Features & Business
NEWS for SOUL
(((fnbworld RADIO)))
Beyonce
Don't Hurt Yourself
Features & Business
(((fnbworld RADIO)))
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.
___________________
Patrick Moore is a freehand drawing artist and freelance music writer.
News Grille
CECIL VICTOR. Editorial. IV.X.XVII
BEWARE 'BHINDRANWALE
AVENUE'
By Cecil Victor
The process of internecine warfare among terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir appears to be a boon in terms of “actionable intelligence” for security forces; but one must remember that vital lesson from the Khalistan uprising in Punjab that “an enemy’s enemy is a friend” could create another Bhindranwale.
Since the killing of the charismatic local Hizbul Mujideen commander Burhan Wani, Pakistan has been losing its fancied puppets at a rate of one a month because someone from within the terrorist groups—Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaishe Muhammad, the Al Badr and the new Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind led by Zakir Musa – is believed to be supplying information to security forces about the presence and location of inconvenient rivals within the terrorist camps.
The insurgency situation is changing at a rapid rate and known terrorists are being quickly replaced by school dropouts and targets are shifting from street violence to strategic assets like the Banihal tunnel (the alternate route to Jammu and Kashmir); police personnel – the generators of local intelligence — and military and paramilitary men on leave to demoralize the security forces.
The bounty for the security forces in the form of actionable intelligence is the fallout from the creation of the Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind by Zakir Musa. “Acting on specific intelligence inputs” appears to be the panagric for gratis information about rivals that began flowing out of Zakir Musa’s rise in the terrorist pantheon. Musa himself has publically threatened to expose his rivals in the wake of the spate of National Investigating Agency raids on sources of terrorist funding. What demonitisation failed to do, the NIA raids appear to be accomplishing.
Pakistan’s attempt at creating a festering sore of unease and loss of morale after the series of attacks on security personnel in Uri, Pathankot and Gurdaspur boomeranged in the shape of the of surgical strikes by Indian Army commandos. The “tell all” reports in newspapers and television networks marked the anniversary of the strikes in late September. The surgical strikes underscored the point that India knows enough of what is going on in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the adjoining Pakistani territory across the international border to be able to launch such attacks with precision and without loss of personnel. Pakistan, understanding fully the implications of the retaliation for the Uri attack has been seen scrambling for cover even while denying that the surgical strikes ever took place!
In May this year Mr A.S Dulat the former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) – India’s external Intelligence agency – had said: “Yes, the situation is turning worse. Is it worse than 1990? My answer is Yes and No. It is worse in terms of atmospherics. Because of alienation and the anger of youth, young Kashmiri minds have gone out of control…Today the situation is scarier. When stonepelting is done by youth and girls it is abnormal. Today they are proud to be stonepelters. They are no longer hiding. Schoolgirls and women are coming out to throw stones. The Kashmir situation has never been so bad.” On radicalization, Mr Dulat had this to say: “Radicalism increasing in Kashmir is well known. It is also known that radical Islam is affecting more the youth than the older generation of Kashmiris who still respect Kashmiriyat and Sufi-ism… But among the youth radical Islam is spreading because of continuous conflict in their society.”
This is what appears to be rearing its head in the fact that those involved in the attack on the Shastra Suraksha Bal (SSB) picket guarding the Banihal tunnel were dropout students.
The figures of casualties among terrorists tell their own story. There has been a sudden spurt in encounter deaths of top terrorist commanders operating out of PoK as well as inside Jammu and Kashmir. Ten since January (2), March (1). Since the Dulat interview seven top terrorist commanders have been gunned down (this happened in spite of local people trying to help them escape by stonepelting). All of them were targets of “specific intelligence inputs”.
This is all to the good because it raises the morale of the nation and, more specifically, the security forces that are being targeted by the terrorists. A combination of a cutoff of funds from Pakistan and elsewhere to finance terror and the very visible and deliberate neutralization of top terrorist commanders will result in a decapitation and demoralization of terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the commanders killed so far belong to the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the rest from the Hizbul Mujahideen.
A leaderless lot of jihadi terrorists will begin to spawn their own branded leaders as happened in the case of the Khalistani movement in Punjab. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale emerged from out of the crowd of Khalistanis because of the political patronage he enjoyed under the ruling class.
We all know what happened when the government of the day decided to send the army into the Golden Temple to get him during Operation Blue Star. It stoked a rebellion among a small section of troops which was fortunately quickly neutralized. Finally, it was the genius of the late lamented K.P.S. Gill that managed to break the back of the Khalistan movement in an operation inside the Golden Temple some years later.
In Jammu and Kashmir out of gratitude for the actionable Intelligence about other terrorist commanders the government may end up overlooking a greater danger.
In a scenario of a “last terrorist standing” we may end up in recreating a facsimile of Bhindranwale.
_________________________________________
Disclaimer: The opinions/views expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author.fnbworld/News for Soul is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of fnbworld and fnbworld does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. [The online tabloid believes in open source; feel free to use any material with due attribution (Mandatory) to the author and webzine with a hyperlink. Thank You].
© Copyright: Right Impact Media Inc. 2003-2022. All rights reserved.