Frank Zappa signed Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, to his DiscReet label and recorded this excellent album in 1976, but mostly due to Frank's legal disputes with his lawyers and Warner Brothers, the album was never released and the recordings were all shelved, most of them later being re-recorded for the similarly named Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) in 1978 which was released on, of all places, Warner Brothers.
As with most things Zappa related, that is simply the abridged version of the story. Beefheart and Zappa had known each other since their youths and had worked together on several occasions, the best known being the Captain and his Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica. Zappa is even credited with giving Vliet his nom de plume, although that is arguable. These collaborations weren't always looked at as happy occasions though, as Beefheart often felt Zappa was trying water down, commercialize and just plain steal his magic. Zappa, of course, had a significantly different perspective on their relationship, seeing himself as Beefheart's savior for "understanding" him and helping him when he was down and out. This included taking Beefheart with him on the Bongo Fury tour, something the Captain viewed as disgraceful and damaging to his image. Zappa, of course, retorted in his book, The Real Frank Zappa Book, that he was nothing but trouble and unappreciative of his efforts to save him from a myriad of terrible contracts that should never have been signed. The truth probably lies somewhere between those two stories, but who really knows? Zappa liked to say that he never cheated on his wife and was faithful to his family, but his absence from their existences if it wasn't related to music is well documented, and the well told story is that whenever he got off the road, Frank liked to tell his wife Gail that he never cheated, but before they got close he should go see the doctor for a shot. As for Beefheart, today it would be popular to say he was bi-polar, autistic or "suffered" from aspbergers, all of which may be true, but he is nonetheless a brilliantly creative force that pushed art in directions many are still terrified to pursue to this day.
This version of Bat Chain Puller remains unreleased, as I understand it, because Gail Zappa owns the rights as part of the Zappa Family Trust and doesn't want it issued at this time. Maybe she's waiting for the BIG BEEFHEART RENAISSANCE or something equally unlikely, or she just wants a big payoff, but as good as this album is, if you've heard Shiny Beast and the Captain's later releases, you've heard versions of most of the tracks here, many of which are extremely similar. Because of that, one can argue that not much is being missed with this album's absence, but I subscribe to the view that every version can hold important details down to the slightest minutia, and I believe that argument holds true here. It may sound familiar in places, but this is a complete album, as opposed to a collection of sessions or someone's mixtape compiling released versions. Regardless, I wouldn't expect to see this released officially anytime soon. Zappa fans are still waiting on the complete Roxy tapes, supposedly because Gail feels the stereo mixes Frank left behind are not "good enough" and the recordings should be remixed after the tapes are "baked". Whatever.
Big credit goes out to JWB for this version of the album which is far superior to the majority of the bootlegs floating around. This version is very clear and was supposedly transferred from a first generation cassette given to a record executive by Beefheart himself. He asked for this not to be converted to MP3, a request I'm breaking, but it's a cassette transfer and no matter how good it sounds, if the MP3 is encoded right you're not going to miss much if anything, so my apologies to him but I'm sure you'll enjoy this all the same.
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Bat Chain Puller (Original Version)
01 Bat Chain Puller
02 Seam Crooked Sam
03 Harry Irene
04 Poop Hatch
05 Flavor Bud Living
06 Brickbats
07 Floppy Boot Stomp
08 A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond
09 Owed T'Alex
10 Odd Jobs
11 The 1010th Day Of The Human Totem Pole
12 Apes-ma
PS - I'm posting this as a ZIP file instead of an RAR. Please let me know if anyone has any problems with this. Thank you.
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