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 East West NEW DELHI: India’s international image took another beating on Tuesday when an American tourist was gang-raped by a truck driver and his two associates in the hill tourist resort of Manali in Himachal Pradesh. The latest sexual assault on a western woman tourist in India comes just a day after a 21-year-old Irish charity worker was drugged and raped in Kolkata. The 30-year-old American woman tourist in Manali was returning home after visiting her friend when she was offered a ride by the culprits. They drove the truck to an isolated place and gang-raped her, according to police. Her medical examination confirmed the rape. ``The 30-year-old was raped by men in a truck on Monday night. They offered her a lift and she accepted it," police inspector Abhimanyu Kumar was quoted as saying. He said, ``The woman cannot remember the number plate of the truck and she could not understand what the accused were talking about. They drove the truck to an isolated spot and raped her for nearly one hour.’’ All truckers in Manali are being scanned to identify the culprits. The shameful incident comes just two days after a 21-year-old young Irish charity worker was drugged raped by a Kolkata businessman after a birthday party Police said the accused Sujoy Mitra, a 35-year-old businessman, mixed her tea with drugs and then raped her. Mitra, who has been remanded to police custody, took the Irish woman to his home after the party. The two incidents of sexual assaults on western women come just after two months when a Swiss woman was gangraped in Madhya Pradesh (central India) while on trekking with her husband. In January, British tourist Jessica Davies to the Taj Mahal in Agra said she escaped being raped by jumping from her hotel room balcony after the hotel manager tried to enter her room forcibly. These incidents happened after the gangrape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old medical student in the Indian capital which sent shock waves across the world and triggered nationwide protests. According to a survey, the number of foreign women tourists visiting India has dropped by 35 percent after the Delhi gangrape and the January incident involving the British woman tourist. Many western nations have warned women against visiting India. READ ALSO: Russian tourist in Goa mercilessly beaten for ringing temple bell
Greg: India is the rape capital of the world. Not to mention all the slums and filth that are part of this sh*thole country. The Indian prime minister is always busy taking leisure trips all across the globe, meeting world leaders, buying military aircrafts from Russia (because Indians are not good at making their own lol)... The prime minister does all these activities but does nothing to stop these crimes. No harsh law in India against a hineous crime like rape. If you go to the middle east, rapists are either stoned to death or beheaded. But in india, they are allowed to commit crimes, just so that the indian film industry can make "masala" movies out of these sensitive issues.
And guess what, the sexually starved indian politicians in the secrecy of their homes enjoy these sick movies which are based on true rape cases.
These Indians are hypocrites. On one hand they maintain a goody goody public image by dressing in traditional clothes, greet others with folded hands, lectures on spirituality and karma ... but on the inside they're all sexually repressed who wouldn't hesitate to pounce on a defenseless woman (when the oppurtunity strikes) in order to quench their beastly appetites.
Its best to stay away from these low life scums.
Anne: Why are you blaming the British colony? When in fact, it is your original culture ever since before they came. Lol. You can't deny that it's Indian men's main problem because they don't know how to behave themselves....some countries with lots of Indian communities in New Zealand still harassing their own women and some other migrants except kiwi-indians. Shame on you.
Indiancobratongue: it's ok, this is India, they used to raped their own mother, sister, daughter or whatever object that look like a female vagina, this is what they called as traditional culture! If anyone feel uncomfortable with this, just go blame the British who colonized India for more than 200 years but didn't educate them about morality...
professor X: fuck india, it will never progress........
Your Name...: Women should carry weapon & kill or harm them in defence. bastards! 
