Some History...

Pete started his musical exploration on guitar and in writing with his good friend Steve Atkinson and then recorded his first demo track in 1969 on the Akai belonging to Steve. This started the Pig’n’aif collaborations and projects, initially with Steve and bassist Dave Hobson (who was a constant performer on the local scene). The first set of output was entitled “What’s In A Name!” and contained a mixed range of rock ballad, boogie and progressive material and was on very limited cassette format release.

Pete worked away in Scotland for a couple of years in progressive rock bands before returning to Sheffield to embark on the next of his collaborations with Dave and Steve. Pete and Dave took Pig’n’aif down to Oxford for a period of time, collaborating with a number of pro and semipro musos before returning it eventually to
Sheffield. This was also a steady period of writing and generated output that would later surface under
Pig’n’aif, Phoenix Rising and Dave’s own band projects.

Over the years there have been a number of releases from Pig’n’aif either as a means of publishing recordings prior to use in bands or as a form of musical documentation by Pete and his collaborators

Most recently Pete produced a solo album ‘The Jester... Thinks...’. He has revisited the masters for the album with Mick putting down vocals on most of the tracks. This naturally resulted in a different flavour to the album and necessitated the re-recording of some of the instruments and a general re-mix. Pete also took this opportunity to add a number of additional tracks to the album. “The album is now much more as I originally envisioned it,” says Pete. “ It is more polished and with the new material added is more cohesive. Mick’s vocals definitely added something to the overall balance of the material. I am much more happy with it now and can move on to the next one at last.”

Pig’n’aif recently spawned a stage format project with a live jam band based on their ‘Pig'n'aif Blue’ album and some other good classic blues-rock (with a twist) standards.

To support and promote the live band, the Pete. Mel and Graham completed their blues rock based album ‘Pig’n’aif Blue’ which features some of their live set material and is now featured on the Music’n’Media page of this site.

Meanwhile Pete, Mick and the rest of the guys continue to work on parallel projects and we can also expect a new studio album of original material in the not too distant future. As Pete says ‘I’ve got to keep busy before the music muscle seizes up altogether’. Not sure where he keeps this vaunted muscle, as he is (as those of you who know him will testify) a continuous sheet of rippling muscle from head to foot. Yeah right...

Here’s some recent live pics...