter's covers of "Substitue" and "A Legal Matter" stay pretty close to The Who's originals, which means that "Substitute" is pretty light except for the guitar solo. They didn't try to muscle it up like Great White did for their debut in 1984. "A Legal Matter" has a little more bite to it, but up to here The Litter are more aggressive when they do their original songs. The instrumental "The Mummy" makes use of a different scale and some very harsh fuzz tone guitar chords. It's too bad the tracks is only 1:24 of music and the last ten seconds are just feedback fading out.

"I'm So Glad" sounds as it always does. If you like it then hearing it here to will be good for you, too. I've never been big on it but listening to it now as I type, it sounds pretty intense. One interesting point is the guitar solo which makes me think more of the Deep Purple version to come out in 1968.

The Yardbirds with Jeff Beck were more aggressive and experimental in the lead guitar department, and the two songs covered by The Litter here capture that wild side. There's a lot of loud and raucous guitar here, especially on "I'm A Man" where on the original, Jeff Beck did a lot of freeform work. Guitarist Tom "Zippy" Caplan doesn't exactly try to emulate Beck but gives his own rendition of an untamed guitar assault. "Rack My Mind" is more restrained and features some harmonica so that it sounds very close to The Yardbirds' original.

One other track, The Litter original "Soul-Searching" backs very nicely with "Action Woman". It's another gritty and hard garage rock effort with a serious tone though less distortion than "Action Woman".

Though still a ways away from the more serious heavy music that was emerging in 1967, The Litter's debut is a great example of the garage rock sound on the cusp of the psychedelic explosion. Particularly guitarist Caplan's soloing is worthy of note. But The Litter were going to become much heavier in two years time. Three stars for a hard-hitting rock album with lots of loud and noisy guitar work.