Difference between revisions of "Pat Finn"

Revision as of 01:39, 19 August 2016

This article or section lacks formatting. It may require cleanup to meet Weezerpedia's quality standards.

Don't you be a slob This article may require cleanup to meet Weezerpedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can.

Pat Finn was the one who introduced Rivers Cuomo to Pat Wilson, Matt Sharp and Karl Koch.

Patrick Jonathan Finn (Pat Finn)(born 2/1/1968) is a Buffalo, NY born musician and artist. He has been active in numerous bands in Buffalo, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland Oregon, where he has lived since 1998. His main connections to weezer are as follows:

Pat grew up in Buffalo, NY and in 1982 was introduced to Karl Koch by a mutual friend John Drenning, the 3 becoming lifelong friends. After his parents divorced, Pat moved to the San Francisco area with his mom and siblings in 1983, but he returned to Buffalo in 1984. He later returned to the Bay area in 1987.

In 1988 Pat moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco, and attended the Musicians Institute. There he met fellow students Matt Sharp as well as (among others) Dave "Burdie Cutlass" Georgeff and Tom "Soda Pop" Gardocki, later members of Wax. He later returned to Buffalo NY and stayed there from Summer 1989 - Spring 1990, woodshedding songs and working random jobs, regrouping his plans. While living in Buffalo he met Patrick Wilson, who was working at a music store called Music Mart in the suburb of Amherst, giving drum lessons to youngsters.

In March 1990, Pat moved to Los Angeles, and implored Pat Wilson to come with him. Pat Wilson has stated that he knew he had no prospects in the Buffalo area, and was eager to get his music career started, so he instantly and without hesitation accepted Pat Finn's offer, despite having no plan, few possessions, and almost no money.

In Los Angeles, the two Pats lived in a low income apartment on Gordon Ave near Hollywood Boulevard. At that time that was considered a bad neighborhood, and crime was rampant. Pat introduced Pat Wilson to the 'future Wax/Chicago crew' guys, as well as Matt Sharp who was in their circle at the time. The two Pats were determind to get a band going. They recorded 4 track demos and started a band called Bush with Pat Finn's M.I. acquaintance Tom Gardocki. Matt Sharp was at this point living with some of and hanging around with the 'future Wax' guys, but over time didn't get along with them too well, and musically their potential connection faded from the time they were all in M.I. together. Matt would get his own apartment in Westwood, and got involved with a social activist group known as the Black Rock Coalition.

Soon, Pat met Rivers Cuomo while working at Tower Records on Sunset Blvd, and Pat later introduced Rivers to Pat Wilson.

Around this time, Rivers was trying to shed his failed heavy metal past, and come up with a new band that would fit in better with the then dynamic changing scene in Los Angeles. He implored Pat to join this fledgling band as a DJ (because Pat was well versed in the emerging hip hop music scene). However, Rivers' plan involved using Kevin Ridel on vocals, who had sung in Zoom, and the plan (to Pat's ears) did not seem to include much of a focus on songwriting. During a massive walk up to the tallest peak in Griffith Park, Pat told Rivers that he would never be in a band with Kevin (who he disliked musically and personally at the time) (although note that by fall 1991, he would in fact be in a band with Kevin, The Truth, albeit briefly and with little intention of permanence), and he implored Rivers to re-think his new band's plan, drop plans to have another vocalist, and change the focus to what Pat saw as one of Rivers' hidden strengths, songwriting. This "crushed" Rivers according to Pat, but Pat's intentions were supportive.

Several months later Rivers would later recruit Pat Wilson into his first post Zoom band, Fuzz.

Meanwhile, Bush dissolved, and over the coming months (late 1990 into early 1991) slowly evolved into Sixty Wrong Sausages. This evolution included a period when Pat attempted to go it alone, re-recording all the bands demos by himself and naming the potential band Q'rosh. Q'rosh was a short lived phase, and soon it was back to an unnamed entity. Initially, The band was just Pat and Pat, jamming in a rehearsal space in downtown Los Angeles. On a few occasions, Matt Sharp joined in for some impromptu weirdness. Around this time, while Matt was living and working in Westwood, he and Pat Wilson did demos together, making funny songs in the style of They Might Be Giants.

In Early 1991, as Rivers, Pat Wilson and Matt decided to move in together in an apartment on Genessee in Hollywood (a move witnessed and aided by Karl Koch as he was visiting Pat at the time), Pat Finn moved to the Bay Area to live near his mom and regroup his plans, which were in shambles as Bush/Q'rosh had failed to go anywhere and Sixty Wrong Sausages hadn't gelled into anything yet (and was in fact still unnamed).

In Northern Cali, Pat met Jason Cropper, eventually convincing him to move back to LA with him (ostensibly to be in his to-be-named band Sixty Wrong Sausages). They moved down in early Spring 1991. By Summer 1991, Sixty Wrong Sausages was firming up, and would solidify with the addition of Rivers later on in 1991. Rivers and Pat Wilson's band Fuzz had failed to gel by spring 1991, mostly due to a difficulty retaining bass players.

Sixty Wrong Sausages would dissolve after its only show in Thanksgiving 1991, and Pat Finn would retreat from music again for a while, as he was going thru some personal issues. At this point the foundation of Weezer was formed, as Rivers and Pat Wilson committed to a new sound and songwriting style, Matt as recruited into the band in early 1992, and the focus changed musically.

Pat would go on to be in numerous other bands and have a rich history in music which continues to this day.

in 1998 Pat was invited to play with Weezer as a potential replacement for Matt Sharp. This resulted in a few weeks of hanging out and several rehearsal sessions, but in the end Pat went back to Portland and later Mikey Welsh joined the band.

In 2005 Pat appeared onstage with weezer during the Foozer Tour in Portland, OR.

The following was written by Rivers in regards to the 2005 Foozer Tour show in Portland, OR, during which Pat Finn joined the band onstage for "Undone". The story below contains many interesting details but because of its casual format and reminiscing tone, edits out several historical aspects (covered to some degree above):

Said Rivers,

"Nuts

Pat Finn was there tonight. He played Undone with us. That would have been a perfect opportunity to tell a story on stage.

Pat Finn was the guy who introduced me to Pat and Matt, and the guy that introduced them to each other. I was working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in 1990-1991. One day a skin-head looking punk came in to start his first day of work. It was Pat Finn. I thought he was the coolest thing ever. A real punk.

At the end of his shift he inexplicably said “Hey man, do you want my peanut butter and banana sandwich?”

Food was at a premium at the time for me.

“Sure. Thanks!”

A real punk not only talked to me but gave me his sandwich.

I idolized him. He was always trying to get our boss to punch him so he could file for unemployment or sue or something. He also always tried to grab my nuts forcefully. I didn’t know if he was gay or just insane but I thought he was the coolest. I tried to get him in my horrible metal band to be a DJ of all things. For some reason he was interested in playing music with me too but on HIS terms.

One day he said, “You’ve got to meet my friend Winky Smiles.”

I went over to his apartment on Gordon and saw first thing as I entered a large grown man lying in a heaping pile of filth and garbage. He looked up.

“Hey Man.” It was Pat Wilson.

“Hey.”

They played me Morrissey songs and I tried my best to understand why it was cool because I knew that it was but I couldn’t. Everything they played me had clean jangly guitars and that just didn’t jibe with my heavy metal background.

“This is great stuff,” I said. I knew I had to latch on to Pat Finn.

We eventually formed a band, Sixty Wrong Sausages. Jason Cropper was in the band too. We all wrote and took turns singing. Four-tracking was on in full force. Pat Finn also joined Kyokushin with me. He was gangly at first but he came to kick some serious ass eventually because of his incredible determination.

He was one really intense guy, kind of like me. He was a vegetarian, a conspiracy theorist, a punk. He told me about a musical duo he had formed back in Buffalo called “Skraper”. The other member was apparently a Teutonic titan who rapped a violent breed of nonsense. I had a pretty scary image in my mind and was surprised eventually when I met the guy, a complete lamb of soul, when he helped me move into my apartment with Pat and Matt. I’m talking about Karl.

Pat Finn was the nexus between all of us, Pat, Matt, Karl, me, the guys in Wax, the guys in the Dum Dums.

It was cool to play with him tonight."