Sunday 18 October 2026, 7.30pm
A very welcome return to OTO for mercurial singer-songwriter Simon Finn. A lone wolf troubadour from the mid-’60s UK scene, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Bert Jansch, before seamlessly re-appearing on the UK scene in 2003 after a gap of some decades, and has since gone from strength to strength.
Simon Finn has been given another crack at the troubled profession of singer/songwriter, his story the stuff of legend: A lone wolf troubadour from the mid-’60s U.K. scene, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Bert Jansch. The powerful Pass the Distance, released to critical acclaim, seemingly lost for- ever... Since, a new record has surfaced – capturing the past and the present, a seamless transition despite the quarter century Simon Finn has won over fans worldwide – including Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and ex-Blur gui- tarist Graham Coxon – with his passion, his wit and his soul-shaking music.
Aside from his solo shows Simon also plays guitar in a band called Current 93, which were the cover story of the July Wire. In 2006 his original album, Pass the Distance, was made in 1969, with David Toop (author of The Rap Attack and Oceans of Sound) and Paul Burwell. It was produced by Vic Keary who ran Mushroom records at the time.
His 2007 release, Accidental Life, has also been recorded and mastered by Vic Keary. Playing on it are: Joolie Woods, David Toop, Karl Blake (Lemon Kittens) Keith Godman, with backing vocals from Danielle Dax and Rose McDowall (Strawberry Switchblade).
Although they’ve achieved much of it in recent years, it was never for appreciation that Tony, Caro, and John came to record All On The First Day. The group instead formed serendipitously in the early 1970s through musical appreciation, DIY sensibilities, and an ‘all goes’ mentality. It was here within the walls of the band that they were able to provide homecoming for a group of like-minded friends and cohorts during a rapidly changing cultural climate in London.
The first pressing of All On The First Day was a small run of 100 spray painted copies that one could only find in the small theaters and London flats in which the band performed. The album was self-produced, with group member John behind the board as the technical director to their eclectic and experimental songwriting approach. Tony & Caro’s voices are the leading hand through the group’s nomadic and shifting song-scape; singing tales of love, youth, and political confusion at a time when the very concept of personal identity was expanding beyond anything it had ever been in prior.
In Tony’s own words, written for the insert of Gaarden’s reissue of All On The First Day, “A lot has been written about the sixties and seventies as a social phenomenon, as a time of upheaval of values. However, at the time we had no idea that we were in some kind of historical transition. We were just being there. For all we knew, the eighties and nineties were going to be equally radical, or maybe there was not going to be any eighties and nineties at all.”
