pueblo

Pete Fisher… I’ve been very lucky to have played in a lot of great bands with a host of great musicians over the years, and am fortunate to have a huge archive of past recordings, which (after weeks of sifting and sorting) I’ve compiled into three hours of music here on my SoundCloud page. Of course it all started in Hastings, where I grew up, and started learning guitar when I was 12. My first gig was with a mate as a duo at the Black Horse Folk Club in Telham when I was 14, and the first real band, Black Ash, came together the following year in 1970. Bernard Jeffrey was on drums, Iain Cobby on bass, and Steve (sorry no surname) on vocals. This morphed into Mae West a year or so later, also featuring Bernard but with Roger Carey on bass, and Kev Wood on guitar, who was also a very talented player. This in turn morphed into Pueblo, with just me, Bernard and Roger, and we also had Phil Gill on board for a time – hazy memory of that, have to check my diaries! Quite a few photos of Pueblo, taken by Chris Meachen most of which have been posted here before. I left Hastings in 1974 and moved to London, then in 1979 I moved to Norfolk. Then in 1995 I took the plunge and moved to Cologne, Germany, which is where I finally got my big break in 2001, and actually worked as a pro musician for about eight years. The Far East Band was the backing band for the German reggae artist Gentleman, (although we also backed several other artists), and we did something like 500 gigs with him and a few dozen tv appearances, recorded a live dvd, contributed to two of his albums and even recorded our own album, “Tough Enough”. We toured Europe extensively, including Slovenia, Slovakia and Serbia but also Scandinavia, and also played in Surinam and Morocco, and did two brief tours of California. I left the band in 2008, having decided I’d had enough of touring, and went back to my day job teaching English, which I’d had to do between tours to make ends meet, despite being “pro”. Been working from home now as a freelance translator (German-English) for the last five years, and keeping my hand in (and myself happy) in my home studio here on the outskirts of Cologne. Welcome to my audio archive of live, rehearsal and studio recordings of bands I played in over the years…from tiny rehearsal rooms and village halls, sweaty pub and club gigs, medium-sized and very large concert halls to huge open air festivals…All recordings mastered from original tape/cassette/minidisc/cd to 16-bit 44kHz WAV files. Sound quality ranges from very lo-fi to excellent!

Stuart Moir… Good to look back at all the music memory’s, lots of good times

Sarah Harvey… Love this Pete. Its always fascinating to find out how you things have moved over the years to where you find yourself now. Remember Mae West and Pueblo. One song you did always stuck in my mind…. don’t know why….. Deep Purple – Maybe I’m a Leo. Always an excellent guitarist Pete and was always a pleasure listening to you.

Pete Fisher… Thank you Sarah. Glad you like my post – and great that you remember Mae West and Pueblo! Not sure my guitar playing was that good back then – I think it’s improved a bit over the years! I remember us bravely trying to cover Maybe I’m A Leo – to be honest I was happier jamming on a riff back then, and found it really hard singing and playing at the same time! I have a (lo-fi) recording of us playing it as an instrumental – I’ll see if I can dig it out!

Roger Carey… I have listened to the “Mae West” items (presumably at Kevin Wood’s house) and Pueblo “Morning Fantasy” I think that performance was recorded on Sarah Harvey’s cassette recorder (you and I both had reel to reel machines!), I know I have the whole Ore Centre 1974 session transferred from the cassette to my reel to reel which I think still works! “Morning Fantasy” had a drum solo and back to song etc whole thing must have been over 10 mins when we played it at gigs, (‘play someink we can dance to!”).. Anyway I will listen on and have a look at my early collection. Certainly have duo home recordings of you and I and Pueblo stuff from the Fountain -now a rock venue! Also live stuff from Pier restaurant gig -unfortunately not a good recording! Cheers for now Roger

Pete Fisher… The Mae West jams were indeed at Kev’s house, and I also remember him “daisy-chaining” two AC30s, blowing my AC15 away! I used to borrow my dad’s Philips reel to reel tape machine, and I’d always thought I’d recorded everything from Mae West and Pueblo on that.