The Litter – $100 Fine

I have this record for sale.
me if you want it.

selling for a nice price? hook me up via DM please!

According to Zippy Caplan they only pressed 1,000 copies of $100 Fine and 2,000 copies of their debut Distortions. This one is definitely more psychedelic while their debut is fuzzy garage!

Cannot agree the opinion of streetm. previously review. Indeed they sounded crossing over so that gives it so much tension of not really being prepared what the next track is containing. So this must be one reason they haven't been trapped of boring the listeners and equally the lack of billboard success.

Rising out of the garage psych scene just as AM radio was beginning to feel the pressure to include a more progressive and imaginative music playlist, the Litter laid down their album Distortions, filled with sonic edgy fuzzed out reverb. Along with personnel changes, they stepped into $100 Fine, with their melodic layered and psychedelically fueled cover of the Zombie’s “She’s Not There,” which should have turned the tables and given this band a much broader audience at the time … though they did sound remarkably similar to the extended soloing of “Light My Fire” by The Doors.

While surely not as dark and mysterious as say The Doors, The Litter did build a solid following, mostly in the mid-western States, where they were known for, and expected to smash their equipment to smithereens on stage, along with smoke machines and pyrotechnics. And therein lays the stumbling stone, people seemed to be going to the shows to see the spectacle and not to hear the music, even though the band was morphing their sound with the use of twin lead guitars and electronics that included crossfades, delays, and a simulated multi-tracking on stage, they simply seemed to be far too enameled with all that was happening around them musically, and were unable to find their own footing, or believe in themselves enough to allow this reinvention to carry them where they needed to be. Regardless, there are some enchanting tunes to be found here, songs with great hooks, songs that float on a breezy haze, and while their songs may not have hung like smoke in the air, the Litter certainly carried forward their own vision of intoxication … just the sort of music Raoul Duke [Hunter Thompson] and his Samoan attorney Dr. Gonzo should have loaded onto his tape recorder as they headed across the desert in their great red land-shark.

While rolling right along with the likes of Blue Cheer, Uriah Heap, and the more heavy aspects of Cream, the Litter were one of those bands who initially stood at the crossroads between psychedelic music and the atmosphere of the emerging yet still fledgling metal, was about to unfold onto the world. Oddly, even with all that the Litter had going for them, they had too many feet in too many musical words, leaving fans wondering where they stood, what to expect, and how to move these varied presentations comfortably into their lives.

The reissue contains bonus tracks that will possibly move the music in a new direction for you, or perhaps inspire you to reconsider what you though you knew regarding this one of a kind influential American band who were able to nearly seamlessly mesh the British invasion with all the strength, muscle, and integrity of the factory working class of the mid-west … proving that there was much more to the Litter than the song “Action Woman.”

*** The Fun Facts: The band was called the Litter, there was a $100 dollar fine for littering back in the late 60’s, so it was sort of a natural play on words, ‘$100 fine for littering.’

Review by Jenell Kesler