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.
Akshay Twinkle Khanna cutest couple in Bollywood town
By Subhash K Jha MUMBAI: Twinkle Khanna is much more than a star-wife. Contrary to the stereotypical image of her ilk, she neither spends time at kitty parties nor tries to keep a tab on her husband’s whereabouts. Instead, she has, over the years since her marriage to superstar Akshay kumar, used her time effectively to hone her skills as an entrepreneur, home-maker and writer. Her first book Mrs Funnybones displays Twinkle’s skills as an astute anecdotal raconteur who finds wit and wisdom in the commonest of domestic scenes. In an interview with Subhash K Jha, Twinkle Khanna speaks on her success as a home maker and an author. Q: Your book Mrs Funnybones is exactly the way you are, warm funny outspoken and a little twisted. Did you set out to manifest your personality in the book? A: I think in whatever you write your personality has to seep in unless you write textbooks. This was actually not the first book that I wanted to write but my editor Chiki Sarkar hit me on the head with a thesaurus that induced partial amnesia so I forgot about that book and wrote Mrs Funnybones instead. Q: A star-wife with brains, isn't that a contradiction in terms? A: Does an entity like star wife really exist? I don’t see how being married to someone would change the person you are and this tag is also slightly misogynistic because it states that a woman’s identity is based not on her own individuality but on her husband’s job! Q: Having known you from way back before you married Akshay, I can vouch for the fact that your growth as a human being and as a kindred spirit is astonishing. How did you manage to become so evolved? A: We all grow, evolve and hopefully get wiser and really what is the other way to be… Q: The film industry is a cocooned self-centered world. How have you managed to remain so down to earth and connected with the outer reality? A: I grew up in this fishbowl and I didn’t want to keep swimming in the same circular route constantly. I wanted to see all slices of life and I want the same for my children. They see the luxurious side while learning to rough it out a bit, which is the way it should be, no? Q: So many industry marriages are on the rocks. What is the secret recipe of keeping your marriage going so successfully for so any years? A: I can’t cook so I actually don’t have a recipe for anything, including this. Q: You are very different from the man of the house. He likes beetroot juice, you like coffee? A: Yes. Akshay and I are different. He doesn’t like to read and I do. I barely see movies, he sees them all the time. He could have been a professional athlete if not a movie star and I’m quite lazy in that aspect. Our upbringing is different. But somehow, we agree on how we see the world, what’s right and wrong. Q: You poke fun constantly at your mom and mother-in-law in the book. How did they react to your good-natured digs? A: I asked my mom-in law once if her friends say anything to her and she just said that she is so proud of me, my heart melted into a puddle of ghee. Both of them know that I etch out caricatures of the ubiquitous mother-in-law and the interfering mother and it doesn’t really seem to bother them. Q: You've constantly made it clear that you hated being an actress. What if your daughter decides to become an actress? A: I will happily support her in whatever she chooses to be. Q: Now that your first book is a success, do you intend to continue writing books? A: I am writing my second but its radically different from this one so lets see. Q: Mrs Funnybones is dedicated to your father (superstar Rajesh Khanna). Was he a fan of your wisecracks growing up? A: He used to complain that I shoot my mouth off and am stubborn, opinionated, and actually exactly like him. I didn’t really know what he thought about my writing and poems till quite recently, an old friend of his, put up a post on Facebook saying something like ‘ He could not always understand his daughter’s macabre poems but secretly was always proud of her and would tell me about it.’ and that was a moment that will always remain with me.
