FISCHER Z
David Graham (bass), John Watts (vocals, guitar), Steve Skolnik (keyboards) and Steve Liddle (drums).
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Fischer-Z were a British rock band, who released three albums between 1979 and 1981. The original line-up consisted of John Watts (vocals, guitar), David Graham (bass), Steve Skolnik (keyboards) and Steve Liddle (drums). Fischer-Z's biggest hit was "The Worker", one of the few records to go down the chart, after being featured on BBC Television's Top Of The Pops. Watts later put this down to the remix of the song from the album version which put the emphasis on the keyboards rather than his guitar. Watts's lyrics drew heavily on his experiences as a mental health care worker. They were more popular in mainland Europe than their native UK - particularly Portugal, Belgium and Germany, where Watts continued to have hits as a solo artist after the band broke up. They were most successful of all in Australia, where they achieved two Top 20 hits with "So Long" and "The Perfect Day". Watts founded a new band with the same name in 1987, with him being the only original member, although Skolnik made a minor contribution to one track on their first album. The albums released with the new line-up were less successful than those recorded earlier. In 2007, Watts scored a radio hit with the song, "Sister Sue".
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Fischer Z were Alan's main band in the early Gaslight days. Nick Fisher, Alan's boss at Gaslight, would give his young lighting designers the opportunity to develope with 'new' bands in the hope that the band would get bigger, more famous and in turn hire more lights.
Alan would make a number of tours throughout Europe with Fisher Z who were hugely popular in Holland, Belgium,and Germany to name a few but struggled to gain audiences in the UK.
They were successful in Europe partly due to a non nuclear image, very popular at the time due to the Cold War.
"Fisher Z were 'my band'. We did lots of tours and lots of shows, in clubs and colleges in small provincial towns and cities and always the gigs were well recieved.
We supported The Police one night in Dusseldorf to 5000 people who were mainly there to see Fischer Z, it was a great night.
We were like a close knit family on tour and enjoyed many nights of socialising in bars and clubs after the shows. We made lots of friends wherever we went".
Alan's lighting rig would consist of bars of Par 64s' on Powerdrive stands, some floor cans and a 12 channel lighting desk. As each tour progressed then the lighting rig would get bigger.
Many years later, when Alan was committed to lighting an other band, he designed a stage set which incorporated album artwork on roller blinds and chrome trussing 'goalposts' which held low voltage lights.
Onstage with Fischer Z...somewhere in Belgium, late 70s'.
John & Steve...lost? Somewhere in Belgium.
Below are some images which were incorporated into a stage design by Alan Wild.
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