Name: Pete Fine.
Age: 56.
Back story: Life is all sitars and guitars for local musician Pete Fine. When the New York City-born musician isn't working at Rainbow Guitars, he is jamming at various North Fourth Avenue venues with his Led Zeppelin cover band, Whole Lotta Zep. Then there are his collaborations on the stringed sitar with percussionist and tabla player Todd Hammes. The two are avid fans of Indian music and will play Friday as part of the Green Fire Music Collective concert series.
When did you first know you wanted to be a musician? "My earliest memories were listening to my sister's Elvis records. When I was 13, my dad bought me a guitar and I took lessons. By the time I was 18, I was heavily into classical music and I was composing for other instruments.
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What is it that drew you to Indian music? "I loved Indian music even back in the '60s and '70s during the whole hippie thing. I started getting exposed to new music growing up in New York, the songs of Ravi Shankar. I listened to it for a while and found it exciting musically; the rhythms and stuff. Then I realized there was something going on that I wasn't understanding rhythmically and melodically. There is a whole concept in the way they build their melodies.
"I never thought I would ever actually play an Indian instrument, but in the early '90s I thought, 'What the heck.' I wanted to really understand what goes into that music. It is a whole different language, not just another instrument. I dedicated almost all of my time to it for the next 10 years."
Which is easier to play, the sitar or the guitar? "Sitar is far more demanding and less forgiving. You can't take as long breaks from it. I cannot play guitar for several days, pick it up and after a couple of minutes get back into the swing of things. Sitar takes much longer to get back into. It is a much more physically demanding instrument.
Is Tucson a good place to score gigs as a traditional Indian musician? "It's funny. You are not going to work all the time and you can't play it at clubs because you need a quiet audience. Indian music, even though it gets really rocking at the end, starts off meditative and you need a blanket of silence to get that. We've been hired for lots of private things, weddings and things like that. We have enough of an audience now that will support it. It will keep us going.
You ever break out with a little "Stairway to Heaven" on the sitar? "No, you can't. Sometimes people ask me to bring over my sitar to jam, but it is just not conducive to Western music. It has to be played in a particular key. It can be used on a limited basis, which is what the Beatles did; but to really appreciate it, you have to play Indian music on it.
– Gerald M. Gay
Who: Pete Fine with Todd Hammes.
Where: F.O.P. Lodge, "The Lodge on Dodge," 3445 N. Dodge Blvd.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Cost: $8.
For more information, visit www.greenfireonline.org.
