Lord Litter

Lord Litters journey into music started, when someone discovered: “this boy can sing” – so as a kid he became member of a classical choir, singing lead, heavy Bach ‘n such, with concerts in big churches, tours, etc… Along came Rock ‘n’ Roll.

His first band, early 1970s – R.B. and The Three String Band, looking back it seems, they played *Punk_Acoustic*. He also started recording in those days. By chance Ihe heard about a stereo reel to reel machine, that would allow so called *ping-pong* recording. Record on track one, then, while recording track two, mix track one into the sound of track two, then mix track one and and two, then on track two, back onto track one while recording a third instrument, and so on … with headphones and all. Wow, what an experience! He became totally addicted!!! .. recording/producing sound eversince …

Late 1970s / thru 1980s, Berlin hit by Punk/Avangarde/Underground.His band in those days only had a sign – no name, wow Avangarde! The drummer had an advertisement agency, a cellar and a 4-track reel to reel machine! That band had a girl singer, who 30 years later became the love if his life ..

People came and went, a first transformation was a trio playin’ extremely tight german art-punk with hate lyrics – The Sign… guess, who srceamed the lyrics.. The first time he recorded in a *real* studio ’n’ realised, that this simple fact does NOT lead to a satisfying sound.

The next transformation was a 7 piece band with horn section, playin some kind of “No Wave / New York Funk Punk” – the band name was UBIK. Playin the *real* underground clubs.He loved the sound, but probabaly the mix of the people was just a bit too wild .. a heavy metal drummer, a funk guitar, a jazz horn section, a King Crimson fan on second guitar and Lord Litter himself somewhere in the middle …

The whole thing kept transforming, so in the end they transformed into a production group. GMB. They recorded in groups ‘n subgroubs, released tapes. Most of this material recorded on his 4-track cassette machine. LL was more or less continuosly recording. This was the time three things happened.

FIRST – he started working as Lord Litter. The next years were complete madness, releasing cassettes like crazy – 20 something regular tapes and countless *Best of* tapes, distributed all over the world. Some of the stuff is still available, like this *Best of*: HYPER HOUR by HYPERTONIA and via blogspot.de, that have loads of the old original tapes avail for download, including cover artwork.

SECOND – he became part of a music management, that wanted to lead some of the Berlin bands to a cooperation with the music industry, keeping freedom for the bands. To cut a long ‘n painful story short – he realised, it simply does not work, if it’s just about music. He experienced unbeliveable circumstances .. cliches about the music biz? .. nothing but truth! .. it made him leave the music as a product world, for never to return. Because –

THIRD -He got in touch with the “worldwide free music network” and started working for free music/culture worldwide eversince…

Late 1980s / thru 1990s, the next big thing happened when the Berlin wall fell. The very day LL joined a East Berlin underground band. DAS FREIE ORCHESTER (DFO). He got in touch with the band via his radioshow, in which he played cassettes from the east German underground. The concept of DFO was: there is no concept. Absolutely everything was 100% improvised – what a great time it was. They travelled, recorded, released tapes like crazy, worldwide with a *big* fandom in the USA, etc. ’til it turned out, it was over – all was said and done.

It was transformation time again. Gui, the DFO drummer said:”..let’s play your songs from the tapes”. So they did. The Lord Litter Band as the result, was a strange Cowpunk act with hard Rock touches …

Yes – the usual playin ‘n recording and transforming. So the rest of the century Lord Litter spent with Litter & The Lazy Sleepers. The band, in which they played a Texas Shuffle, R & B mix, which he really liked .. but 10 years of Rock was enough then, and it was time to move on. So he left the band in 1999 to built the studio that he’s still working in these days…because it is his own flat.

2000 – 2011. In his 4-track cassette recording days he had immense fun and inspiration, creating soundscapes. Two of them are still available at archive.org.

Not to forget, that through all these years he continously kept recording and releasing solo music, too. 2005 was the return of Lefty Leech. He had been in the band with no name, all over sudden he lived in a house down the road, and so they formed an acoustic duo, Litter & Leech in this year.

.. and yes recording, playin. Until Lefty Leech was totally fed up with his western civilisation and started a new life in Gambia, Africa. Another wonderful music intermezzo. From 2008 to 2011 Lord Litter was hosting the Shared Night concert series in Berlin. He opened the nights with own songs and later with a special *suitcase theatre*. This brought pro musicians onto a stage, where they could try, whatever they wanted to try. Out came a lot of stuff from Folk to Avangarde, from Jazz to Rock to whatever. The series came to an end, when it all became too much for the organisers, who did’nt earn a single penny with the series… …art for art’s sake does not pay …

2011 – …. In late 2011 the girl singer from that band with no name turned up again and since then LL and herself share life and music. Meta Georgia, two guitars, two vocals, all her songs and the idea to be as pure and *close* as possible. They took their time, and so they’re actually working on the first CD and on a life program. The adventure continues and sooner or later LL will be back with another solo release…

All above is just a rough scetch. Especially the music management years could do with many more stories and examples … well, perhaps one day. he never wanted fame and fortune with his music, probably it just never worked out, he mentions. When there was a budget for his work, he took the money, when there was no money, Ihe kept on anyway. It is all just inside of him and it needs to come out – he’s sure, that he’s keeping on, til he has to leave. He still wants to try so many things .. sometimes he thinks, he just started.

Fast forward … 2020. Good grief – time started to run, years were flying by.. Today Lord Litter mainly produces radioshows and occasional *experiment_lish* tracks for compilations; and a full length concept release about the nowadays madness is forthcoming with Didier Leboz, whom he knows since the days, they both joined DAS FREIE ORCHESTER (see above).

Lord Litter is staying away as far as possible from all (most) of today’s poisoned structures (Social Media) and he finds peace and freedom in reduction and slowing down. And yes – one or the other way – the adventure continues!