Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Editor's Note: To maintain any and all hipster asshole credentials, it should be noted that Real Music Fans dismiss Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) due to the fact that this 1978 release was not, in fact, the "real" Bat Chain Puller, which had been recorded two years earlier and never officially released. If you're concerned about getting kicked out of the jackass party, here's a helpful hint: there are bootlegs of some of the 1976 recordings, and if anyone asks, you Like Them More.
The legend surrounding the creation of this version of the Magic Band is one that appeals to cover bands across the Floridian bar scene: yes, Virginia, sometimes your idols may end up having no band to back up their crazy ass vocals about the "Tropical Hotdog Night", and if you know how to play their old catalog well enough and you're willing to be treated like a subhuman frog, you too might grow up to play in the official Magic Band on one of Captain Beefheart's best albums. The legend is a legend, it's unfortunately true. (Unfortunate because the hopes of cover bands, like genocide and hippies, is a flower that should never be watered.) Yes, this Magic Band? They were Beefheart fans, many of whom had fantasized about playing with the Cappy himself, Don Van Vliet, for years.
Shiny Beast holds a pretty solid critical location in Van Vliet's discography--it's generally accepted to be the payoff after he failed to keep up the quality of 1969's Trout Mask Replica, and it's the beginning of a solid run of albums that turned out to be the band's send-off g'bye. Coming at it 30 years later, if it happens to be your first dance with Mr. Beefheart--well, that's going to be a curious experience. More accessible an album than 1980's aggressive Doc At the Radar Station, Shiny Beast is still an album held at distance from the rock canon, as it uses a style of song construct and time-keeping more in line with what you'd find Ornette Coleman doing. Shiny Beast isn't free jazz, no, but the rhythm of each song is rarely dictated by the all the instruments in tandem--the double axe attack of Jeff Moris Tepper and Richard Rebus make a point of coming through on separate channels, often exchanging which of them will play lead (or in some cases, the Delta slide), and Richard Williams' drums are often explicitly in step with Vliet's lyrics and guttural melodies...except when they aren't. Meanwhile, Vliet's vocals reimagine growling, following the trail of Howling Wolf while preparing the ground for what time, brandy and cigarettes would eventually gift Tom Waits with, and the lyrics are refreshingly obtuse in a year where almost everybody was choosing to deliver feeling and emotion at its most direct. "Harry Irene" might not be as aggressively out there as "Hotdog", but it's still a song making fun of the Beatles that climaxes with Don Van Vliet sarcastically groaning that he doesn't even know the answer--"What's the meaning of this?...Poor Harry, I guess." But unlike the honest man's response to the good majority of albums culled from the Wire's famous "100 Records That Set The World On Fire When No One Was Listening", the trail of "Huh, this is different" to "Jesus, this is pretty incredible" is one that will last only about 92 minutes--the time it takes to hear the album twice, all the way through. After that?
Ready to launch.
-Tucker Stone, 2009
Warner Brothers went on an anti-Bat Chain Puller tear with Youtube at one point, so here's a clip of the title track from a 1980 television show. See if you can spot Van Vliet's desire to retire.
Some (most?) of the music and lyrics on Bat Chain Puller and the later albums was written in the early 70's, before the original Magic Band left. The end of the band came from a mix of Don Van Vliet making more money from painting than music and from running out of stuff to record.
Because I set up a Beefheart website back in 1998, I've encountered a lot of the music, and the musicians involved. It's wonderful, impenetrable music. I've never encountered anyone that had a mild reaction to the music - everyone is bewildered by it, and then some small percentage of people listen to it a bit more, and something clicks. The thing that burned me out wasn't the music, but finding out about the horribly difficult lives those people lived to get that music out.
If you want to rule the hipster party, brag about having John French's "O Solo Drumbo" album, where he records his drums-only versions of the Beefheart songs that he originally arranged/constructed. Then, pull out your Grow Fins boxed set. I admit a secret, small desire to have the opportunity to do just that, someday.
Posted by: Justin | 2009.05.08 at 15:28
That comment is rad.
Posted by: Marty | 2009.05.10 at 11:39