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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 Grille
Rajan Grover. Editorial.VI.IX.XVII
QATAR QUOTIENT
By Rajan Grover
The Middle East continues to face the curse of regional split. If the Sunni-Shia rivalry was not enough, this time it seems to be an intra Sunni divide. Last week, in a surprise move, the Gulf cooperation council led by Saudi Arabia severed the diplomatic ties with its important member Qatar accusing it for helping and promoting terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaida! By giving only 48 hours to call back their diplomatic staff and just 14 days to exchange their nationals, most members of the council have also snapped their road, air and sea links with it. This was near catastrophic for Qatar that has been subjected to almost being in a siege.
Most diplomacy commentators see it as an after-effect of Donald Trump’s visit to the House of Saud on the occasion of launching Islamic Military Allaince (IMA) to fight against terrorism. The aims and objectives of this alliance were in doubt right from the start as this military alliance didn’t include all the important Muslim countries like Iran and also ignored the terrorism affected countries like Afghanistan and Syria. With the call of Donald Trump to Isolate Iran and all the present countries joining the chorus of Iran bashing, the worst fears came true that the so called `Islamic Alliance’ is in fact Sunni military alliance directed against Iran.
Qatar was formed in early 1970’s. It is a very small Peninsula having its only land border with Saudi Arabia. The country has a small population of about 3 million and it keeps a modest military of about 10-20,000. Qatar occupies a unique position in the gulf countries due to the following reasons:
1. It is the powerhouse of the Liquified Natural Gas fulfilling the 33% of LNG demand worldwide.
2. The terrain of country is such that extraction of LNG cost is minimum. This helps it to sell the gas at very competitive prices at world market, making it the richest country of the world in terms of per capita income.
3. Al-Jazeera:The name of this mega media house is enough to know about the soft power enjoyed by Qatar throughout the world. Inspite of the best efforts, the other neighboring countries failed to create the magic and the dedicated following of viewers as Al-Jazeera network has done.
Apart from this, Qatar hosts the forward bases of America’s central military command and it has been an important ally of the US. These are the sufficient reasons for the jealousy among the Saudi Arabia led countries of the region who are falling on each other to get the more attention and favour from the USA by projecting themselves more loyal to it than the others.
The tensions between Saudi Arabia and Qatar though seem to be a sudden development, have been brewing for quite some time. But the escalation has come fast and quickly. Encouraged by its economical and political profile at world stage, Qatar had started its own independent policies as a nation. It had supported almost all the rebellion forces in Arab Spring of 2011. It supported Muslim Brotherhood against Husni Mubarak in Egypt and the other rebels in the region. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, like the other monarchies of the region, didn’t like this. Obviously, it wanted the status-quo to prevail which would help to sustain its own kingdom.
Since Qatar and Iran are partners in extracting the LNG, both have interlinked economic interests. The support to Hamas against Israel by Qatar also didn’t go well with the Saudis, who have been very suspicious of Hamas. But the immediate trigger was to publicly denounce the stance of Islamic Military Alliance by Qatar, against Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been rivals since long for providing the ideological, political and diplomatic leadership to the Muslim world .But the Crown Prince Mohammad of Saudi Arabia has shown special interest and aggression for this cause. The present stand-off must be seen as its ploy to tighten its grip in the region. Perhaps it is a unfolding of a pre-conceived plan to force a regime change in Qatar and fine tune the secret understanding between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Of late, there has been a concurrence of regional interests of the two countries w.r.t. Syria and Iran.
So it was Qatar’s tilt towards Iran / Russia and its deviation from the Arab line towards their perceived adversaries ,which cost it the present situation. Clearly, the cracks in the Islamic Military Alliance are more visible than before.
There have been speculations about the possible hacking of some secret material by Russian or other hackers, related with Qatar’s foreign department. In today’s complex and hybrid battlefields such cyber attacks are very common to create a confusion and wedge between the countries. It has again brought the issue of cyber security of nation in sharp focus.
About 65% of India’s LNG demand is fulfilled by Qatar. We have huge business, economic and strategic interests with Qatar. The silence of our MEA on this issue is highly puzzling. It could have educated the people about the issue and its repercussions in this region. Perhaps, we are assured of the supply of LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. In any case, it would be in India’s best interests to remain neutral in this face off. This development has also a message for countries like Pakistan who heavily rely upon generous aids and donations from Saudi Arabia that it will be very difficult for them to come out of the tight embrace of Saudi Arabia.
However, if the conflict prolongs, there is a risk of rise in petrol prices which may play havoc with the emerging economies like India. Hope this issue is resolved at the earliest and peace prevails in the region at large.
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