i was living in the mojave desert and i knew the other guys in ‘the magic band’ – bill harkleroad, jeff cotton and john french – because we were all in bands. one day i got a call from don [van vliet, aka captain beefheart] and the first thing he says is: ‘have you got a white shirt?' that was the old joke about band uniforms back then - if everybody has a white shirt you've got a band uniform.

i went down there and they said they were going to play a song, and why didn't i just jam along with it? i said ok. i thought i was walking into ‘safe as milk’ stuff, but it turned out to be ‘trout mask replica’. john [french, aka drumbo] yelled” ‘and!’ and they started, and i started beating on my bass and playing along.

i had no idea what i was doing, but i played through the whole song, ‘steal softly thru snow’. at the end they all started laughing and said: ‘hey, you’re the first person to actually make it through the song – you're hired’.

then i had to get serious and learn the stuff and that meant practising just about everyday in between all the band meetings and brow-beatings from don. it was different and artistic and i wanted in on that end of it because it was my favorite band, anyway.

don would like to control any situation he was in and a lot of times it got in the way. we’d be in there working hot and heavy on trying to get these songs formulated in our minds, and he'd come in and just start a whole new song and blow it out of the water, and we were supposed to remember all that shit. it was a challenge to keep up with him and it made him more in control, to disrupt everything.

don and mark live in 1972

GOODBYE
march 1974

i left twice. i ran away while we were still working on 'trout mask replica'. i made it down to the local market, which is about a couple of miles [from the band's house], then i called my mom to come and get me, and the band came down about the same time. i told don: 'if you want to quit all this damn extra-curricular negative bullshit and just play music and get the album done, i’ll be glad to come back’. of course, it didn't really change a whole lot.

then in 1974 the band quit. we had done a tour in ‘73 and we were supposed to have about forty thousand dollar to split between us, but we never saw a penny. we had a meeting with don and gave him an ultimatum to get some sort of guarantee, but he wouldn't do that.

don tried to get me to rejoin several times, saying: ‘you can make all kinds of money now’, and i asked: ‘why should it be any different from the way it was before?’

i also didn't like the album ['unconditionally guaranteed'] at all. it was a shame, because we had put so much work and blood and sweat into the band, and we wanted to make money but it was such a feeble attempt to make something commercial. i don't think don's heart was really in it.

when the magic band reformed in 2001 without don, i wasn't real excited about learning some of that stuff again. ‘doctor dark’, from ‘lick my decals off, baby’ was the most complicated of all of them. to this day i cannot remember playing on that track, and i cannot comprehend how i played those parts, because they seem so random. most of it was no problem, though, and i finally got to play some stuff from ‘safe as milk’, which is what i'd wanted to do in the first place.