Bat Chain Puller. Rock & Roll in the Age of
Celebrity
Kurt Loder
St Martins Press, New York
1990
ISBN: 0-312-04588-3
Price: $19.95
Synopsis from the book cover
Bat Chain Puller is an irreverent look at popular
culture in the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson's "A Generation
of Swine" and Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces" [...snip...]
a trenchant, revealing and often hilarious collage of articles commentary
and interviews with rock and rollers and other pop culture heroes
[...snip...] Loder also pays tribute to those who have kept the
faith and maintained a rebellious stance despite the lure of safe
celebrityhood.
Further detail
The majority of the articles in this book have been
previously published in Rolling Stone, Loder being a writer
for them, between 1980 and 1988.
The Beefheart content is included in the first section
called Fame and is a seven page article plus photograph sandwiched
between Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa (which also includes a story about
Don), and in the fifth and final section, Classic Rock, with
a two page review of Trout Mask Replica.
There are no startlingly new pieces of information
here but it's great to have the book named after one of Don's songs.
Loder explains: As for the title - I lifted Bat Chain
Puller from a song by Captain Beefheart (who assures me he doesn't
mind). You can hear it on an album called Shiny Beast (Bat Chain
Puller), and if you do, you may find that its somewhat disturbing
subterranean rhythms put you in mind of the incessant heave and
wheeze of celebrity interaction at virtually every level of American
media over the past decade. Or maybe you won't. In any case, one
has to call a book something, and Bat Chain Puller, I think, has
the advantage of being unforgettable. (Although I guess we'll see
about that.)