CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: SHINY BEAST (BAT CHAIN PULLER) (1978)
1) The Floppy Boot Stomp; 2)
Tropical Hot Dog Night; 3) Ice Rose; 4) Harry Irene; 5) You Know You're A Man;
6) Bat Chain Puller; 7) When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy; 8) Owed T'Alex;
9) Candle Mambo; 10) Love Lies; 11) Suction Prints; 12) Apes-Ma.
By late 1974, I think, music lovers worldwide
must have given up on the Captain, who'd seemed to guide his ship into the
rocks — losing his loyal Magic Band, his artistic integrity, and any signs of
respect from the formerly receptive critical base. The only reason for optimism
was that, even at his least adventurous, Beefheart had always followed his own
muse and nobody else's: «simplistic» and «commercial» as they might be, even
the 1974 records sound like they could not have been produced by anybody else.
Of course, the man had his original set of influences, all the way from Chicago
blues to free jazz, yet once his musical vision had solidified, he seemed to
pay very little attention to whatever else was going on in the musical world
around him — interested in doing his own thing and nobody else's, and even if
he was going to «sell out», he'd still do it the Beefheart way, rather than
take a cue from The Doobie Brothers.
A good boost of confidence came from Frank
Zappa, with whom Beefheart spent a lot of time together in 1975-76 (including an
appearance as vocalist and occasional songwriter on Bongo Fury from 1975), and by 1976, the Captain felt resuscitated
enough to put together a properly assembled new Magic Band and begin recording
again — the result was Bat Chain Puller,
an album of completely new material that was to see the light of day in 1976,
yet ended up on indefinite hold after a conflict between Zappa and his manager
Herb Cohen resulted in all sorts of legal difficulties. Fortunately, this did
not suffice to destroy the good spirits of the Captain once again, and by 1978,
he was back on his feet, with a new deal with Warner Bros. (you know, the most
avantgardist record label in the world) and a new album, consisting partly of
re-recorded songs from Bat Chain Puller
(hence the double title) and partly of completely new material.
And it is like 1974 never existed. No, scratch
that — it is as if the Seventies
never existed as a decade altogether: Shiny
Beast picks up precisely where Trout
Mask Replica and Lick My Decals
left off, and feels like a superb reboot of the Captain Beefheart franchise.
Basically, Beefheart returns to the idea of «continuing to make weird music,
but making it more accessible»; however, instead of steering his musicians
towards more blues, more funk, and (ultimately) more pop, he remains more
closely attached to the original idiom of TMR,
except that certain angles get smoothed — less tricky time signatures,
musicians seemingly playing more in tune with each other, grooves that take
sufficient time to develop and sink in the mind: often catchy without ever
sounding simplistic, and fairly adventurous without ever sounding irritating
and pointless. Not to discriminate against The
Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot,
but this is probably the kind of
sound that the Captain should have had going for himself in 1972 — although,
this being 2017 and all, who really should care about a decade-long delay now?
Particularly since the Captain always preferred to live in his own time anyway.
From the most basic point of view, we have our
Captain back showcasing his insanity, paranoia, otherworldly creepiness, and,
occasionally, «alternate sentimentality». The very first song, subtly hinting
at the dawn of the computer age as Beefheart happily exploits the many meanings
of the word ʽbootʼ, is a post-modern cartoonish apocalyptic vision in its own
rights: with the Captain's new guitarists, Jeff Morris Tepper and Richard
Redus, playing bluesy rings around each other and drummer Robert Williams
playing complex polyrhythms with the verve of a good Keith Moon disciple, ʽThe
Floppy Boot Stompʼ is not one of the album's most melodically memorable numbers,
but it is all that it takes to immediately ascertain — yes, the Captain is
back, and it looks like he hasn't been that
excited about being back since ʽFrownlandʼ, gleefully painting meltdownish
pictures of how "the sky turned white in the middle of the night" and
"hell was just an ice cube melting off on the ground". (Essentially,
it's about a battle of characters between The Farmer and The Devil... spoiler:
The Farmer won. But that shouldn't be a surprise; after all, Don Van Vliet is a
plain old God-fearin' man at heart).
From then on, the record never lets go, and
each new song is brimming with ideas. If it is a Latin-style dance number (ʽTropical
Hot Dog Nightʼ), it will come equipped with a slightly dissonant trombone lead
part (courtesy of Bruce Fowler), an overloud marimba part (courtesy of Art
Tripp III, the only member from the old band who came back for these sessions),
and a message that the Captain is "playin' this song for all the young
girls to come out to meet the monster tonight" — sure, what else? It
wouldn't be fun any other way. ʽBat Chain Pullerʼ rides a groove that actually
gives the impression of somebody or something (a bat?) being rhythmically
pulled by its chain, apparently with great difficulty, and the song keeps
adding more and more layers as it goes on, descending into an ocean of
controlled psychedelic chaos at the end. And as silly as a title like ʽWhen I
See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummyʼ might sound, musically the song sounds like a
cross between a New Orleans funeral march, a Black Sabbath riff-rocker, and a
free jazz improvisation — but with a basic groove to which you could toe-tap
if you wanted to, and with a couple of highly melodic riffs that you could
whistle if you needed to. As for the title, well, it is not the first time that
the Captain sings to us about his inborn fear of women; personally, I think
that whoever «Mommy» is, she should be proud of causing such a complex bunch of
emotions to be encoded in such a bizarre musical synthesis.
Somewhat simpler pieces also rule — ʽCandle
Mamboʼ is indeed the Captain's personal interpretation of what a proper Latin dance number should sound
like (and the solution is: more marimbas!); ʽLove Liesʼ has distant melodic
ties to Ray Charles' ʽI Believe To My Soulʼ (and, transitively, to Dylan's
ʽBallad Of A Thin Manʼ as well), but the Captain's take on melancholic
soul-blues has to have much more Mardi Gras-style brass in it; and just for
diversity's sake, ʽHarry Ireneʼ is an almost completely normal music hall number that sounds more Ray Davies than Captain
Beefheart, but it is a totally charming interlude, a well-placed moment of sad
sentimental calm in between all the madness. Predictably, there are a few
instrumentals as well, and they all rule: ʽIce Roseʼ may be a little too
derivative of Zappa (I think everybody can hear echoes of ʽPeaches En Regaliaʼ
in there), but ʽSuction Printsʼ is totally Beefheart, a crazy blues-rocker that
actually manages to rock in between all the complex rhythmic patterns.
I should probably mention as well that
production values for the record are much higher than they used to be — despite
the near-cacophonous melange of instruments on most of the tracks, every single
guitar, every brass part, each puncturing of the marimbas remains perfectly
distinct, and there's tons of replay value here as you can trace all the cool
flourishes of one guitar, then concentrate on the one in the other speaker,
then try to assimilate the marimba melody... somehow, these songs turn me on in
ways that Trout Mask Replica never
could, and as unqualified as I am to discuss the musicological aspects of both
records, I will just have to ascribe the difference to a smart type of
compromise that Beefheart achieves here, as well as the dense nature of the
arrangements — who knows, perhaps what TMR
really needed for success was more horns, marimbas, and a cleaner mix.
Then again, no: it may well be possible that it
simply had to take Beefheart several more years to understand properly how that
ideally-visualized, but not ideally-reproduced alternate musical world of his
could come to emotional life. And I wish I could ascribe his success to the
dawning of a new musical age — but the fact is, Shiny Beast sounds absolutely nothing like any New Wave record at
the time, and thus, remains absolutely timeless. It ends on a depressing note
(the forty-seconds long ʽApes-Maʼ is one of Beefheart's most pessimistic bits
of declamation, especially if he is referring to himself, which I think he
is), but then, it's not as if the entire record were contrastively uplifting:
there's plenty of melancholy and desperation hiding in these grooves, they are
just not openly «whiny» or «hysterical», and that's a good thing, because in
order to succeed, Shiny Beast had
to show some teeth, first and foremost — otherwise, people would just say «oh,
he's bitching about being down on his luck and out of talent». Nope: Shiny Beast is all set to kick your
ass, then give you a friendly pat on the head, then kick your ass some more,
and only then retreat in the corner and let out a few hard-to-hold-back sighs...
"Apes-Ma, Apes-Ma, you're eating too much and going to the bathroom too
much... and Apes-Ma, your cage isn't getting any bigger, Apes-Ma". Don't
we all feel like that sometimes? Thumbs up.
In retrospect, I have to agree with your previous assessment about this being the best Beefheart album, if only because it gets the best elements of his previous works and puts them in a nice package, and with good songs to boot.
ReplyDeleteTropical Hot Dog Night, mutherfuckers!
ReplyDeleteCertainly Shiny Beast is the best album since Trout Mask.
ReplyDeleteHow can Ice Rose be derivative of a Zappa song from 1969 if it's a re-recording of a 1968 outtake?
ReplyDelete