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.
By Aneka Chohan Whenever I hear the word `prostitute’, the first image that comes to mind is an inappropriately dressed woman standing in filthy streets waiting for a client. The discussion on the issue how cruel the profession is to women – their empty, hungry stomachs forcing them to sell their bodies in order to buy bread for the family. But let’s think for a moment; what about all the men, the children, and the teenagers that engage in such acts? In Pakistan, the topic of prostitution is taboo – one that is hardly ever discussed. It is difficult to describe or understand the scale of this corrupt profession. The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) has said that hardly anyone has ever tried to challenge the problem of male prostitution thanks to the ‘strong social taboo’ it carries with it. This logically translates to the fact that the health department does not even have any data or records related to male prostitution, so they cannot tell us the exact statistics. However, according to the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, in 2001, it is thought that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 children were affected by commercial sexual exploitation. ‘Free floating’ prostitution resembles ‘the pick and choose scheme’ and is widespread in many major cities where under-aged children including hijras (transgenders) can be picked right off the street. A child prostitute of 14 years can be easily bought with the meagre sum of three to five thousand rupees. Male child prostitutes – ranging from ages 15-25 – are thought to be cheaper than their female counterparts. Unlike females, male prostitutes are reluctant to reveal specific problems and details about their work because of social taboos. Surveys show that children as young as eight-years-old work as male prostitutes. Since they have limited skills to rely on in order to support themselves, prostitution becomes the most practical and lucrative form of employment. According to data collected, children allege that police and army soldiers make up a `significant portion of their clientele.’ The sad thing is that even though many of these young boys are free to leave the profession whenever they want to, financial difficulties and lack of choices force them to continue. They, thus, grow up to be pimps themselves. A child prostitute is believed to earn up to Rs 12,000 per month which is more than most jobs pay children. Similar to male prostitution is the practice of ‘bachabazi’ which exists in Pakistan mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is thought to refer to older men keeping young boys as their sexual partners with the former becoming responsible for the education, clothing and general care of the latter in return for ‘sexual favours.’ Through a study, the National Coalition of Child Rights and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) discovered that a third of the men living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were proud to be pedophiles. Another 11% thought there was nothing wrong with this practice. The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development (NCCWD) interviewed 233 children in the country’s four provinces and found out that a shocking amount of 159 revealed that they had engaged in commercial sex. Out of the 159, 98 were boys who found business in public places such as hotels, restaurants, video shops, cinema halls and parks. According to surveys, 95% of the teenage prostitutes in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore were sexually abused by their close relatives, friends and teachers before entering the business of prostitution. Contrary to common judgement of prostitutes normally being uneducated and poor, research has shown that 74% of them were university graduates. Although one tends to associate prostitution only to women, men, teenagers and children are equal victims, suffering the cruel injustice of being sexually abused. Young children are pushed into this profession simply because they do not have enough money or the skills that come from a good education. Moreover, young, naïve people fall victim to the cruel and ruthless pimps who entrap them with promises of money and transform them into the very same monsters they are. Prostitution, whether it is legal or not in various countries, is a form of discrimination against humanity. It is degrading, it spreads diseases, and encourages lazy labour. We must put a stop to it. (Courtesy Express Tribune) READ ALSO: Saudi Sheikh tries to rape donkey, killed!
