gerry pratt reported about this item in the news section of fanzine steal softly thru snow #5, and paul 'rollin' red' brown described it in the 'big bad but beautiful book of beefheart bootlegs #2'. summarized, they said:

1994 Bootleg CD THE ORIGINAL BAT CHAIN PULLER on CBCD 514 - provenance is not disclosed, but again from the company responsible for the excellent Live At The Radar Station CD (and 'if you got ears', which both are 'made in luxembourg' - teejo) with sleeve artwork from the man himself plus a photo of Don on the '72 tour coach to Brighton (both taken from the 011293 uk 'mojo #2' - t.t.). Unlike the vinyl bootlegs this is the real thing: the complete album in excellent stereo as Don wanted - and which at this very moment may be being mixed for a planned official release in early 1997! By the way: it comes with an art CD, and Carson City (Owed T' Alex) is the track written about / for Alex Snouffer.

remarks and REVIEW by teejo

on the back of the folded front inlay the outcut of don's painting from the mojo special continues, although you should turn the sheet ninety degrees to the left to get the right idea. the inside is filled with adequate information about the making and non-release of the album. however, the rest of the notes added contains quite a few mistakes: there are several spelling errors in the track list and the date '1973' for the live bonus should be 150472.

worse, the two instrumentals are given the wrong titles: 'flavor bud living' is 'a carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond', and reverse! but worst of all is that the SOUND quality is a TOTAL DISASTER...! yes, the stereo effect is there, but as a start the ceedee has been dubbed from an enormously worn-out tape. that source also must have been very weary, because the whole recording is too slow - as later releases would proof (three seconds every minute). the fluttering and reedy sound surely guarantees a crackling headache!

my CONCLUSION: it's not funny

months before the release of the booty item reviewed above, the very same 'record company' had manufactured a compilation of outtakes, rarities and less known guest appearances. as a sort of preview it contained one of the two tracks from 'bat chain puller' that never had been released: odd jobs. die-hards must have felt halfway heaven with this sought-after - till they discovered it's a version at the slow speed....

a reconstruction of the front cover

for a short while a surprising version of some recordings from 'bat chain puller', combined with (you guess) material from the 'trout mask replica' era, surfaced at a few european fairs. not the plain fact that it only has been available for maybe two months makes this rather curious combination a real collectors item. because for one or other reason the SOUND QUALITY of the tracks is so PERFECT they must have been copied from (very close to) the master tapes!

of course, the fabulous sound might be great fun, but for the rest you need to compile your own edition, because the manufacturer used a computer to put the tracks on the recordable ceedee so...: they're all in alphabetical following order! done, it still is an incomplete album... for after removing the strange bonus 'light reflected off the oceands of the moon' lost amid the tracks (an officially released instrumental from 1982), it occurs that the poems 'poop hatch' and 'apes ma' are missing. besides that, home editors should notice the classical mistake that 'a carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond' is 'flavor bud living', and reverse.

i'm sure, as the superb sound quality makes good for the historical incompleteness and the track list hustling not everyone will complain like me. just like there are people who won't care that the notes to this item in fact contain no explanation to this half of the ceedee. for the added information concentrates on the other part, pieces from the 'ethnic recordings' of the 1969 masterwork 'trout mask replica' - also known as 'house sessions'. although...: it's one big robbery.

not only does the front of the notes appear to be a cut from the official ceedee booklet, its further content simply is a reproduction of the well known 'trout mask replica' review titled 'the captain must be mad' (010869 uk magazine zigzag #4). as the designer of this record obviously had an internet connection, it's no surprise the other illustrations - although they're far away from the subjects of the ceedee - were pinched from the web too: a series of five live pictures from the 'lick my decals off, baby' tour (albuquerque 280271).

my CONCLUSION: almost perfect....

additional information these enormously 'improved versions of the original bat chain puller' - as the notes call it - have been available in cyberspace for a while. so the community of the new-generation fans ('merely as long as it is cheap or for free') grabbed the chance to extend their 'personal archives' with those second hand sounds in mp3 format. so there must exist several clones of the counterfeited material, like for example: burnleg ceedee ORIGINAL BAT CHAIN PULLER 1976
sweden 1999 stink foot disc sfd cd 021
without tracks 4 and 12 - RIGHT speed
plus six BONUS tracks OUTTAKES
total time 58:33

although the playing order has been re-constructed in accordance with the original plan both poems still fail and despite the correct titles to the instrumentals, they have changed places. the added outtakes are 'presumably from the same session' and the picture on the front is a beefheart portrait from the anton corbijn photo session which took place in fall 1980.