''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'' is the tenth studio album by American band

Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet (; born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as Th ...

and

the Magic Band The Magic Band was the backing band of American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Captain Beefheart between 1967 and 1982. The rotating lineup featured dozens of performers, many of whom became known by nicknames given to them by Beefhe ...

, released in October 1978 by

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

. The album emerged from production difficulties surrounding ''

Bat Chain Puller ''Bat Chain Puller'' is the 13th studio album (and first official posthumous album) by Captain Beefheart, released on February 22, 2012. It was recorded in 1976 by DiscReet Records, who had intended to release it with Virgin Records as Captain B ...

'', an album Captain Beefheart recorded for

DiscReet Discreet may refer to: * Discreet Logic, a subsidiary of Autodesk Media and Entertainment * DiscReet Records DiscReet Records, self-identified simply as DiscReet, was a record label founded by Frank Zappa and his then business partner/manager He ...

and

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...

in 1976. DiscReet co-founders

Herb Cohen Herbert Cohen (December 30, 1932 – March 16, 2010) was an American personal manager, record company executive, and music publisher, best known as the manager of Judy Henske, Linda Ronstadt, Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley, Odetta, Tom Waits, Geor ...

and

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of A ...

feuded over the production of the album, because Cohen funded the production with Zappa's royalty checks. Captain Beefheart recorded a new album titled ''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'' due to Zappa withholding the master tapes of the original ''Bat Chain Puller'' album.

Background and recording

After recording '' Bongo Fury'' with

, Don Van Vliet formed a new Magic Band and began recording an album titled ''

'' for

and

, DiscReet's co-founder and Zappa's business manager, paid for the album's production costs with Zappa's royalty checks, leading Zappa to end his business partnership with Cohen. Cohen and Zappa each demanded to be paid an advance by Virgin, leading Zappa to withhold the master tapes, for which Cohen sued him. ''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'' was recorded from July 6 to August 27, 1978 at

the Automatt The Automatt was a sound recording studio in San Francisco, California, promoted for its early mix automation system. During its eight active years, 1976 to 1984, it was one of the top recording studios in the region. The Automatt was founded by p ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Due to the lawsuit, Van Vliet re-recorded four ''Bat Chain Puller'' tracks for

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

: "The Floppy Boot Stomp", "Bat Chain Puller", "Harry Irene", and "Owed T'Alex". The ''Bat Chain Puller'' outtake "Candle Mambo" was also re-recorded for the album, as were older unused songs "Ice Rose" (a ''Strictly Personal'' outtake formerly known as "Big Black Baby Shoes") and "Suction Prints" (a ''Clear Spot'' outtake known as "Pompadour Swamp", no relation to the later song of that name). Four new songs completed the album, these being "You Know You're A Man", "When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy", "Love Lies" and "Tropical Hot Dog Night", the latter being based on a riff of the ''Bat Chain Puller'' song "Odd Jobs", which was otherwise not re-recorded. The album was completed with "Apes-Ma", which is the same recording on both versions, due to being sourced from Van Vliet's own home recording. Versions of "Run Paint Run Run" and "The Witch Doctor Life" were attempted during the sessions but not used (they have been bootlegged). They would be finished for '' Doc at the Radar Station'' and '' Ice Cream for Crow'' respectively.

Style

The music of ''Shiny Beast'' featured a mix of different music styles, similar to '' Safe as Milk'', incorporating elements of

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics o ...

and

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

. The song "Bat Chain Puller" was based upon the rhythm of Van Vliet's windshield wipers.

Reception

The album received favorable reviews.

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

declared ''Shiny Beast'' to be better than all Van Vliet's previous albums, writing, "Without any loss of angularity or thickness, the new compositions achieve a flow worthy of Weill or

Monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generat ...

, and his lyrics aren't as willful as they used to be." A contemporary reviewer,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

's Ned Raggett, also praised the album, writing "''Shiny Beast'' turned out to be manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums". ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' called it "one of his best". In the ''

Spin Alternative Record Guide The ''Spin Alternative Record Guide'' is a music reference book compiled by the American music magazine '' Spin'' and published in 1995 by Vintage Books. It was edited by rock critic Eric Weisbard and Craig Marks, who was the magazine's edito ...

'' (1995), the album was ranked 73 on the book's list of the "Top 100 Alternative Albums".

Track listing

All tracks written by Don Van Vliet except "Owed t' Alex", written by Don Van Vliet and Herb Bermann.

Personnel

(Don Van Vliet) –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or witho ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica in ...

soprano sax The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

whistling Whistling without the use of an artificial whistle is achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips, usually after applying moisture (licking one's lips or placing water upon them) and then blowing or sucking air through the space. The a ...

* Bruce Lambourne Fowler –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrat ...

, air bass * Jeff Moris Tepper – slide guitar,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

, spell guitar * Eric Drew Feldman –

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, bass *

Robert Arthur Williams Robert Arthur Williams (born January 20, 1933) is a consultant and political figure in British Columbia. He represented Vancouver East in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 1966 to 1976 and from 1984 to 1991 as a New Democratic P ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Richard Redus – slide guitar,

bottleneck guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that ...

, guitar, accordion,

fretless bass A fretless bass is a bass guitar whose neck does not have any frets. While the instrument is played in all styles of music, it is most common in pop, rock, and jazz. It first saw widespread use during the 1970s, although some players used them befo ...

Additional personnel * Art Tripp III –

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbr ...

, additional percussion

References

External links

Jeff Moris Tepper's candlebone.com
* The Wire'sbr>''100 Records That Set The World On Fire (When No One Was Listening)''
{{Authority control Captain Beefheart albums 1978 albums Warner Records albums