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
Mona Lizza who is alos known as Sara Loren.[/caption]
After much questioning, one was introduced to the new Murder Girl to be Sara Loren, a sex bomb from Pakistan who, we were told, is a top-notch model and actress across the border. Before one could get disturbing visions of another Meera or Veena Malik making her way into Bollywood, one decided to do some probing.
And voila! Sara Loren turned out to be none other than the popular Pakistani actress Mona Lizza who made her Indian debut two years ago in Pooja Bhatt’s Kajra Re and then vanished unceremoniously. The ambitious girl has now changed her name and forwarding address. She is been re-christened Sara Loren after, ahem ahem, the Italian actress Sophia Loren (no less!) and is now a resident of Mumbai.
PICTURES: Sara Loren
Most interestingly, Sara, nee Mona, has been resurrected by the Bhatts alongside the London Paris New York girl Aditi Rao Hydari.
Says an important source from the Bhatt camp,“That’s because they see Sara and Aditi’s’s potential to sizzle up the screen with their sex appeal. Even Mallika Sherawat in Murder and Jacqueline Fernandez in Murder 2 had a couple of duds to their discredit before they were re-launched in the Murder series. The Bhatts are confident that Aditi and Mona Lizza, now named Sara Loren, would make the same impact as Mallika and Jacqueline.”
And the Pakistani hottie is leaving no stone unturned in South Africa. Her love-making scenes with Randeep Hooda, being shot by Mukesh Bhatt’s debutant son, have become the talking point among the unit.
According to someone close to the project, “Sara is absolutely uninhibited before the camera. Her love scenes with Randeep will make his scenes with Sunny Leone look like foreplay. Mona, that’s what we all call her still, is destined to take the sex quotient in our cinema to a new climax.”
[caption id="attachment_90514" align="alignnone" width="600"]
Mona Lizza in a scene with Randeep Hooda in Murder 3.[/caption]
Randeep, who had no qualms getting intimate with Sunny Leone in Jism 2, finds it hard to keep up with Ms Loren’s enthusiasm for the wild stuff on camera.
While everyone in the Bhatt camp is tight-lipped about the re-invention of the Pakistani sizzler, the ever-candid Mukesh Bhatt blurted out, “Yes, we’ve got Sara Loren opposite Randeep shooting at this very minute in South Africa for Murder 3. At Vishesh Films we believe in not just making movies but also destinies. We believe Sara has the potential to take over from where Mallika and Jacqueline left off in Murder and Murder 2.”
Mukesh Bhatt thinks Randeep and Sara would burn up the screen when the film releases.
“Their chemistry has to be seen to be believed. I left the choice of heroine completely to my son Vishesh who makes his directorial debut in Murder 2. Fortunately he has a mind of his own which he uses judiciously. The first shock he gave me was when I read his script. It was unlike anything our banner or for that matter, anything tried by Hindi cinema before. The second shock Vishesh gave me was when he announced he wanted Randeep and not Emraan for the male lead. Considering Emmy is our own in-house hero, it was really surprising. But then we need to get the banner out of a straitjacket. We need fresh talent that would steer Vishesh Films into new directions. No point in doing our trademark films over and over again. When audiences see what my son has done in Murder 3 they will be shocked beyond belief.”
Mukesh Bhatt proudly reveals this is the 84th year in the Hindi film industry for the Bhatt clan. My father Nanabhai Bhatt began directing films in the silent era in 1928. He went from the silent to the talkies era. Then me and my brother have produced an aggregate of nearly 70 films. Now in 2012 we’re ready to release our first 3D film Raaz 3 and mind you, it is not a fake 3D film. We haven’t converted a 2D film into 3D. We shot the film in the 3D format. This is the 25th year of Vishesh Films. Grant us the luxury of feeling proud. The Bhatts have been around for 84 of the 100 years of Indian cinema’s existence. No film family can claim this achievement.”
IN PICS: Sexiest Pakistani woman Tehmeena Afzal
