Customer Reviews

Dust Sucker

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I won't go into the story behind the recording of Captain Beefheart's "Bat Chain Puller" in 1975/76 and its subsequent non-appearance as anything other than a bootleg. Instead I'll just consider this current release and ask the question, what exactly is "Dust Sucker" for? As the sleeve proudly trumpets, these tracks are from "the Captain's own tapes" of the album - well that's as maybe, but what they most certainly are NOT however are the long lost master tapes. The sound quality is not measurably better on this release than on any of the bootlegs I have heard - indeed the sound quality is boomy and bass-heavy and there's annoyingly high level of tape hiss present throughout. This all serves to leave the title track, "Harry Irene", "Floppy Boot Stomp" and "Owed T'Alex" sounding like little more than demo versions of the versions eventually released on "Shiny Beast". The version of "The One Thousand and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole" is markedly better than that on "Ice Cream For Crow", but we knew that anyway; and while "Brickbats", "Flavor Bud Living" and "A Carrot Is As Close As a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond" are fascinating early versions, "81 Poop Hatch" and "Apes-Ma" are exactly the same as the later versions - though with worse sound quality. Which leaves "Seam Crooked Sam" and the beautiful "Odd Jobs", and what would we Beefheart fans give to hear them in their pristine glory and not hamstrung by the muddy, hamfisted mixes on this album?

This is by no means the only annoying aspect of this album. The artwork cuts and pastes the Captain and various Magic Band members, from totally different eras, into various sci-fi landscapes - which is all good fun but what does it have to do with Don Van Vliet? Especially the Don Van Vliet who recorded "Bat Chain Puller"? The sleevenotes are a muddled mess of (uncredited) quotes, conjecture and plain nonsense. Not suprising perhaps, as they appear to be the work of Ken Brooks, a man who made some sort of living out of poorly researched and badly written books on various Rock cult figures.

The additional cuts are live versions of various "Bat Chain Puller" tracks culled at random from various sources/ gigs/ line-ups and of variable quality and, in some places it seems, variable tape-speed. Need I add that there is absolutely no information on when and where these tracks were recorded and who played on them? To add to the depressing aura of sloppiness, an extremely poor quality recording of the "Lick My Decals" out-take "Well Well Well" is added for no better reason it seems than the people responsible for this mess ("Milksafe Productions") had a copy lying around their offices. Ditto the even more lo-fi live version of "My Human Gets Me Blues" - errrrrr, why?

In short, this CD is a disgrace and rip-off and you'd be better off waiting for the Zappa Estate to get round to eventually releasing the REAL (Denny Whalley mixed) "Bat Chain Puller", which they've been threatening to do...Avoid this album at all costs.

Yes, despite Ozit's protestations to the contrary, their story about this being taken (with permission!) from Don's private tapes is probably at least somewhat untrue. Yes, the liner notes are abysmal, quoting from a guy who is usually consider to be the *worst* source on the Captain. Yes, in all likelyhood, all that separates this and its companion piece ("Merseytrout," a similarly questionable release) from bootleghood is a UPC and a placement on legitimate sites. Yes, the bonus tracks are pointless. And yes, the sound quality is pretty lousy.

But...

As there is no other legitimate release of the BCP tapes, this is still something to be happy about, as no longer will people have to track down expensive and (in all probability) shoddy bootlegs to hear the curio that is the original Bat Chain Puller. If you're reading this entry, you most likely know the story of the album: how it was, essentially, pulled right before its release due to contractual snafus, and how "Shiny Beast" is the re-recorded mirror of this album. Yet this story doesn't properly emphasize the immensely different vibe contained on Bat Chain Puller. This recording is looser, less classically "tight;" it sounds more like something that directly follows the much-reviled "Bluejeans and Moonbeams." That isn't meant as an insult at all, just an observation as to the "relaxed" nature of both albums.

Is it "better" than Shiny Beast? I honestly prefer the re-recorded versions (and heck, there's no "Tropical Hot Dog Night" here! I love that song!), but I still love the heck out of these renditions. So in conclusion: if one manages to put aside the lousy sound quality (muffled, but not too awful) and the hilariously inappropriate bonus tracks (some of which aren't even stolen from the best availible sources), one should be very, very happy with the only legitimate version of these tapes to ever make it to the marketplace.

This disc is a third-rate BOOTLEG, with horrible sound quality. You can get this material in far better quality through trading. Don't be a "sucker"!

It is an awful shame that somewhere someone in possession of a stamp has the right to press it on a contract and thereby approve of luring people in order to make someone a lot of money. It is also an awful shame that the creating artists (and their fans) have to depend on the megalomanic business type suites who won't settle for less than a 1000% profit in order to grow green and probably physically as well.

...no, no one has managed to talk Don Van Vliet into releasing the original tapes of the original "Bat Chain Puller," for which Frank Zappa was the executive producer. In fact - no one outside a very selected group of people--Van Vliet's closest friends--has even had the honor of speaking to him for the last ten years. He is very isolated, and according to the seemingly trustworthy sources of Mike Barnes' book "Captain Beefheart, The Biography," he is also quite uninterested in anything that has to do with his musical past (which he incidentally gave up in 1982,) as he has spent all his artistic power on painting the last 20+ years.

Available on DVD, John "Drumbo" French--partly as drummer and partly as frontman for the reunited Magic Band--introduces "Floppy Boot Stomp" during a 2003 live show as a song from "Shiny Beast" and "the unreleased Bat Chain Puller." The real "Bat Chain Puller,"--partly re-recorded and released as "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" 2 years after its intended release--was never released in 1976 due to contractual problems. Zappa's manager had "bleeped" Zappa over which resulted in him being unable to participate in the production of the album (at least with the sum of money and amount of work he had originally offered to put in.) The Zappa Family Trust now own the real studio tapes to the original "Bat Chain Puller" (of which Van Vliet may or may not be in possession of copies of) and did propose a release to Van Vliet in the late 90's, but got back a "no" from the artist who seemingly, as mentioned, had (and has) no interest in discussing his musical past. What "Dust Sucker" is--compared to the gold that the ZFT is sitting on at the moment--is barely yellow lights on oil beads.

Ozit-Morpheus Records, who advertise this sucker, claim that it's a legitimate release, which is unlikely for a number of reasons. For one thing, there's a bit missing at the beginning of the track "Bat Chain Puller" - JUST like on the bootlegs that has spread for nearly 30 years now. The music is otherwise great here - as is all the music on "Shiny Beast," but this is a bootleg (with false advertisement on its cover) of an album that has never been available to the public. There has been a release of this music simply called "Bat Chain Puller" (a double CD with the 1967 album "Safe as Milk" in mono on disc 2) which naturally also is a bootleg, but has better sound quality than "Dust Sucker."

I'm amazed that someone in possession of a low-quality bootleg and the ability to make up unlikely stories as to why it's a legitimate copy may legally be granted the process of production for it to be offered as widely as "Dust Sucker" is.

If you, just like I, would like to listen to "Bat Chain Puller" as it was intended for the listener, then do not purchase this album or any other bootlegs - wait and hope for it to be properly released somewhere in between now and your death, but if you want to get an approximate idea just for comparison with "Shiny Beast," then go ahead, send the bootleggers some money. A warning must be made, though: do not buy this album for the sake of the bonus tracks - they take "bootleg" to a new low. It's all an advertisement scheme, even though the disc isn't TOTALLY useless, and even though it is nice that someone is at least TRYING to spread the word about the artistic genius that is Captain Beefheart, and make his fans happy.

Read all about this release under "Music info" and "Beefheart discography" at The Captain Beefheart Radar Station.

Recently a slew of Beefheart releases of improbable legitimacy hit the market, including this unpolished gem, purportedly a transfer of an original reel tape (sent by Don to a friend/business associate in England) containing unfinished versions of Bat Chain Puller, which was recorded under the aegis of Frank Zappa in 1976.

The original Bat Chain Puller was never officially released, yet rumors persist that Denny Walley has remixed the original tracks into something the Zappa Family Trust may release some day... sadly this may not happen while Don is still with us, despite Don's seeming disinterest in his own musical past. Where he got his music, he didn't have to pay for it, got me?

Until then, we have Dust Sucker. The title, a vacuum, like those Don sold door to door as a young man, surprising those housewives that answered with a cry of "this sucks!" The vacuum, a gypsy dance around a lonely campfire, a musical instrument on par with a crank driven beater-mixer.

Dust Sucker, I think, is essential for collectors who don't already own a version of the original BCP to explain the gaps between Beefheart's R&B roots, his music from the other side of the fence, and the love songs he sang for his women.

From the opening windshield wiper blade beat of Bat Chain Puller, obviously this is no Shiny Beast. John French's drumming is beyond reproach here and on Floppy Boot Stomp, and Denny Walley and Jeff Moris Tepper counterpoint beautifully on Seam Crooked Sam and Odd Jobs, each replete with the Captain reciting his lyrics on top of them. John Thomas, who also played with Mallard, the Lick My Decals Off Baby era exodus of Magic Band members, adds keyboards.

The highlight of my experience with Dust Sucker is a sentimental version of Harry Irene which almost goes to show how good the Virgin era recordings could have been under different circumstances.

The bonus tracks come from various sources not listed in the CD sleeve and play at varying speeds (a little creative pitch shifting with your PC sound card and you'll get the right speed). If you're looking here, you probably don't need me to tell you how to find out what venues, times and lineups they're from.

Since the magic captain's retirement there have been almost as many new albums as there are old ones with another due out in England any moment now.

Don van Vliet, one of, if not the, most enignatic figures in the history of popular music is a polarising figure. To me and many others, he is a true artist in the truest sense of the word. A man of music playing harp, bass clarinet, tenor and soprano saxaphone and other instruments besides, Captain Beefheart has the most incredible voice. A true blues player, van Vliet forswore the music business to concentrate on his painting and has not issued a recording in almost twenty years.

The paucity of official recordings has left enthusiasts scrambling for any piece of material they can lay their hands on. This release of demos, outtakes and live recordings goes someway to meeting that demand but the very nature of the material will be of little interest to a wider audience. My own personal favourite is the live version of 'My Human Gets Me Blues' but the recording is lacking. On the whole this is a useful addition to anyone's collection. Some have criticised the producers of other recent albums for the poor quality of those albums but to be honest I am just grateful to be able to gain more insight into the workings of such an enigmatic musician. For all their faults these recordings represent a historic record of a genius of popular music at work. To me Dust Sucker is like a sketch pad of work which in the finished article are masterpieces. It may not be the greatest record in the world but there is gold in them there hills.

A suid eating dough in a poly-ethylene bag is fast and bulbous.

The original Bat Chain Puller is due to be released by Zappa records on 13th Feb., remastered with 3 bonus tracks from the same line up. THIS IS NOT IT. Dust Sucker is a poor quality, badly mastered version, with 6 bonus tracks from different line ups. It appears that Dust Sucker is being re released on the same date as The Original Bat chain Puller is coming out, in the hope of getting some sales of the back of it in the confusion. Don't buy Dust Sucker, buy Original Bat Chain Puller on Zappa records. Not Currently available on Amazon but available on pre order at [...]

For whatever reason this deplorable bootleg has not been pulled from the market, nor has bootleg vendor OZIT been sued yet. If you want to hear the real, legitimate, officially released BAT CHAIN PULLER, please buy the edition that the Zappa Family Trust is releasing as of February 2012. Don't say you weren't warned about this shoddy ripoff!

Despite all the protestations by others, I personally love the cover and artwork and the fact that we can finally hear supposedly from the tape that Don sent to UK promoter Roger Eagle something like Bat Chain Puler should have sounded. thios album is raw and energetic work from the captain and his Magic Band. Definitely worth buying.