Simon Finn
The English psychedelic folk singer-songwriter whose 1970 album Pass the Distance, withdrawn soon after release, became a cult record and includes "Jerusalem".
London and Pass the Distance
Simon Finn was born on March 4, 1951 in Godalming, Surrey, and sings and plays guitar and piano. He moved to London in 1967, and his first performance was opening for Al Stewart at the Marquee Club in Soho. He busked in London for a couple of years before recording Pass the Distance in 1969 and 1970 with the producer Vic Keary, who had earlier helped him record a single, "Butterfly". He met the guitarist David Toop and the percussionist Paul Burwell at a local restaurant a few weeks before the sessions and invited them to play. Chalk Farm Studios in Camden, best known for reggae hits, was the studio.
The album came out on Keary's Mushroom Records in 1970 by most sources, spring 1971 by one, and was withdrawn soon after. Why is disputed: the sleeve, with an image inspired by a children's shoe advertisement, drew an objection from Clarks Shoes according to KLOF, while Raven Sings the Blues points to Mushroom's legal troubles. Finn stayed in London two more years and then spent about 35 years in North America, mostly in Montreal, teaching martial arts and farming organically.
Rediscovery
In 2003 he learned that people were looking for him, and David Tibet of Current 93 made contact. Durtro and Jnana reissued Pass the Distance on CD in 2004, and in June 2004 he played his first show back, supporting Current 93 at St George the Martyr Church in Toronto. Magic Moments (June 2005, his first new recording in 35 years), Accidental Life (2007, on his own label Ten-to-One, with Danielle Dax and Rose McDowall singing backing vocals), Rats Laugh Mice Sing (2009) and Through Stones (2011) followed; a single, "Stay a Moment More", came in 2023. Mayfair Music reissued the album on vinyl in 2008 and Superior Viaduct issued it as part of the Antarctica Starts Here series.
He returned to the UK in 2008 and settled in Colchester. Cafe Oto in London hosted a concert on March 14, 2016, a reunion with David Toop after 46 years, and issued a live release; KLOF made a short film, Pass the Distance: A Portrait of Simon Finn, in June 2016. Setlist.fm lists 32 setlists, from Tokyo and Lille to Copenhagen and the Danish island of Fano in 2023. He plays guitar in Current 93, and Thurston Moore and Graham Coxon are fans.
Albums
- Pass the Distance 1970 · Mushroom Records
His only album of the original era: ten songs of alienation and loneliness, recorded when he was nineteen.
Songs
- Jerusalem Pass the Distance · 1970
The fifth track on Pass the Distance, a song Finn says came to him in one shot.
Sources
- Simon Finn (musician), Wikipedia
- Simon Finn, Cafe Oto
- Pass the Distance: a portrait of Simon Finn, KLOF (2016-06-25)
- Colchester's very psych folk legend returns, Colchester Gazette