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many many appologies to all those who were affected and had to wait and wonder. It truly was not my fault and it has all now been rectified. ]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=95 Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:34:02 -0700 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=91 for information and to buy tickets please go to the http://www.colchesterartscentre.com
]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=91 Tue, 8 Apr 2008 03:00:00 -0700 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=94 Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=94 Mon, 7 Apr 2008 05:31:48 -0700 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=93 Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=93 Mon, 7 Apr 2008 05:29:57 -0700 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=92 and at www.mayfair-music.com ]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=92 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:28:06 -0700 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=84 doors: 19:30h show: 20h
info: waitingforwaits@yahoo.es
This is part of the Waits festival taking place in Palma throughout the spring and summer ]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=84 Thu, 7 Feb 2008 09:01:00 -0800 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=90 17 Quai François Mauriac (en face de la Bibliothèque Nationale)
Port de la Gare, Paris 75013
Metro Quai de la gare ligne 6, Bercy ligne 14
for info and tickets contact:
vulturesmusick@free.fr
http://elalamein.free.fr



]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=90 Wed, 6 Feb 2008 17:45:59 -0800 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=86

Accidental Life
Steve Guimond
November 22nd, 2007


Montrealer Simon Finn's songs have always carried the weight of the world on their three-minute shoulders, heady vivid narratives cutting to the heart of personal, romantic and familial relationships. Accidental Life is only the third record in his topsy-turvy, 35-plus-year career, a solid gold gem that outshines its largely acoustic-guitar predecessors through beefy production and a further incorporation of outside instruments (percussion, strings, winds, electrics, piano, backing vocals). Finn's a world-class lyricist and picker who deserves a much greater spotlight, particularly in his adopted hometown.

]]> Live Times http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=86 Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:49:47 -0800 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=85 Subjunctive Mood in his article below.
Mark is the the author of 'Spoken Here" a sad, funny and completely absorbing book on threatened languages; it has now been translated into many of those that remain !
http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article71685.ece


As if all Pakistan were loco
MARK ABLEY
Published: Saturday, January 05
I tuned into CNN last week shortly after the murder of Pakistan's opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto. The man being interviewed had a South Asian accent. He was asked what senior officials in the Pakistan People's Party, which Bhutto ran, were likely to do next. It's hard to say, he replied, because "they are mentally disturbed."

"That seems unnecessarily cruel!" I thought. Even if the speaker was a crony of President Musharraf, or a leader of some competing party, this was surely the wrong moment to launch a personal attack on Bhutto's colleagues.

A minute later, I learned that the speaker was, in fact, a CNN producer in Pakistan. And I suddenly realized: to a Pakistani, the phrase "mentally disturbed" doesn't mean what it does in North America. It means "emotionally upset or distraught." To a familiar phrase, the producer gave a (to me) unfamiliar twist.Which suggests a danger of the global tongue English is so rapidly becoming. The same words can have different meanings in different parts of the world. Even if we speak the same language, we don't always understand other people as clearly as we like to think.

A couple of paragraphs above, I used the phrase "Even if the speaker was a crony." Strictly speaking, I should have written "were a crony," for the provisional nature of the idea favours the subjunctive. That verb form still thrives when French is written or spoken in a formal register. But it's gradually disappearing from most dialects of English.

It fights an elegant rearguard action in a song by the Montreal musician Simon Finn. Subjunctive Mood, from his 2007 CD Accidental Life, includes these haunting lines:

Most of his life, it seems,

Has passed in the subjunctive mood

The imagined, wished and dreamed of

But he must learn how not to brood

On the were-it-nots and were-she-theres

The be-that-as-it-mays and God help him ...

Simon Finn was born and grew up in middle-class England, and he often returns to his homeland. I suspect that makes him more willing to use the subjunctive mood than most of his North American counterparts. The subjunctive risks sounding pretentious on our lips. Finn's song reminds us of nuances we're in the process of losing.

Since I began writing this column 14 months ago, I've found that many readers are chagrined by the misuse of words and keen to explain why. Doubtless 2008 will bring further abuse of the English language, so let me begin the year by citing the chief annoyances of two readers.

Goldie Olszynko has a "pet peeve that drives me round the bend whenever I hear it, especially on radio and television: the use of the singular verb (There's) with a plural subject (There's people everywhere). It seems to be rampant and is very annoying."

Too true. But given that the one-syllable "There's" is easier and quicker to say than the two-syllable "There are," and given that the French counterpart "il y a" is used under all circumstances, I don't suppose Montrealers are likely to abandon this piece of ungrammatical shorthand.

Ian Jackson is distressed by "the now almost ubiquitous use of the -cy ending in nouns. "Resilience' has become 'resiliency', etc., for no good reason that I can see."
]]> Press http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=85 Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:37:42 -0800 http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=87
BILL BROWNSTEIN, The Gazette

'If it's haunting lyrics and heartfelt
expression you seek, he is your man."
Published: Thursday, November 22

To some, the interior of Simon Finn's Esplanade St. flat might look like it was struck by a small bomb. But what could pass for after-blast debris is actually clothing, dishes, empty bottles, boxes, stereo components, instruments, discs and, oh, can't forget the Finnish water filters - or parts thereof - strewn randomly about his second-floor walk-up.
Finn, on the other hand, feels "artistic clutter" is a more apt description of the place. Finn has accumulated 34 years' worth of artistic clutter here. It was almost 34 years ago that the Surrey-born singer-songwriter left London to move to Montreal for the love of a woman.
Not that his musical career was exactly on fire in England back then, but his first disc, Pass the Distance, had been released in 1970 and he had been regularly playing the legendary Marquee Club in Soho, even opening for the likes of Al Stewart.
"I might have been making about a quid a night then, but Al was really making it, earning perhaps as much as two quid a night," Finn deadpans, over a glass or three of white wine.
Finn has no illusions about his place in the pop pantheon. Never has. If pressed, he would label himself a "psychedelic folk musician." And if that conjures something dark and twisted, so be it.
Mellifluous and melodious would probably not be the adjectives to pop to mind in describing, respectively, Finn's voice and musical stylings. However, if it's haunting lyrics and heartfelt expression you seek, Finn is your man, and you don't want to miss the local launch of his newest disc, Accidental Life, Saturday night at Casa del Popolo.
A Finn record launch is an occasion. He'll have had two in the last 37 years. He did cut the disc, Magic Moments, last year, but it was more of a homemade production, had no royal send-off and wasn't widely distributed.
Nevertheless, the wheels are beginning to turn a little faster for one of this city's most fascinating and delightfully eccentric characters. Finn doesn't have an agent, manager or promo person. And far be it for him to toot his own horn. But he does have friends, and they will go to great lengths - all pro bono - to see he gets his due. Now that's love.
Almost like the love that first brought him here. "I gave up my music for marriage and organic farming," reflects the fit Finn, who is 56 but could easily pass for 10 years younger. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
In retrospect, not such a great idea. Organic farming wasn't in vogue here 34 years ago, and the marriage didn't last. So Finn took to teaching ... karate. "Funny, but the only reason I know karate is that I took it in school to get out of doing rugby."
Alas, the market for teaching karate wasn't real big back then, either. So Finn next ended up investing whatever fortune he had left in Finnish water filters. "You would have thought that I could have at least sold some of these to my f---ing friends, but nooo," he says, shaking his long brown locks back from his face. "And wouldn't you know that today all these buggers have those Brita water filters. The bastards!"
The fates weren't kind to Finn then. "Everything I got into back then has since mushroomed today. Organic farming, karate, and bloody water filters!"
So the fates pushed him back to his first love, music. Hence the title of his new disc, Accidental Life. It was released in England a few months ago - "but I haven't the faintest idea how it's doing."
Finn attempts to pop the disc onto his CD platter, but is having a heck of a time. There is much cross-wireage, and, frankly, the technology has escaped him.
"I'm looking for something someone might actually like to hear," says the ever-self-deprecating Finn. "What will it be? Picky folky or loudy rocky?"
We settle on something in between: Rich Girl With No Trousers. The mistake would be to conclude this is an erotic composition. It's actually a very moving ballad in memory of a friend who succumbed to Alzheimer's disease. "I have an infinite respect for writers who can write light yet profound. But I can't do it."
Fifteen of the 16 songs on Accidental Life were composed by him. The 16th was written in 1806 by Ann and Jane Taylor: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Yup, that one. "The words are really quite lovely and the beauty of it is I can duplicate it on stage with one guitar," Finn muses. Finn does bring a remarkable poignancy to this tune.
But Finn is a realist. He doesn't expect folks to twig to his latest disc right off the bat. Much like his first, Pass the Distance. It was only when he learned to Google himself a few years ago that he discovered Pass the Distance was considered a cult classic and fans were bemoaning the fact that it was unavailable.
"I avoided Googling before, because I assumed it was a bizarre sexual practice. But there I found the most favourable reviews. I was flabbergasted."
So a producer remastered and re-issued the disc, and, poof, a career was reborn. Said producer wanted to record more Finn. "But being the horrible, self-sabotaging f--k that I am, I sent an endlessly long dirge called Eros, about the perversity of Cupid. I figured that would be the end of it. But no. He quite liked it. So I had to learn how to sing and play again, because he wanted me to go on the road. But it's been fun. I get to meet lovely mad people and get to travel the world."
And what about subsistence? "Yes, I even get a stipend. Astonishingly, I'm surviving."
Finn is just back from the U.K. and the former U.S.S.R. and he does indeed know "just how lucky I are." He plays clubs and concert halls and, to his amazement, he sells them out in such picky cities as New York, San Francisco and Chicago. But he has no plans to bolt Montreal.
"When I first arrived in Montreal in February all those years ago, I thought my f--king ears would snap off like biscuits. But I've learned to adapt."
He also learned that a newspaper in Toronto not long ago picked a Finn concert over those by Bob Dylan and the Foo Fighters, Steve Wynn and Alice in Chains as the best bet to catch. "I was absolutely stunned," he says. "Almost as stunned to learn that as a result of my recent success, the Quebec Pension Plan has informed me I that could collect $5 a month now or wait till I'm 65, then get $7 a month. I'm tortured with indecision. Really, does it get any better?"
Simon Finn's Accidental Life, 8 p.m. on Saturday at Casa del Popolo, 4848 St. Laurent Blvd.



© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
]]> Press http://www.simonfinn.co.uk/index.php?itemid=87 Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:11:00 -0800