NOW! That's What I Call Groups Named After William Burroughs Novels! Dept. Part The Two - The Insect Trust

"A.J. is an agent like me, but for whom or for what no one has been able to discover. It is rumored that he represents a trust of giant insects from another galaxy." W. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch

Well, okay, The Insect Trust - or TIT, acronimically - is named after a line from a Burroughs novel, not a title, but the connexion is valid, so shaddap awready. Dese guys - an' a doll - gots literature out th' ass, like AF-F® Max Field And His Parrishes. They even lifted some woids from out of a Thomas Pynchon book! Me neither.

I don't usually - wupes, typically - copy paste other peoples' screed here, mainly because they don't write as good as me. But the thought of editing web text into something that would make me look as if I know what I'm talking about is just too much for me to cope with right now, and this band is facksinating and deserves fackchewal-type coverage, so here's world-famous Rock Critic Ed [no relation - Ed.] Ward! Take it away, Ed!

"The band was an odd group of people: free jazzers, hippie rockers, old-timey and country-blues musicians. The guitarist, Bill Barth, had been one of the re-discoverers of Skip James, while one of the saxophonists, Robert Palmer, had grown up next door to a black kid named Ferrell Sanders, who went on to call himself Pharoah. Partially, at least, the band’s members started out in Arkansas, where, calling themselves the Primitives, they made a little splash by recording a 45 that was immediately taken off the market because Thomas Pynchon sued them. They’d taken the lyrics from his novel V. without asking permission.

The band, such as it was—Barth, Palmer and vocalist Nancy Jeffries—drifted to Memphis after that and named itself after a sinister group in a William Burroughs novel: The Insect Trust. A baritone saxophonist, Trevor Koehler, joined up, as did Luke Faust [yay! - Ed.], who’d made a name for himself around New York as a banjoist. Despite not having a rhythm section, the band played around town, and somehow got a recording deal with Capitol in 1968. The band’s album featured an odd mandala painted by Faust on its cover, and a bunch of songs that sounded like nothing else.

The Insect Trust got a second chance a year later, thanks to a new manager who got the band signed to ATCO Records. By this time, the band was squatting in an apartment building in Hoboken, N.J., with a commanding view of the New York skyline from its roof. Barth, Jeffries and Palmer got together and wrote the title track, a celebration of their new home. Hoboken Saturday Night was even better than its predecessor. They were stretching out and finding new ground, and recorded the Pynchon song again (“The Eyes of a New York Woman”), this time with permission from its author. Robert Palmer’s recorder solo in that song is his finest moment on record, in my opinion, and Nancy Jeffries gives the words all she’s got.

The band had a bigger budget on this album, too, and among the additional players are bassist Bill Falwell, who'd recorded with Albert Ayler, and one of the greatest drummers of all time, Elvin Jones. The band toured, and I got to see it twice — once at a disastrous concert I promoted at my college. They were even better live than they were on the record, although people still didn't get what they were trying to do. Back in Hoboken, the band quietly fell apart bit by bit. I was able to get Robert Palmer some writing work at Rolling Stone, and he went on to become a star at The New York Times; he wrote a couple of excellent books about music before dying in 1997. Nancy Jeffries got a job at Elektra Records, where she eventually rose to vice-president. Trevor Koehler battled drug abuse and killed himself in 1976, and Barth was living in Amsterdam when a heart attack killed him in 2000. Luke Faust continues to live quietly in Austin. To this day, though, nobody has come close to the heart of American music traveling from the direction The Insect Trust did. I wish someone would try." [lifted without permission from NPR - Ed.]

Thanks, Ed! Luke Faust - crazy name, crazy guy - did the swell artwork for both albums. It's Critical Consensus that the second album is somehow "better", but I'm here to tell you it ain't. They're both equally groovy. Does Ward's description of the band as free jazzers, hippie rockers, old-timey and country-blues musicians ring any bells? These guys were cut from the exact same cloth as the Dead; boho hobo, bop n' blues, Rn'B n' java hut avant-garde. And blessed with the crucial - and entirely lost - ability to have shitloads of fun taking shit seriously. Take a hinge at that incredible band photo [above - Ed.]. These days an identical-looking bunch would be singing meditations on loss or humorless indigenous musics and taking themselves very seriously indeed - wupes - super-seriously.  These albums are art, make no mistake, but they're also a great good time. They'll cheer your bad self right up.

TIT yok it up for a publicity shot in bosky Hoboken!

Say, fellows - I haven't been able to find scans of semi-related Insect Trust Gazette [left - Ed.] on-line - can you help a bum out?