Notes

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One of the more interesting one-shot bands in rock & roll, the Insect Trust's most famous member was writer/critic/ethnomusicologist Robert Palmer, who played alto sax and clarinet. Less famous, but still a notable member, was guitarist/songwriter Luke Faust, who went on to add creative input for the Holy Modal Rounders' string of wonderful early- to mid-'70s records. The Insect Trust released two albums, their self-titled 1968 debut on Capitol, and their second and final LP, Hoboken Saturday Night. Along with the loose-limbed music, Hoboken Saturday Night features musical contributions by heavy hitters (no pun intended) such as drummers Elvin Jones and Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, guitarist Hugh McCracken, and novelist Thomas Pynchon. 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. Decades after its release, Hoboken Saturday Night sounds a bit dated, but its charm is irresistible, especially when Nancy Jefferies sings and the band cranks up its raucous onslaught of reeds and percussion. Never intended to be a traditional pop act, the Insect Trust should be best remembered for extending rock's boundaries and taking the genre to a much hipper level without resorting to a lot of banal technique. Good luck locating their records.

The Insect Trust were a musical collective based, as the title suggests, in Hoboken by way of Memphis and by way of a brief fling with the Holy Modal Rounders. The resumes of the regular members are impressive enough—reedist Robert Palmer became one of the most famous rock critics in the land, singer Nancy Jeffries wound up signing Suzanne Vega and Ziggy Marley among others to Elektra, and guitarist Bill Barth rediscovered Skip James. But the list of sidemen on this album is truly staggering, with two bona fide drumming legends, Elvin Jones and Bernard Purdie, heading the list, followed closely by bassists William Folwell and Bob Bushnell. And the music they created on this 1970 album is as fresh and unique as you might expect given the talents involved, a bubbling stew of blues, jazz, old-time music, folk-rock and even, as liner-note writer Robert Christgau points out, bubblegum, with a bohemian-but-not-hippie slant to the lyrics that was utterly refreshing for the time. Word-of-mouth on this record has just been growing and growing, and now, over 30 years later, we're proud to be the ones to turn the wishes of a multitude of collectors into reality with this exclusive reissue. Includes 'Be a Hobo; Hoboken Saturday Night; The Eyes of a New York Woman; Ragtime Millionaire; Somedays; Our Sister the Sun; Reciprocity; Trip on Me; Now Then Sweet Man/Mr. Garfield; Reincarnations; Glade Song', and 'Ducks'.