Sunday 25 February 2018

The Insect Trust - Special Rider Blues


Sunday, time for a classic.

One of the more interesting one-shot bands from the end of the sixties is the American freak-folk group THE INSECT TRUST. The band took its name from William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch and featured John Fahey protégé Bill Barth, Greenwich Village folk mainstay guitarist/songwriter Luke Faust and writer/critic/ethnomusicologist Robert Palmer, who played alto sax and clarinet.

The group only stuck together for two albums before dispersing, but THE INSECT TRUST didn't just sound good in the late Sixties: The reissue of their sophomore LP Hoboken Saturday Night earned four stars in a David Fricke-penned 2005 review, adding that bands like THE INSECT TRUST inspired rock critic Greil Marcus to create the phrase "old weird America." Faust was later praised in a passage in Bob Dylan's Chronicles. Palmer passed in 2007, but an anthology of his writing, Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer, was released in 2009.



Today's tune "Special Rider Blues" is taken from the bands self-titled 1968 debut on Capitol. The music ranges from surreal folk-rock (à la the HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS and FUGS), to Booker T.-like pop-soul, to flat-out free jazz.



More info @

The Insect Trust at Allmusic

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