Jem Finer
| Jem Finer | |
|---|---|
Jem Finer in transmediale 10
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jem Finer |
| Born |
20 July 1955 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
| Origin | Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
| Genres | Folk rock, folk punk, Celtic rock, Celtic punk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Banjo, mandola, guitar, saxophone, hurdy-gurdy |
| Years active | 1977–present |
| Associated acts | The Pogues |
Jeremy Max "Jem" Finer (born 20 July 1955) is an English musician, artist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Pogues.
Finer was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, the son of political scientist Samuel Finer. He took a joint degree in computing and sociology at Keele University. After college he travelled around Europe and spent some time working on a barge in France. He settled in London, where he met Shane MacGowan, Spider Stacy, and James Fearnley with whom he founded The Pogues. He has worked in a variety of fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music and installation.
Primarily a banjoist, he also plays other instruments, including mandola, saxophone, hurdy-gurdy and the guitar. Apart from Shane MacGowan (with whom he co-wrote several songs, including "Fairytale of New York"), Finer was the most prolific composer for the band.
He appeared on all the band's albums until their breakup in 1996; he was one of only three original members. During that time he also appeared on MacGowan's solo album The Snake and The Levellers' self-titled release; he continued working as a musician and composer after leaving The Pogues.
On 1 January 2000, the Finer-composed Longplayer piece of music was started; this is designed to last 1000 years without ever repeating itself, and as currently implemented exists in both computer-generated and live versions. Longplayer represents a convergence of many of his concerns, particularly those relating to systems, long-durational processes and extremes of scale in both time and space.
Finer was "Artist in Residence" at the Astrophysics Sub-department of the University of Oxford between October 2003 and June 2005, making a number of works including two sculptural observatories, Landscope and The Centre of the Universe. Finer and Hamburg-based swamp pop legend DM Bob have recorded and performed together since 2005, releasing their album Bum Steer in August of that year and co-producing the debut album by experimental pop band Marseille Figs. He has written articles on copyright and the Creative Commons License. In July 2005, Finer won the PRS Foundation New Music Award on the basis of his proposal to build a device that will automatically "compose" a song of indeterminate length by harnessing the creative force of the weather. His proposal read:
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