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Peter's music has been heard on hundreds of radio stations and has been on SiriusXM rotation for over a decade. As a multi-award winning artist, Peter's music has also topped Billboard's Classical and Crossover charts.
For Captain Beefheart, a maverick-artist-musician, who was not just a complicated man but highly demanding and by most accounts very difficult to deal with. It was appropriate that Beefheart's Magic Band was to prominently feature a bassist as accomplished, bold and adventurous as Mark Boston, a.k.a Rockette Morton.
Born on July 14, 1949, Mark began life in the small town of Salem, Illinois before his family moved out to Lancaster, California when he was 13. With a bassist and steel player for a father, Mark gained a great appreciation for country and bluegrass along with the R&B and rock’n’roll that was on the rise. Within a year of the Boston clan moving out to Lancaster, Mark befriended a young guitarist by the name of Bill Harkleroad.
At a time when the bass guitar was seen as the dummy’s instrument, Mark left quite an impression on Bill with his talent and equipment, leading to the two joining forces to form BC And The Cavemen. With Mark’s mother sewing some outfits for them, the band developed a decent reputation, and the two would also play in a band with Jeff Cotton and John French known as Blues In A Bottle. And then a local hero came calling. Or perhaps screaming and howling!
In that same Lancaster scene, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band were making a big splash as a top flight blues rock outfit, with 'Safe As Milk' having made a strong impression and 'Strictly Personal' being a strong record as well. But even with a sound that was speaking to people, one that perhaps would have been a more pragmatic one as far as a career goes, Don Van Vliet just wasn’t meant for conventional norms.
The Captain had all these ideas, ideas far too out for many, including early members. He needed new musicians, younger and more impressionable ones that wouldn’t object to his ideas. Already having John and Jeff in the band, now 'Drumbo' and Antennae Jimmy Semens, he then recruited Bill, dubbed Zoot Horn Rollo. And on bass, he found Mark Boston, who took the name Rockette Morton due to his love of outer space. And the classic Magic Band was born.
Trout Mask Replica (TMR) wasn’t an easy album to make. Yet even with all the bizarre ideas and the difficulty in preparing those ideas into music, Mark was a total champ through it all. The Beefheart sound is one of great dichotomy, and Mark can capture all of it. He’s so tight and precise, and yet there’s this raw grit and dirt. He’s highly intelligent and sophisticated in his playing, and yet there remains this childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.
He takes after all the great traditional American music, yet out into a whole other realm of time and space. The bass traditionally serves the role of grounding the harmony while locking in with the drums to provide a foundation, yet Mark’s playing often serves as another melody line in the music. In a lot of ways, he’s like a third guitarist that just happens to be playing bass.
The TMR on its own is a legacy few can compete with, and yet Mark contributed to more classic records like "Lick My Decals Off, Baby", "The Spotlight Kid", and "Clear Spot". There on Decals, you get the equivalent of Godfather II. With Mother Art Tripp on marimba and drums rather Jeff on guitar, you get an album that captures a great deal of TMR's brilliance while being brilliant in its own unique way.
Then you get to 'The Spotlight Kid', with bass godliness on cuts like “When It Blows Its Stack”, resulting in a bass solo that often opened shows, yet Mark proves himself just as talented on traditional in-the-pocket styles as demonstrated on cuts like “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby”. And that thing about bassists being failed guitarists? In the 'Clear Spot', with Mark taking guitar and the rhythm section now being a mini Mothers reunion of Art and Roy Estrada, yet nobody missed a beat. Throughout the record, Bill and Mark’s kinship really shines, their weaving right there with what Bill and Jeff had done, or what was done with Alex St Clair early on.
Of course, dealing with Don was quite a task of its own, so it’s inevitable that Mark and the others would all end up departing by 1974. He and Bill soon formed a group of their own called Mallard. For two albums, the first with Art and having some writing help from John French 'Drumbo', Mallard showed itself a pretty decent blues rock outfit. And giving that it was Mark who finally had a chance to create something that was truly his own rather than helping some achieve their vision, it’s understandably the work that he takes pride in. And over time, he’d end up making a solo record and create some cool artwork of his own, as well as performing with 'Drumbo' in the reformed Magic Band, allowing the music to live and breathe on stage again.
If you’re a Beefheart fan, how can you not love Rockette Morton? Not only a uniquely talented bass player but such a great stage presence full of joy, along with a lovably quirky personality and such a sweet guy. Easily one of my favorites from Magic Band members, you can’t help but smile when thinking about Mark. He’s been through some rough weather, including his health scares, and yet he’s still the same Mark we’ve known and loved all the years.
Happy birthday Mark! Thank you for all you have given us and look forward to more.
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Patrick Moore is a freehand drawing artist and freelance music writer.
News Grille
CECIL VICTOR. Editorial. XXIII.VII.XVIII
Fraying At The Periphery
By Cecil Victor
Nepal has escaped the Indian sphere of influence on the wings of a perception that has persisted in the Nepali psyche that India was responsible for the blockade of essential goods during the Madheshi agitation of 2015. Nepalis decided that such a situation would not be allowed to recur again. So they turned to China which was waiting with open arms and bagsful of money. Hence, perceptions matter.
Playing out this scenario in all its wretched nuances geopolitics has induced developments that will have a long-lasting deleterious effect on India-Nepal-China relations and could well be irreversible. For one, the coalescence of the two major Maoist political entities in Nepal means the creation of an anti-India phalanx that could have a nexus with the Maoists operating in the Indian heartland. The image of India has taken a beating.
“Special relations” have gone for a six and now the hitherto “open border” will have to be plugged to curb the Pakistan Army Inter-Services Intelligence from taking full advantage of the Chinese backing for the Pakistani terrorist groups that will now increasingly use the new arrangement to accelerate what it has long hoped to achieve -- a vivisection of India. That will be a new irritant. Further down the line is the issue of recruitment of Nepali personnel in the Indian Army.
While it must be admitted that the essence of the Doklam crisis was the Chinese intention of testing Indian inclination and ability to defend its special relations with Bhutan. India did well to respond with alacrity and determination to call the Chinese bluff. The perception that prevailed from this crisis was that India can and will defend Bhutan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. It is a perception that needs to be preserved and nurtured with actions in both the military and the diplomatic arena.
However, there have been developments along India’s periphery, particularly in the Indian Ocean region that have shown up India in poor light. The Maldives fiasco and the failure to finalise the deal to create a military complex in the Seychelles group of islands off the eastern seaboard of Africa. The standard textbook method of using public opinion to sabotage an idea was utilized to create a groundswell against the project. India could not either politically or diplomatically counter the adverse reaction to the project. The gainer again is China who has established a military base in the former French colony of Djibouti north of Seychelles.
Back home, blinkered by the brute majority in Parliament, the BJP led National Democratic Alliance government is either uncaring because the victims of the phenomenon known as vigilantism largely belong to a particular community or prefers to play the card for a majoritarian polarization. The consequences could be terrible for the unity and integrity of India.
Already the narrative in Jammu and Kashmir is shifting from ‘greater autonomy’ to undiluted ‘Aazadi’. Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement in Parliament laying the onus of remedial action on the Chief Ministers of States (because law and order is a State Subject) and social media service providers to exercise control practically washing his own hands off the problem.
Clearly the Government of the day has not learned any lessons from the Nepal fiasco. Much as it may be denied there is no gainsaying the fact that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is increasingly gaining international traction.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh needs to be reminded that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is now under Governor’s Rule. As Union Home Minister he is an important cog in the wheel in the governance of the State.
The perception is growing that the government is complicit in the vigilantism and the lynchings. There is little evidence that the government has done enough to stop it. Reports of arms training to youth with the specific mission of dealing with ‘love jihad’ could have been countered more effectively if, indeed, it was fake news. But the wrapping of the body of a person who was the main accused in a lynching could at least have attracted the penal provisions of the Indian Flag Code (no new law is required) for those who performed the act.
Worse, the persistent perception in Jammu and Kashmir is that persons are being targeted for being Muslim. For a State on the periphery with large parts in occupation of Pakistan and China backed by military presence underscores a scenario vastly different from when a Pakistani General planned the invasion by infiltration in the hope that the local population will rise up in support.
That did not happen then. That it will happen now or in the new future can be guaranteed by the factum of the emergence of photographs of 14 armed young men.
In all respects it is another Pakistan in the making.
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