End of october I went for one day to the Netherlands where I met Pete and his partner, Ellen, for a fantastic day of talkings, sharing good time, seeing old images, videos and a good meal on the seafront. Pete chose to live in Europe to join his love…

It's something incredible to be able to meet people one has adulate for years. It's even more fantastic to discover these people are even much more interesting that you had imagine. And the top is to find out that they are just like you and me, and that they could have been our friends, had we met in other circumstances.
I had this feeling a few times in my life with great people (I'm thinking of some of the Gentle Giant musicians, Peter Hammill, and some comic book illustrators…).
The day with Pete DePoe was a moment like these. This guy is a wonderful musician, an incredible drummer, but overall a fantastic man.

Pete showed me some videos of Redbone's gig in Los Angeles in 2003, a strange one, with Tony Bellamy doing lead vocals because Pat Vegas couldn't attempt the show in time. A very nice set, unusual, and therefore much more interesting. I hope we will see a DVD come out, one of these days with all those videos, recent and old ones.
Sharing old memories was a supreme time for me. Pete told me he was in the same school then Jimmy Hendrix in Seattle. It was Jimmy Hendrix who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group way back in 1969. During the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, Jimmy proposed to the Redbone members they could do something together. But Jimmy died 3 weeks later in London! Pete told me that Jimmy never took hard drugs or shoots. Strange to me also, that Morrison, Joplin and Hendrix disappeared within a few months. They were taking to much importance in the younger people's minds. The US government did much worse things at that time (just think of all what happened in South America) so why let a few young rock singers spoil the youth's spirits!?

Pete also remembered their first arrival in London in 1971 with all the fans waiting at the airport. Something they never lived in the States where, as Native Americans, they were not considered as they were in Europe. Racism was still very present in the seventies, Obama was far away… I was also amused by the anecdote of the Gold Record that Redbone received for "Come and get your Love". Pete decided he wanted to listen to the record to see if the quality of it would be different then on a vinyl. What a surprise for him when he, unexpected, heard the Monkeys sing one of their own hits. The same gold record was certainly given out to all Gold Record Artists!!! Pete throw all the gold records away that day!

After these talks and meal and some nice photos I then had to return back to my daughter's place. Pete and Ellen brought me to the train station and so I will always remember them there, waving goodby!