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 Gurmukh Singh
VANCOUVER: Vancouver-based Gurpal Birak is undoubtedly among the top five Indo-Canadian farmers in Canada.
His Birak Berry Farms, spread over over 600 acres around Vancouver, harvest what he calls “top-quality blueberry, blackberry and strawberry’’ crops.
“Last year, our farm output was 300 million pounds. Having added another 150 acres this year, I am hoping that we will produce over 500 million pounds this time,’’ says Gurpal Birak who hails from Kaley village near Phagwara and landed in Canada in 1980.
But farming is actually a part-time profession for Gurpal Birak and his family because he also is the biggest labour supplier in British Columbia province of Canada.
“My company Star Labour Supply Ltd has over 300 labourers on its rolls and we are the biggest supplier of labour to farms. New immigrants from India come to us in search of work,’’ he says.
Narrating his family’s journey into Canada, Gurpal Birak says, “We are four brothers. We had very fertile 10 acres in our village and we were doing well. But then my brother, who is a trained engineer, came to Canada in 1973. Other members of the family followed him. I came here after completing my MA in political science from Himachal University.’’
The eldest Birak brother was lucky to get employed as an engineer with British Columbia Hydro. But also he became a part-time farm labour supplier as newly arrived Indian immigrants looked for work on Indo-Canadian farms.
“Our labour supply business picked up as people and farms trusted us. But agriculture is in our DNA. We thought that since we handled farm labour supply, so why we shouldn’t start our own farming operations also. That’s how we bought over 20 acres and started blueberry cultivation in the 1990s,’’ says Gurpal Birak.
In less than 20 years, Birak Berry Farms have multiplied their harvest produce and acreage many times over.
“Because berry farming is a technology-intensive operation, we have employed the best machines for harvesting and packaging. Moreover, we have always kept focus on top-quality produce. We supply locally and across the border to the United States,’’ says the Sikh farmer who has also served as vice-president of Vancouver’s oldest gurdwara – called Ross Street Sikh Temple – from 1999 to 2011.
[caption id="attachment_79413" align="alignnone" width="800"]
Gurpal’s wife Harminder plucking strawberry at their Birak Berry Farms.[/caption]
Birak considers the success of Indo-Canadians in agriculture and politics due to their intense involvement in community activities.
“Our success in these fields springs from our close-knit community. Because of my community activities I want to reduce my farming operations, but our farms keep growing,’’ he laughs.
Gurpal Birak’s young son, who has come back from Australia after completing his JD in law, has deferred cutting his farming teeth as he first wants to work as an assistant with a local Indo-Canadian MP and then enter politics.
“My family have been active in politics in Punjab and here. My son will go into politics as well as become a part-time farmer,’’ says Gurpal Birak who is assisted by his wife Harminder in running their huge farms.
Interestingly, Birak’s wife is also a part-time farmer as she runs her own independent travel agency.
“So, we are a family of part-time farmers,’’ quips Birak.
But these part-time farmers have become Canada’s top success story.
