Wandering over to the fz official site a few days ago, apart from a seasonal banner pic, i found a chat transcript with denny walley i hadn’t read before. The discography of his fz contributions is certainly an interesting set of records, notwithstanding various magic band contributions.
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Denny, how about your relationship to ZFT, I assume it is good, eh
Denny Walley
It is beautiful. They are family to me.
mmm yeah………I spoke to Denny a couple of weeks ago following The Magic Band gig in Edinburgh – I was interested, on the basis of his apparent continued relationship with the ZFT, as to whether or not he thought it likely that Captain Beefheart’s “Bat Chain Puller” (Denny “Feelers Reebo” Walley played slide on it ) would ever see light of day from The Vault ( FZ retained the masters of this album and refused to hand them over ).
Denny said that he thought that this was very unlikely.
Personally, I feel this is a great pity; had it been otherwise it could have gone some way to salvaging FZ’s reputation in the eyes of Beefheart fans.
I am a big Beefheart fan, and I really don’t believe that FZ’s reputation needs salvaging….Ever heard “Trout Mask Replica” ?
Well, that’s debatable Ken. Mike Barnes’ biog of Beefheart reports that he was none too impressed with the low-budget field recording of the production on Trout Mask Replica. Just one of the many ups and downs in the FZ – DVV relationship.
From what I read though, FZ refusing to part with the Bat Chain Puller master was a fairly final straw and IMHO was a pretty shabby thing for Zappa to have done to an old friend.
Beefheart maybe thinks that “Trout Mask” could have been better, but I don’t….. I wish FZ had produced “Decals” as well…
Managed to find the bat chain puller you were referring to guac. Was confused initially, because i have the shiny beast (bat chain puller) album that contains similar tracks. I found a reference to a dust sucker album which would seem to contain the tracks, if not in a+ audio format. The official faq says ‘Other titles may or may not be mail order, but they will not be released on Vaulternative Records.’, which seems perhaps a little equivocal. The comment on the dust sucker review that ‘Because of sordid and petty money and attorney dramas, it never saw the light of day’ is a little disapointing, considering the well known warner bros situation.
Thanks Bert – as always thoroughly researched.
I have a bootleg copy of Bat Chain Puller – sound quality not good but the energy of that Magic Band line-up still shines through.
ZFT faq responses as unfathomable as always.