Captain Beefheart: Bat Chain Puller

Captain Beefheart: Bat Chain Puller

I don't know the year this bootleg was released. I know the material on it was recorded in 1976

Moral & Main Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Bat Chain Puller  2. Seam Crooked Sam  3. Harry Irene  4. Poop Hatch  5. Flavor Bud Living  6. Brickbats  7. Floppy Boot Stomp  8. A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To Ah Diamond  9. Owed T' Alex  10. Odd Jobs  11. The 1010th Day Of The Human Totem Pole  12. Apes-Ma


Not to be confused with the band's 1978 album "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" (which I covered here: http://fridaynightrecordparty.blogspot.com/2014/02/captain-beefheart-and-magic-band-shiny.html ). This is a bootleg of Captain Beefheart's famously unreleased 1976 album. I think Beefheart intended to release it but there was some dispute with Frank Zappa who was upset that Beefheart interrupted his rehearsal or some petty shit...Man, if you find extreme pettiness as entertaining as I do, you should read up on the relationship between Beefheart and his childhood friend Frank Zappa sometimes). 

I think the Zappa estate did finally release this album recently (which quickly went out of print), but I don't have that version...I have the bootleg version pictured above, which has a silk-screened image on the most unpleasantly textured cardboard known to man...Whenever I touch it, it sucks 85% of the moisture out of my body...Bootleg production values aside, the album itself sounds amazing. I was expecting...I dunno...bootleg sound? But this is total pro. If it came in a glossy cover I wouldn't question it for a moment...

I can't convey to you how much an improvement over "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" this is...I can't even comprehend how the same person made both albums...and in such a short amount of time. I'm serious, put on the song "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" (the final song on the last album) and then play "Bat Chain Puller" (the first song from this album) and watch your head explode. The title track is a perfect encapsulation of Beefheart's career up to this point (minus two icky albums)...It's bluesy, yet tied into avant-garde knots (ala "Trout Mask") and accessible in the "Spotlight Kid"/"Clear Spot" manner, which would be the formula that would define the remainder of Beefheart's music career.  In fact, he would re-record 10 of these tracks and use them over the course of his following three albums ("Shiny Beast," "Doc at the Radar Station" and "Ice Cream for Crow" which I'd argue form the most consistent stretch of albums the band would release). 

Sure, it's not all perfect...I still think the music-hall pastiche "Harry Irene" is below Beefheart (to be honest, it probably would have fit right in on the previous two albums) and the two acapella spoken word tracks ("Poop Hatch" and "Apes-Ma") are pretty worthless, but the rest is gold...Sure, if you're a Beefheart fan you already have most of these songs, but these are completely different (and sometimes superior version). Drier...More direct. This particular version of the song "Bat Chain Puller" is in the running for my personal favorite Beefheart track...

 
The two songs they never re-recorded are good too! I honestly have zero idea why "Seam Crooked Sam" was never used. It's one of those "Ice Cream For Crow" type tracks where the Captain delivers surreal poetry ("Dora robbed a baby through a dark bebop, Licorice lenses fogged in hot sorrow...") over a jagged, tumbling backing..."Odd Jobs" follows roughly the same format except the spoken word unexpectedly turns into a lightweight melody for punctuation... 

This really was one of the great unreleased albums...Glad somebody finally released it. Sad it went out of print again...Happy I found a bootleg...I know this thing has seen many an unofficial release, so I can't speak for all the various versions out there, but I can tell you the silk-screened one with the rough cardboard cover is a solid buy...

So let's listen to some Beefy...Here's  "Brickbats"...Hope you like squonky horns...