Bat Chain Puller

Gail revealed that, all being well, the good Captain's FZ-produced Bat Chain Puller should be released in January

Bat Chain Puller is in your near future—and fyi, it was not produced by FZ. The liner notes are fabulous and filled with stories about the magical Captain.

Frank had been on tour during the entire time we were rehearsing and recording the album. When he came back from touring, he found that Herb had changed all the locks to everything in the Discreet Records complex, which at that time was located on Hollwyood Boulevard just east of Vine Street. Cohen had confiscated all of Zappa's equipment, all his archived recordings—in effect, everything was gone—including the master tape of "Bat Chain Puller." [...] [Frank] soon discovered that Herb had secretly used Zappa's publishing monies to finance the recording. It is entirely possible that Frank had not authorized this project at all.

Another of the rumours to reach London mooted that the new Captain Beefheart album was being held up because of Frank and Herbie breaking up. The new album is called "Bat Chain Puller".

"It's his best album since 'Trout Mask Replica', it's really good." It was produced by Beefheart himself and Kerry McNab, who was the remix engineer on Zappa's "One Size Fits All". Frank has the master tapes in his studio basement at home.

Beefheart is signed to Virgin in England but Frank, though he would love to see the album released, can't send them the tapes "because I can't do anything until this Herbie thing is cleared up. Herbie is holding out for a settlement." Frank is sure that both he and Virgin would get sued if they tried to release the album before everything is settled, the problem here being that Herbie apparently wnts the advance money paid to him and Frank thinks it should go to him since he claims it was his money that paid for the production.