The Litter languished in garage rock obscurity during their brief career in the late Sixties – until they were rediscovered a decade later.

One of the joys of YouTube is digging up obscure gems from the distant past – and finding the artists themselves in the comments.

Such is the case with Action Woman, the first and best known song by The Litter, a garage rock band from Minneapolis in the late Sixties, whose front man Denny Waite was quick to emerge from the psychedelic mists of the late Sixties.

As with The Electric Prunes (who I posted here yesterday), The Litter languished in obscurity until this song was picked as the opening track on a much-loved compilation a decade later. For the Prunes it was Nuggets; for The Litter it was Pebbles (though this was later added to a reissue of Nuggets).

The Litter formed in 1966 from the ashes of two other Minneapolis bands, The Victors and The Tabs, inspired, like so many US bands of the time, by the so-called British Invasion led by the Beatles and Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks and The Who.

Action Woman was written by their producer Warren Kendrick, who had devised a studio technique for enhancing the fuzzy flange effect of Bill Strandlof’s lead guitar, but he left the band after recording the single in 1966.

His replacement Tom ‘Zippy’ Caplan played in the same feedback-drenched style – hence the debut album being titled Distortions – but he and lead singer Waite both left after the release of their third album in 1968.