Pat Fish

Pat Fish (born 1957) is an English musician best known for his work as a member of the band The Jazz Butcher. (The name "Jazz Butcher" has been applied ambiguously both to Fish and the whole band.)

Fish was born in London but moved early in his life to Northampton; he attended Great Houghton Preparatory School and then Uppingham; he later read Lit. Hum. at Merton College, Oxford, graduating in 1980. From the evidence of an interview given in 1989, it would seem that he found academic life at Oxford uninspiring, and that he was soon drawn to making music. His bands in the early period included one known as Nightshift, and the Institution, which featured Max Eider (Peter Millson) on guitar, Rolo McGinty (later of The Woodentops), and Jonathan Stephenson. The Sonic Tonix became The Tonix, who released a single, "Strangers / Talk to Me" on the Cherry Red label (STEG 002) in 1981.

The persona of the "Jazz Butcher" was devised soon after, and Fish's first gig under this guise was in Oxford on 20 February 1982. The band included Alice Thompson, later keyboardist in The Woodentops, and later still a novelist, and Owen Jones, who was to become the Jazz Butcher's drummer for much of the 1980s. Max Eider, a crucial element in the early Butcher sound, joined for a gig in June of that year.

For a full account of the history of The Jazz Butcher band, the reader is referred to the entry under that name. The next significant phase of Fish's career began on 27 November 1986 when musical and personal tensions between him and Eider, exacerbated by long touring and drinking, led to Eider's departure in Zürich. Fish rebuilt the Jazz Butcher band, recruiting Kizzy O'Callaghan as guitarist; saxophonist Alex Green was the only other element of continuity with the earlier band. Around this time his contract with Glass Records ended, and he signed to Alan McGee's Creation Records, at that time one of the foremost indie labels in Britain.

In 1989, Fish hosted an indie music show called Transmission, which was produced by Music Box Ltd. for ITV and pan-European British station Super Channel.

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