Kevin Coyne: Warts and allÉ – The Oral History – Pascal Regis

PART 1

 

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The early years (1944-1969)

"That's Kev, he does a grand Fabian imitation"

 

Kevin Coyne: "Lots of people think it's Cohen but it's not. It might have been Cohen once upon a time, but I have no idea. I've often wondered about that too, because the family comes from the East End of London." (La Folia, 2001)

 

"My father was a Cockney-Eastender. It was very much a London family, really. It was sort of left in the wilderness in Derby by virtue of my grandfather moving there, so London seemed like the ancestral home." (1994 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

Pat Awatkins: "As far as I knew they lived in Balaclava Road  Normanton Derby. Joseph Wright's was an odd school.  It was situated on the corner of Babington Lane and I think, Gower Street.  The building was the old Tax Offices.  There was no playground just a small yard so we could only stand out there and talk.  Classes were segregated, girls and boys.  The only time we got together was in the breaks and the odd times like parties; assemblies were mixed of course. Kevin was in the year above me.  He was a very genuine chap and came over as caring and a good listener.  I remember him saying he wanted to train in psychiatry he would have been around fifteen or sixteen then.  I wonder if someone in his family had had a mental illness to make him think of this.  Balaclava Road was quite a poor area. I seem to remember there were a lot of rather black and dismal terraced houses but there could have been a variety of houses.  It was quite a busy road, maybe the old terraces have been demolished now." (Interview by Pascal Regis, November 2009)

 

Simon Randle: "[Kevin's song] 'Ey Up Me Duck' captures Derby so well, even to this day. His reference to people being 'Folk 'eros wi big red 'ands' is a nod to Derby's working class industrial heritage. Folk from Derby needed to be good with their hands to work (and to a certain extent still do) due to the industries that the city was built on, such as the mills and the railways. It is still a city with a fine pub tradition ('it's beer and fags on a satdee night'). I have only just stumbled on the work of Kevin Coyne. It's a crying shame but he doesn't seem to be remembered or celebrated at all in Derby. He really should be."

 

Kevin Coyne: "'Don't stamp on the baby's head' [from the song 'Mummy']É the connection with is that as a child, I had problems with my head. I had a rather large head as a child. I know it sounds rather ridiculous now. But kids used to shout out names. I was very hurt." (Radio Leeds 1978)

 

"I was born with the head that was too large. I was taken to the hospital for two years because they thought my head would not stop growing. At school, I wasn't like anybody else really. Very painful jokes. That's part of doing what I do, that compensates in a way. Maybe a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have mentioned that but it's true, and I felt special right from the start. And that's something to do with aggression; cause I'd got to survive too, on that awful level, street level. You gotta be tough, I don't mind being tough, although I'm not tough at all. Terrible, when I was a kid, the terrible fights and arguments, all the time, I was a terror, questioning everything, 'why are we doing thisÉ'" (De Lanteren, 1979)

 

"How can you forget going to a school run by nuns? I've had to finally own up that I've never really rid myself of that. In a way it provides a spur, something to kick against. I've always thought of Church of England as blank peopleÉ spirituallyÉ But the Catholic thingÉ it's not a familiar sound — what I do, to the average English ear, it's like an alien spirit." (Sounds, January 21, 1978)

 

Brendan Croker: "We were both beaten by nuns!"(BBC Radio 3, Apr 5 2002)

 

Kevin Coyne: "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. That's the way I feel about it. A sense of spirituality, a sense of right and wrong, light and dark, extreme if you likeÉ it's a very lush sort or religion, very rich, like meat with cream on it." (Liquorice, 1978)

 

Helmi Coyne: "Kevin was born a Catholic because his mother was a very devout Catholic. His Mother was Irish. His father was Anglican Church but not practicing. But his mother was a very religious person, and one of Kevin's favorite saying was "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic"! He hated the Catholic Church!" (interview with Pascal Regis, 29 Sep 2011)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I'm a rather spiritual person and I do believe in Paradise. Often I think you can reach some idea of it just living here on Earth – Paradise seems to flash before your eyes. I'm a great believer in another life, I guess I could be termed religious maybe, not probably in the most orthodox way. I try to put that into what I do. Even if the subject may be sad, I try to put a touch of optimism in there and a feeling of hope."(Feine Adressen, 1996)

 

Helmi Coyne: "But he was a deeply religious person or, if you like it better, a very spiritual person. He prayed every day." (interview with Pascal Regis, 29 Sep 2011)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I was very conscious of being in a social start that didn't have the opportunities of other people. I remember I had a friend at school who was a doctor's son and it always amazed me all the benefits they had that seemed unattainable for people like me." (Radio Leeds 1978)

 

Lesley Coyne: "He said he would love to have been a boxer. He's got lot of aggression. He would have made a good boxer probably. He would have gone right in for the kill every time. It would have always ended with a knock-out." (Herz aus Feuer, 1979)

 

Kevin Coyne: "'Mona where's my trousers' is not specifically about my childhood, more about an imaginary childhood – many numbers of people I might have come across – some child who is in a sense brutalised by his condition. It's just an attempt to paint a picture or give a color, a coloring to that sort of dingy back kitchen situation, to endless grind that goes on from life in council houses to a job in a factory toÉ where?" (Radio Leeds 1978)

 

"My late mother crops upon many an album. A wonderful person. She could sing any bloody song. If you'd give her a subject, she'd rattle off some old music-hall hit. Passing Battersea Park in the car, she broke into 'The Baron of Battersea Park, he only comes out after dark.' She was marvelous. She used to sing in Latin occasionally, 'cause she was a Catholic. Well, we'd not really know what she was singing (laughs). And she was deaf.'' (1997 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"My grandfather was a musician in the army, and my father played the drums. So there was a lot of music around in the houseÉ everybody else was doing it, so I did it as well." (Michael Heatley, liner notes to the 'Kevin Coyne Dandelion Box Set')

 

Robert Coyne: "Dad's older brother and sister were, respectively, a jazz trumpeter and an opera-singing child prodigy, and his father had played the drums. Further back in the family were any number of other musicians and performers (including one star of music-hall – a kind of English cabaret or revue form, with heavy emphasis on comedy, that Dad loved and incorporated into his own work), and I think Dad enjoyed the continuity – feeling himself part of a tradition." (2008)

 

Pat Awatkins: "Arthur [Kevin's oder brother] was a very nervous person.  He spoke quickly and didn't look you in the eye.  I hardly new him but I used to go to the Corporation Hotel Jazz Club in the 60's he played there a fair bit as he was local." (Interview by Pascal Regis, November 2009)

 

Kevin Coyne: "IÕd never tried to make it at all in the business before. For the past four years [1965 to 69] I was a social worker in a mental hospital. IÕd rather have made it writing or painting, but singing and wailing was something IÕve always done in my spare time. The last time I was in a group though, was when I was trying to get Chuck Berry and Chuck Willis stuff across in the Shadows kick-your-leg-in-unison era. And everyone in the band [Siren] except John [Chichester] came out of that period, suffering under the weight of English mediocrity – Don Lang, and bad cover versions of American hits, that sort of thing . I used to buy every London-American record I could, in the days when everything that came out on that label was great, and some of those records have haunted me for yearsÉ I suppose some aspects of the rock era are apparent in my own singing as a result". (Zig Zag Mag #9 (1969?)

 

"The first record was 'Rocking Through The Rye'/'Hot Dog Buddy Buddy', by Bill Haley and The Comets." (Classic Rock magazine, 2001)

 

"Rock'n'roll created a whole new dimension of expression and feeling that had always been there but had been smothered".

 

"Really though, my influences vary from day to day – I imagine IÕm a fairly good mimic – but on record I try to keep it fairly consistent. But stylistically, IÕm an aspirant Jerry Butler on occasions, aspirant Ben E King certainly, and traces of lots of others – cruder, raw singers like Buddy Guy and Elmore JamesÉ and all the rest of my favorite singers from way back. My own record collection is 70% blues, so I reckon that basically itÕs my biggest influence; the first time I sang creatively was in the mid sixties boom, and I was singing blues then. The songs I write arenÕt blues particularly though – theyÕre written for all sorts of different reasons." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I saw all the rockers when they came through Derby on the package tours. Bo Diddley was the best. I saw Little Richard several times, once on his first tour with Sam Cooke, who was possibly the most amazing singer I ever saw. His voice, in Sheffield City Hall, a big mock Grecian cold hall, was warm and pure, bouncing off the walls at the back. IÕd like to have been discovered by Larry Parnes, because I think IÕve got a much better voice than most of his blokes had." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"Little Richard was really a great influence as a singer, a great great singer. Really in moments of deep depression, I always put his records on very loud to remind me of what it is to have that wonderful ability, that great pleasure in your own ability – a joyous singer.

Robert Johnson is no mystery to me, he's just a man singing in the most obvious, the most painful, the most difficult way, about what's going on in his head, and this has often happened to me." (Radio Hilversum, 1980)

 

 "Basically, I observed what was going on around me, and I thought I could it as well, if not better than anyone else. (Melody Maker, May 19 1975)

 

"As far back as I can remember, kids would say 'Ah yes, that's Kev, he does a grand Fabian imitation.'" (New Musical Express, April 15, 1978)

 

"My brother used to run a trad jazz club in Derby which had 2,000 members, but he lost interest. Nick [Cudworth] and I both played in local groups, but the nearest things of interest were happening in BirminghamÉ the early days of Spencer Davis, when John LeeÕs 'Dimples' had just come out. Winwood knocked me outÉ totallyÉ but I canÕt say the same for him now IÕm afraid.

Derby and Notthingham are traditional enemiesÉ Nottingham is better off; itÕs got a theatre and little cinemas and a better shopping centre." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

Nick Cudworth: "I had only been attending Derby Art College for a few weeks when I noticed a sign saying 'Blues Hoot - Musicians required' pinned to the door of the lecture theatre. [É] I noticed a tense, solitary figure sitting in the seats away from the stage. Then came a seminal moment. This sound emerged, accompanied by a harmonica that stopped everyone in their tracks. This was Kevin Coyne and for the first time in my life I thought: 'This is the real thing', with a sense that all my efforts up till then had been foolish, children copying. This was real, pure musical power and I wanted to be part of it." (Siren cds reissue booklet, 2012)

 

"This little guy stood up on stage and this incredible voice came out. It was the first time I'd seen a singer and thought: this person is truly amazing. I knew he was special right away. It was – is – the greatest voice I ever heard." (Interview by Robert Chalmers, 2004)

 

"I had only been attending Derby Art College for a few weeks when I noticed a sign saying ÔBLUES HOOT Ð Musicians RequiredÕ pinned to the door of the lecture theatre... most of the students had some musical interest if not the skills, and I turned up at the allocated time with my drum kit to find myself surrounded by many harmonica players, guitarists and so on. I thought what a shambolic, disorganised lot they were, until I noticed a tense, solitary figure sitting in the seats away from the stage. Then came a seminal moment. This sound emerged, a voice accompanied by a harmonica that stopped everyone in their tracks. This was Kevin Coyne and for the first time in my life I thought, ÒThis is the real thingÓ, with a sense that all my efforts up till then had been foolish, childish copying. This was real, pure musical power and I wanted to be part of it." (Siren reissue booklet, November 2012)

 

Kevin Coyne: "We had a band at Art School why a guy called Nick Cudworth, a keyboards player, who later emerged in Siren in '68." (1994 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

"Elmore James. What a voice! No bulls from Elmore, just a chain-smoker bellowing his heart out." (Melody Maker, July 19, 1976)

 

"My favourites blues singers are Robert Johnson, Leroy Carr, Peetie Wheatstraw and Tommy McClennan. The blues has many great performers and it's hard to pick the best." (Interview by Frank Bangay, 2004)

 

" I like to mirror the moment and the time. That all sounds very idealistic, but I'm a great believer in that. I learned something from the bluesmen, this kind of attitude. Very open-ended and responding to whatever the day brings really, or life at that time. Sounds all very grand. I think at best it really works. It doesn't sound so manufactured as some pop music efforts sound." (Interview with Richie Unterberger, 1988)

 

"I never saw myself as an old hippie. I never could identify with that whole period (as much as I could with the punk period). It wasn't aggressive enough for me and it was a little bit too middle class for me. I always regarded myself as a son of the working class, consequently I never identified myself with The Grateful Dead, the whole Sgt. Pepper's scene and the Rolling Stones and 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'É I found all that incredibly boring. I like the old fashioned rock'n'roll really.  I still do. Fats Domino will always be much more interesting than John Lennon.('The Unknown Famous', 1997)

 

"When I was very young, a fat-arsed bingo club manager said: 'YouÕre going to the top, right to the top, and IÕm going to take you there, all the way'. He was the first in a long line of promise makers, the first of the smart alecs. How many other performers have had this? I suppose most of them have. They are everywhere – 10 (and sometimes 25) per centers, bearing lists of imaginary contracts, introduction to famous people, and ideas about 'making it big'. Most of the time their sights are set on pin money, on extra cash for their suburban families, their big spending wives. TheyÕre small-time, greedy and dangerous. And small-time men become big timeÉ What do they care about creativity and commitment?" (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I always see myself as a star, and I think that comes over on stageÉ the basic confidence and the basic arrogance. IÕve always wanted to be treated like that with some respect, instead of the casual 'who are you?, what are you?'. You get a bit pissed off with reeling your life story off when youÕre talking to people – they werenÕt there and they havenÕt been through all the degradation IÕve been through in terms of just desperately wanting to sing, and putting up with any old crap backing just in order to get a blow, because to me singing is just as natural as all the other bodily functions." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I first really got going in Preston, in the hospital pantomimes and things, and I used to take patients to working mens clubs, where I used to get up on stage to impress everybody. It was a pretty lonely existence up there because you rarely got the right backingÉ you take pot luck in that sort of place. YouÕd give them a list of songs and they couldnÕt play any of them." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

Robert Ferguson: "I met Kevin in about 1965, when I was 17. He had just started working alongside my mother at the Social Therapy Department of Whittingham Mental Hospital, near Preston in Lancashire and she brought him to our house one evening for a meal. During my summer holidays I worked as his assistant in the department, living with him and his wife Leslie and baby son Eugene at their house in Whittingham. Later they moved to London. IÕd been living in France, and when I came back I had nowhere to stay and he and Leslie, who by now had given birth to Robert, let me stay with them again. During the time I was living and working with Kevin I owned a WoolworthÕs guitar which I kept in open tuning. In the evenings, usually after we had been down the pub, he would start improvising lyrics to some of the very primitive finger-picking patterns I was capable of playing. Forty years later I found out that for these very modest contributions of mine he had given me co-composer credits on two of his songs: ÔWhite Horse' is from the Dandelion Years reissue of his classic 'Case History' album, and ÔI Drove Your CarÕ from the 1994 release 'LetÕs Do It'." (Robert Ferguson's website)

 

Nick Cudworth: "As I walked through the door of his home at 5, The Square, Kevin was playing the single of Dylan's song 'Like a Rolling Stone'. He looked up and said; 'From now on everything will be different', and he was right." (Siren cds reissue booklet, 2012)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I was literally aching to sing. I used to get pains in my neck, severe psychosomatic illnesses. It sounds ridiculous but as soon as I started singing regularly, they went. And other ailments came, which shall remain nameless. I always wanted to do it – or did I? No, I didnÕt. I resisted it for a long time. I thought my place was with the people on the street – the pain, sharing, whatever. Being a kind of compassionate politician on behalf of other people, which in a way I still am." (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

Nick Cudworth: "I spent an amazing week up near Preston [in 1967]. I was playing acoustic guitar as well as piano by then and had an immense storehouse of themes and riffs from which Kevin would pluck choice items and create songs - immediately! Fully formed lyrical ideas just poured out of him. I have never found another singer with such intuitive skills." (Siren cds reissue booklet, 2012)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I love Tommy McClennan's guitar playing, I don't really care about that anyway, anybody that's seen me playing the guitar knows that's not one of my prime concern. One of my greatest influence as a guitar player is this guy." (Radio Hilversum, 1980)

 

"I lent an open tuning to the guitar, which some people call 'open-E' or 'Spanish' tuning. AndÉ my tiny hands had trouble making proper chords so I started using my thumb. But originally I used a metal rod to do things like 'Dust My Broom' and Elmore James blues-type numbers. Then I started using my finger instead of a metal slide and it developed on from there, and it's all gotten quite complicated now." (Interview by Chris Plummer, 1998)

 

"There's a sense of rejection sometimes – people thought: 'Who is this guy? Playing the guitar with his thumb? This is not right!'" ('Loladamusica', 2001)

 

"Notice my guitar technique: I learnt it from Jimi Hendrix" (live joke).

 

 

The Siren years (1969-1971)

 "Siren was British blues with an art twist"

 

x x

 

From 1969 to 1971, Kevin Coyne was the singer with Siren, one of the last bands of the British blues boom. Initially courted by Blue Horizon, the English blues label that put Fleetwood Mac on the map, Siren were finally signed by John Peel's Dandelion Records. In the U.S., they were handled by Elektra, President and fan Jac Holzman even considering Coyne for The Doors, the very day after Jim Morrison's death.

'Siren' and 'Strange Locomotion' are two really good albums of blues and English-style boogie, along with some beautiful ballads, certain of which ('Asylum') already suggest the tormented songs of later solo albums. Nick Cudworth's magnificent piano work leads the group through some tasty boogie-woogie while Coyne puts himself and his lyrics through their paces. He is feeling for his voice. It sounds promising.
In 1994, Siren bassist and producer Dave Clague released three CDs of studio out-takes. 'Rabbits' and 'Let's Do It' explore similar bluesy territory but 'The Club Rondo' is a neglected little masterpiece. Almost entirely improvised in one studio session. Cudworth and Clague keep up a monotonous drone while Coyne lets rip with lyrics, sketches, ditties, Bavarian marches and dialogues with comic provincial English accents. Then, suddenly anticipating 'Case History', comes 'Our Jack', the terrible story of a young mental patient, told by his mother. Stupefying and dazzling.
In 2005, Clague released another rather anecdotal outakes album, 'Ruffstuff'. Cherry Red Records had the good idea of releasing all the Siren singles in their 2006 'John Peel's Dandelion-The Complete Dandelion Records Singles Collection 1969-1972' 3 CD-box. In 2007, Cherry Red Records again issued a wonderfully remastered 3 CD-box: 'Kevin Coyne The Dandelion Years 1969-1972', featuring 'Siren', 'Strange Locomotion', 'Case History' and a couple of Siren rarities. Finally, Cherry Red and Turpentine put out in 2012 two double-cds "Siren" and "Strange Locomotion" both with lots of bonus tracks and great recollection by Clague and Cudworth.

 

x x x x x x

 

 

Kevin Coyne: "It all started out at Art College in Derby – me putting an ad on the notice board; wanting to form a college blues band,, all interested persons to turn up. Nick [Cudworth] turned up as a drummer, playing a bit of piano on the side, and from that, things just built upÉ you get to like people, you know. Unless I wanted to do a totally solo thing, IÕd always call on Nick for backing, because nobody plays as well as himÉ youÕve really got to see him at his best, pumping away in a pub or something, to realise how good he is. HeÕs also an interesting guitarist, I think, with lots of melodic ideas. Tat Meager was from Cheltenham, like Brian Jones. I met Tat through Dave [Clague], who lived with him, and I met Dave through Nick, who wrote me a letter saying heÕd met this bloke in a pub who used to be in the Bonzo Dog Band – he wanted to form a band and make some tapes. I was living in Preston, working in a mental hospital, and I came down and had a blow with them. John Chichester was our first guitarist, but he left and I donÕt know much about him. We also had this agent, Graham Wood, who got us a few gigs – he did his best, but he thought we were a rockÕnÕroll revival type band, and weÕre not really into that. WeÕve never had an agent since. We did get a few gigs ourselves, and we went up to Mothers with John Peel and did a gig without a drummer. And we never had a manager, though Dave did the job for a while" (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I aspire sometimes to being a poet, and Nick [Cudworth] aspires to being a guitarist, but whether the results are acceptable, IÕm not too sure." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I was very much concerned to get a sense of language across and a picture of the world as I saw it. That remained pretty well unchanged when I transferred from Siren to being a solo artist. Siren as such didn't really exist. We did some gigs, but it would fairly fluctuateÉ the root of it really was Nick Cudworth, the piano player. He and I lived together for a couple of years in a flat in London. We did most of the songs, really. He was a bluesman. I met him at Art school in the early '60s, and Clague was the man with the music business connections, having been once in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. He knew a bit about how to get on, and how to get record contracts and things." (Interview with Richie Unterberger, 1988)

 

"I did quite a bit of painting, on and off, and whatever else happens to me, IÕll still draw and paint – but I got really disillusioned with the whole art exhibition business, so I didnÕt carry on with it. It is similar with the pop business really – itÕs not what you know, but who you know.

I studied fine-art and the only thing to do was teach or something. I had an interview with a headmaster who said 'youÕre not very big – weÕve got some big lads hereÉ you wonÕt do'. So I became a bus conductor and then moved on to Preston and IÕve been in mental welfare work ever since. Although I find it very exhausting and painful, I feel itÕs the necessary thing for me to doÉ maybe I need the patients as much as they need me. In fact I probably think and worry about it at certain times more than I do about the music, but if things went right musically, I think IÕd get out, because I long to get on a stage. At the moment, IÕm incredibly frustrated because I canÕt do it very often." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

Nick Cudworth: "Kevin was very tense and ill at ease in London at this stage and would work himself to fever pitch. I remember such was his state during the recording of 'Ze-Ze-Ze-Ze' that he would rush out to the lavatory during hte instrumental breaks ÐÊhence 'Here comes that feeling again' now acquires a new dimension." (Siren cds reissue booklet, 2012)

 

Dave Clague: "We felt we had potential and took steps to realise it by getting Kev down, and by recording some tapes." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

Kevin Coyne: "After about a week I got a phone call at the hospital I was working in telling me Blue Horizon were interested, so we went and talked to Mike Vernon and did some tapes at CBS but we didnÕt sign. I think Harvest was the next port of call then Dandelion." (Sounds, April 24, 1976)

 

Dave Clague: "We never signed, though: Mike Vernon wanted another British blues band and Kevin said, we don't want to be a blues band!"." (Siren cds reissue booklet, 2012)

 

John Peel: "I used to live in Central London and people would come there and leave records and demo tapes and things at the door. And one day I came back and there's this demo tape of a band called 'Coyne-Clague', had been put through the letter box, and I listened to it and really liked it and I had to leave a note on the door and indeed I went out and stuck a few notes on lampposts in the area, saying something like 'If you're the person who left a demo tape in my house, please get in touch'" (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

Clive Selwood: "After John Peel got the first demo tape, he lost Kevin's  address and telephone number, and charged all over London, pasting up notices asking him to get in touch. I said: 'You could have rung me' but John said: 'No. It was more urgent than that.'" (The Independent, October 27, 1988)

 

Dave Clague: "John [Peel]Õs idea is that if itÕs good, it should be released — he doesnÕt think along any commercial lines — so Dandelion put both out at once, using the tapes weÕd made as the masters. But they made a mistake on the label – instead of calling us 'Coyne/Clague', they just put 'Clague', and as well as that, the promotion by CBS wasnÕt too marvellous" (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

Kevin Coyne: "One of PeelÕs ideas in Dandelion was bring a tape, make a record. A great idea really. I can make some great albums. I know exactly where to go." (Liquorice, 1976)

 

"We approached John Peel, who said, 'LetÕs do it immediately'. The result was he put all four songs as two singles on the same day. Most people, even in England, do not realize the influence John Peel has had on music there. With Dandelion, he actually set a precedent for these small labels that are cropping up now, like Stiff. And heÕs interested only in the music. ThatÕs why I liked working with him. IÕm not about making money. The music I make is not about making money." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

John Peel: "'Progressive rock' was a classic misnomer, 'cause the one distinctive feature of it was that it shouldn't progress. It's like cornflakes. Nothing wrong with that you know? I can understand it from a kind of marketing point of view, but at the same time I just thought, hearing some sharp, snappy tunesÉ the rolling piano and everythingÉ I just liked the way, on the faster numbers, they just kind of pranced along. [É]  Siren just came as a breath of fresh air really, in the same way that like a generation later The Ramones did. When you just thought 'Thank God for that!'. You hadn't realized how bored you'd become." (1997 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

Kevin Coyne: "'The Stride' was a very early Coyne/Clague and was a sort of attempt to recreate a rockÕnÕroll sound of the late 50Õs with the piano and everything. We wrote it in about three minutes in DaveÕs bedroom, and the idea behind it came from ÔThe StrollÕ by The Diamonds. I wanted a combination of the Joe Turner kind of sound, the more commercial elements of late 50Õs rock, and a song about 'Do the so and so', so we borrowed ideas from various sources. But IÕd sung myself to death the night before, and the vocal isnÕt exactly as IÕd have liked it." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

"The Dandelion label is being distributed by Elektra in America, and Jac Holzman, their president, seemed to think that our old name was too much of a mouthful for the Americans. So we changed it to 'Siren', rather than 'Coyne/Clague'." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

Jac Holzman: "The band which blew the cobwebs out of my head."

 

Kevin Coyne: "People up North, they believe everything they read in the Melody Maker without questioning anyoneÕs values, and buy hyped records just to keep in the stream of whatÕs new. I reckon we could get up with any of these hype groups and blast them off the stage – especially on rock material." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

"ThereÕs such a vast number of records coming out now, and theyÕre so expansive. I mean, if it were me, I donÕt know if IÕd rush out and buy Stackwaddy or Siren or any of these people, I donÕt buy new records anyway. A lot of uncertain fourteen year old wouldnÕt really understand our music anyway – whoÕs going to understand a song like 'Relaxin with Bonnie Lou' if theyÕre not 26 or over? I think that age has a lot to do with my writing and attitude; IÕm so basically steeped in that magical era when we all bought London American singlesÉ that time has never been equalled. On the other hand, some of our songs, like 'Asylum', 'I wonder where' and 'Some dark Day' have nothing to do with rockÕnÕroll really – theyÕre just personal statements.

Going back to age, a fourteen year old will have very little to identify with in music like ours, and we donÕt go in for extended solos – not that we couldnÕt, but we donÕt feel we should. My influence is all consuming, and IÕm a bit of a dead weight on occasions because of my obsession with a style of singing and a style of lyric, which are both dated in relation to today." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"SirenÕs albums were recorded on stolen time, whenever there was an engineer available." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

"The first Siren albumÉ inept, I would say, in the main for me. [É]  That studio was actually, I think, controlled by the Kray brothers secretly." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"We once got £50 – that was at Sunderland Locarno, but it was a long way to sing songs of pain and hate to twelve years old." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70 )

 

"The only interview I did before this one was the previous one in Zigzag. IÕd like to be interviewed more often, especially in Melody Maker, which I despise and hate. ItÕs evil. We got a terrible review for our album, and I donÕt mind saying that at all. It seemed to be written with the intention of offending and distressing peopleÉ thatÕs all the review was – a personal attack, and the one before that was just as abysmal. Melody Maker was totally unfair, a right sod.É HeÕd pretty obviously not even listened to the record for a startÉ I mean, how anyone could describe the songs as unbelievably primitive, I will never know." (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"I really think IÕm a better vocalist than almost anybody I see on stage. I want people to read your magazine and challenge me; say 'Come along and prove it if youÕre as good as you say you are.'" (Zig Zag Mag #21, probably 1969 or 70)

 

"Dandelion was a good example of an idealist. Really fucked up to some extent by laziness, by unawareness of the time involvement in record company." (Liquorice, 1978)

 

"Some of those early Siren thingsÉ you've got to remember, they were recorded in living rooms and kitchens, really, and the most primitive form of studio. Most of it wasn't really intended ever to be put out, although Dave Clague seems to have cornered the market in that and put most of them out [on his DJC label]. I don't agree necessarily with that. I think I would have been a lot more selective. Much of it was fooling around, at least half of it. But as you can gather from that, it was very spontaneous, really. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I tend to work on that principle to this day, really." (Interview with Richie Unterberger, 1988)

 

"They were never serious recordings. Well, 50% of them were, but some of them were done at odd things like in the middle of the night at the Africa branch of the World Service on a 1-track or something. But it was all wild and wonderful then. I mean, it was all very enthusiastic. [É] I quite like them. I like them better than the official albums, really. I think they've got several sort of gaping holes and things that don't work but the spirit of the thing is closer, to me, than on the albums." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

John Peel: "I produced some of the Dandelion records, which meant I just sat in the studio and the engineer told me what he was doing. 'Cause we had to do them in, like, a day. I mean, we didn't have that much money." (1997 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

Nick Cudworth: "Siren was not an actual unit ÐÊIt never really was. I can remember going round Chelsea's graphics department studios enquiring if anyone played blues guitar..."

 

Kevin Coyne: "'Strange Locomotion' was a better album. In those days I used to write the lyrics down quite carefully and dutifully sing them. And it shows, really. It's a little less spontaneous than later efforts. I just remember we were all, you know, several pints at lunchtime and in for evening sessions." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

John Peel: "The one thing I very much regret – something which we really wanted to do – was when Nick Cudworth and Kevin used to come round, and they would tell us about this pub in Derby where they used to hang out, and the people who were in there. And itÕs full of, like, one-eyed, one-legged men, you know. I mean, we just used to sit and laugh and laugh. I wish to God I could have just put a microphone there and have recorded that. I would have put it out as an LP. It was just so funny. I regret not having done that." (1997 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

Kevin Coyne: "My main memory is of the way John Peel used to press £10 notes into my hand, for the homeless kids I was working with. He operates on basic Christian principles; he's an enthusiast in both senses of the word. I think he feels he's missed something of the working-class life, there's a side of him that would love to be out with the lads in a back street in Burrow-in-Furness, breaking things. I always wanted to tell him it doesn't really matter where you come from. I regard him as a great friend. From a distance." (Sunday Correspondant, 5 Nov 1989)

 

"John Peel's record collection threatened to overtake his Suffolk home. But in a small, battered wooden box, the much-loved DJ kept a precious selection of 7 inch singles that meant more to him than any of the others. ['The Stride/I wonder where' single by Coyne-Clague was one of them.]" (timesonline.com)

 

Kevin Coyne: "SirenÕs short career involved much good humour and lots of heartfelt music. It was a memorable time. There's people all around the world, judging by letters I receive, who love both the Siren and 'Case History' albums. It's most gratifyingÉ" (Michael Heatley, liner notes to the 'Kevin Coyne Dandelion Box Set' )

 

Nick Cudworth: "I always remember tensions with Dave Clague, who seemed most reluctant to hand over the reins to Kevin. However, Dave did have all the musical contacts."

 

"Considering how much heavy drinking we were doing Ð endless late night sessions smoking everything we could get! Ð if we had followed that commercial route and gained the success we perheaps deserved I would most certainly have been dead and would not be writing this now!"

 

"In 2003, Messrs Coyne, Clague and Cudworth were reunited on the stage of the Buttermarket in Shrewsbury for a one-off Siren reunion. ÔStrange LocomotionÕ, ÔSixteen WomenÕ, ÔGardener ManÕ, ÔZe-Ze-Ze-ZeÕ and ÔCheat MeÕ were played of the material here, with ÔThe StrideÕ and ÔRelaxing With Bonnie LouÕ as encores." (Michael Heatley, liner notes to the 'Kevin Coyne Dandelion Box Set')

 


Gardner Man, from 'Siren'

 


 

The day Coyne was asked to fill Jim MorrisonÕs shoesÉ

"I hadn't fancied wearing the leather pants"

 

Kevin Coyne: "All I know is that my manager rang me up one morning and said how dÕyou feel about joining the Doors? I said, 'Huh? OhÉ very good'. And then it all petered out really. I thought Jac Holzman thought I was mad. I think he honestly thought I was crazy or something, maybe because of my attitude to the business." (Sounds, April 24, 1976)

 

"The day after Jim Morrison died, Clive Selwood from Elektra Records asked me to become the lead singer of the Doors. At that time, I thought the Doors were rubbish, so I declined. My then lodger in my old flat in Clapham thought I was mad and the rest of the world probably agrees with him." (The Morning Star, Apr 7 1999)

 

 ÒIt was a murky morning in London when he died. I was asked by the European boss of Elektra to join the Doors. I was rather negative about it. I had two young kids at the time and was reasonably happy. Plus, I like to do my own thing.Ó (beermelodies.com, 2000)

 

"I think they're crap!É Brendan, do you think I made a bad career move?" (Quoted by Brendan Croker, 2002)

 

"I didn't show much enthusiasm."

 

"It seemed a bit soon after the event – he was barely dead. I didn't really like the idea. I was married with two kids and looking to make my own name – not from the death of somebody else." (Jim McGuinness, 2002)

 

"Jac Holzman was a fan of Siren, but he became disillusioned when he came to England and there was a gig organized and we were all drunk. I don't think Jac appreciated that, and after that, when the Jim Morrison idea came up, maybe he put the markers on it and stopped it at the last minute or something, because I was certainly asked, but I didn't show too much enthusiasm anyway, so I guess the thing fizzled out rather rapidly." (La Folia, 2001)

 

"Jac Holzman came in specially to meet me and he said to me: 'Kevin, you're one of the ten great singers in the world.' This was a long time before I was anything. He had some vision anyway because I think I am. And then, I let him down, I got pissed. They put some money into the situation and we just blew it and threw it away. This was an anarchy situation – a thing which I agree on occasions. 'Cause he was far too pompous about everything. So I went down to Warner Bros Records, the distributors of Elektra at the time, at 10 o'clock in the morning – it was all very serious. And then, Jack Holzman decided against me, because I let him down a year ago. £2,000 had disappeared down the drain. Now he's a millionaire – you can't work with people like that anyway, and I'm glad he said no. He said he thought I was even madder than Jim Morison. So how can you workÉ I mean Jim Morrison wasn't mad, he was a great man, no doubt about it." (De Lanteren, 1979)

 

"The fact of the matter is, it's true really. Maybe I should have shown more enthusiasm, maybe I would have got the job, I don't know. But certainly the fact that the early Siren things came out on Elektra [the Doors' label] was a connection. All I know is that nothing more was heard of it after not showing a great deal of interest. Probably [they] thought I was an ungrateful swine or something. But I really didn't fancy it anyway. [É]  Such are the machinations of the record industry. Not much sentiment around. There wasn't any question of 'Poor old Jim, let's give him a bit of a rest now'. It was like, got to keep the money wheels turning, keep the cash registers going. It was certainly, almost the next day, I would say. It was certainly within a few days. But anyway, as I say, such is the music business. " (Interview with Richie Unterberger, 1988)

 

"It was maybe the day he died – just shows you how much compassion there in is the music businessÉ" (WFMU 1999)

 

"I didn't much like the Doors at the time. In retrospect, they were good, I think, but I didn't like them at the time. [É]  He's a good-looking guy, there's all that, isn't there. A real teen idol. He wasn't much a singer, that's for sure, but he had his own way." (La Folia 2001)

 

"I recently did an interview for a German Doors fanzine (which is very typically GermanÉ), about a six-page interviewÉ Basically, I wasn't really interested to be honest. Sounds ridiculous now doesn't it? I could've been rich!" (Mary Costello show, 1990)

 

John Peel: "When Jim Morrison died, there's this famous story about Kevin CoyneÉ The Doors tried to persuade Kevin to become the new Jim Morrison, but anybody less suited to that role, it's hard to imagineÉ" (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

Kevin Coyne: "The thought of those leather trousers put me off as much anything"

 

 

Social work years (1965-1969)

"Looking back, I never stopped being a social worker"

 

Kevin Coyne: My brother Arthur's nervous breakdown was probably the main motivating point for me getting concerned with helping what society would refer to as the 'insane'. Just watching people in your family – people you look up to, admired, andÉ loved, of course – being trampled down, being brutalised simply because they happened to be sensitive. It has to affect you." (NME, April 15, 1978)

 

"The impetus for working in the hospital was really born out of family situations and problems. I started working in therapy as a student and was initially called and 'education worker', although I was really doing lots of different things. I would play football with the patients, conduct art classes, even set up the Christmas pantomime. It really wore me out after four years. I moved into an area I didnÕt understand. It was a big hospital, about 2,500-3,000 patients, and it was almost like a big toy, a big township of supposedly crazy people. People in a state of pain will never admit theyÕre in a slide like that. So I charged in there and tried to change their situation, although in retrospect, I might have done things differently. I went back there about two years ago to do a documentary for a series on Granada television and all the patients came up and embraced me. I guess I must have made an impression." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

"I was an art therapist. I thought: Well, if I can't make anything as an artist, I might as well do something which is some service to the community'. Sounds very idealistic but I was idealisticÉ I put on exhibitions of patients work. I learned a lot from it. You got guys like bank managers with schizophrenia interludes, suddenly painting large bunny rabbits and strange things they would never had done if they had been, I suppose, 'well'." (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

"I rememberÉ God, I remember one of the doctors saying to me 'Just get a bucketful of Largactyl (an oft-used form of medication that turns into little more than a zombie) and that'd keep the lot of 'em happy for months'. It was disgusting, just having to observe all the petty conniving and trickery going on. All sorts of pilfering, trying to steal the patients' money, all the little rip-offs. They didn't give a damn, y' knowÉ 'Oh here's your medication, luv. That'll keep you quiet'. By the end of my stay I was the only one still trying to do something positive there. It was just so obvious, really, even though in practise it could be soÉ so heartbreaking. Just spending time with them, showing you cared even a little. Just talking to them. Actually, after I left, there was a big inquiry convened to look into the running of the place." (New Musical Express, April 15, 1978)

 

"The main trouble was, Siren never got organised; it would have made a hell of a difference if we had. Our own lives were difficult enough to organise though; IÕd just got away from four gruelling years of working in a mental hospital. I was working there because IÕd had some contact with mental diseases in my own family, and was very conscious of my own inadequacies in dealing with that sort of thing, I applied for the job in New Statesman, and to my surprise I got it." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

"Every so often, IÕd get calls from the morgue to go and view the corpses of people who had become my friendsÉ"

 

"Left my job at the Mental Health place in Camden Town all behind. I received some severe punishment there in terms of brain and physical damage, and I couldnÕt take too much more of it anyway. I shall probably return to it anyway. When I have had a good rest." (Zig Zag Mag #36 (1973?)

 

"I was rather glad to at the time because I was pretty exhausted. I'd worked very hard. A lot of my – what shall I say? – principles, my beliefs in humanity had been somewhat shattered, so I needed to do something else. I mean, I had a good taste of the music business before anyway, with Dandelion, and I met a few typical examples of what the music business can do to people. So I was very much aware of the dangers butÉ the money's better, so that was a very practical reason, being a family man as well. And it's worked out pretty well. Been a bit slow in parts but it's getting better all the timeÉ I've always considered myself to be artistically very natural. It's a thing I've needed to do, you know. A relief-giver." (NME, 27 March 1976)

 

"A lot of people fell this great desire to mingle with the strain and pain, not knowing that itÕs best to stay out of it really. Investigate your own situation first. There are your mother and father reaching out to be kissed and you go: 'HereÕs this bloke I donÕt know whoÕs in trouble. IÕll kiss him. Give him a big hug.' ItÕs much easier to recognize the evil coming from the world outside. 

I suppose I got tired of fighting. I was achieving sort of 50/50 situations all the time, not so much as compromises as not having the necessary beef, not having that 24-hours-a-day dedication to take the thing right over the edge. IÕm not a Lenin or a Marx. I wanted to be out there with placards. I wanted to bring it all down, butÉ well, in a way I still do." (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

"I've written about it in on paper – essays, compositions I suppose one could describe them as – about some of the people. ButÉ song-wise, the nearest I can get is 'Uggy's Song' on 'Case History'. But that's more to do with police brutality, that particular song. I suppose 'All the Battered Babies' too, which relates to that time of my life, working closely with kids from Piccadilly and stuff. That's basically what I'm trying to say there. I believe people, because of the lack of love a a child, they resort to things like drugs. It's loneliness, isn't it? And so many of my things are about lonelinessÉ" (Sounds, April 14, 1979)

 

"If the ones that were supposedly sane had to go in themselves to help out and assist their less-fortunate brethren, if every sane man and woman were called up to go, thereÕd be a great sharing of universal agony. A great deal more insight." (Liquorice, 1976)

 

"People IÕve met in mental hospitals who can play instruments and sing with power and feelings that probably most people in the 'outside' world canÕt. Because they just donÕt have that release thing that a lot of so-called mad people have." (Liquorice, 1976)

 

"It changed my way of thinking as a painter, working with these people. I like the way they work. What they did helped them because they did it for a reason. They had a reason to do it and I think when I write a song, or paint a picture or write a story, I really have a reason to do it. I have to do it, in fact. It's a driven thing, you know." (Charleston Gazette, 2000)

 

"I remember a doctor saying to me when I was a therapist, 'Yes Kevin, it's all very well, the marvel of their creativity. But you must remember they are suffering.'" (The Independent, 2001)

 

"IÕm going to do a thing with Ian Breakwell at the Open Space Theatre. He has done a lot of work with happenings and things, and IÕve got this idea for a musical about institutions and asylums, which is a fascinating subject. It wonÕt be like 'Hair' or 'Catch my Soul', but virtually a solo thing from my point of view. IÕll do all the singing and talking, with maybe a few odd guys wandering about in the background. ItÕs a fairly depressing subject, not the sort of thing for an LP – though certain songs might be organised enough to get recorded – and most of it will be based on spontaneity, which is my forte, because I hate to be restricted by other peopleÕs doubts and limitations, especially musically. I suppose IÕm the most musically limited person on this earth, but you can get around it with a lot of energy and shouting." (Zig Zag Mag #9, 1969?)

 

"We did some things with Ian Breakwell at the ICA last February or March. A theatrical thing was a sort of pastiche of life in a mental hospital. It worked very well on and off, but it was a very hit and miss kind of thing. There was quite a bit of musc in it, and words." (Zig Zag Mag #36, 1973?)

 

"The main incentive is always to make a living. I saw this thing on TV the other night. This comedian was on and he really said it all for me. His thing was that he didn't want to go back to being a welder. Well, it's the same for me. I don't want to go back to being an art teacher. I work on the principle that you win in the end. But it's never quite how you envision it." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

"Of course people do go mad but it's other people who often drive themÉ There's one or two people having witnessed my performance who would say: 'He's mad'. I can imagine the father of the family, who's just come in from a hard day in the factory, whenever the program shows: 'Mad'É (Rockpalast, 1979)

 

 

Nobody dies in Dreamland (1972)

x

This album was released in 2012 by Cherry Red Records and Kevin's family. It documents Coyne between Siren and the beginning of his solo carrere. These home demos are even rougher than 'Case History'. Also included are very early versions of songs that would wait for years to be released on albums. A fascinating glimpse into Coyne's working.


'Case History' (1972)

x

"It's not just an album, it's a whole period of my life"

Recorded in an afternoon and a single take in a little Twickenham studio, 'Case History' is one of those incredible albums that contain such power and intensity they become almost difficult to listen to. Dandelion released it just as it was, without embellishment or overdubs (as Jeffrey 'Anti-Folk' Lewis told Kevin when they met in 2004, it is 'very low-fi, very raw').
Fuelled by his experiences as a social worker and therapist, Coyne describes the lives of the mentally ill, the social outcasts. Solo on most of the songs and accompanied by members of Siren on the rest, Kevin's delivery immediately sounds as if he had twenty years of experience behind him.
From the beautiful melody of 'White Horse', through the shrill onomatapoeia of 'Araby' to the howls of 'Mad Boy', his vocal palette is already of impressive richness and range. The bouncy 'God Bless the Bride' is a reprise of Siren, while the dreamlike universe of 'White Horse' is ostensibly calm and serene, yet somehow awkward. This dreamy delirium leaves a sense of disquiet but 'Uggy's Song', where Cudworth's pretty arpeggios are replaced by Coyne's savage acoustic strumming, grabs you by the throat. It tells the life of a black tramp beaten by the police, who call him Uggy 'because they thought he was ugly'. The two main poles of the Coyne Universe are here: a compelling tenderness for his outsider friends and a revolt against the indifference of the world towards them.
So Coyne remains the social worker, bearing witness. In a few years, cornered by his own demons, he himself would come close to madness.
'Sand All Yellow' recounts a psychiatric case where Coyne switches voices to evoke patient and doctor, against a hypnotic backing, all in all quite disturbing.
This album marked the appearance of the trademark minimalist Coyne guitar style: an open-tuned acoustic across his knees, his thumb barring the strings while his right hand beat out a frenzied rhythm. ('Evil Island Home' is one amazing example). This primitive guitar, the fiery voice; the ingredients were there to establish Coyne as a major artist, one who would later be described as 'the only British musician who ever really had the blues'. Blues, yes, but it was provincial working class blues, grimy pub blues, complete with dominant mother, abused children, alcoholic father and other horrors: the blues of a certain time and place. Unfortunately, the demise of Dandelion Records blew any chance of the record's success. Still, 'Case History' is one of the greats. It belongs with Syd Barrett's 'The Madcap Laughs', or Nick Drake's 'Pink Moon'. One of those timeless albums that after thirty years can still send shivers down your spine.

 

Kevin Coyne: "I was disillusioned after Siren didn't go over. I thought if that is the record business, I donÕt want to know about it. I went back to therapy for two years, although I kept singing in pubs. 

I did those songs in three hours in a studio at Wimbledon. I went there with my wife and manager Clive Selwood. The thing with that album is that I did it totally my way. After I heard what IÕd recorded, I wasnÕt at all sure I should put it out. But John Peel put his foot down and said 'release it'. In retrospect, I think it is depressing. I listen to it now with some anguish. ItÕs sort of a diary thing. I just donÕt think like that anymore. IÕm not quite desperate now as I was then." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

"I was really depressed over Christmas, and as you can see on that record IÕm pretty close to some sort of nervous breakdown anyway. I was in a pretty bad stateÉ had to pack up my job and everything. I couldnÕt see any way out – why doesnÕt anybody listen to me? – IÕd been writing and painting all my life and I thought, Christ, nobody even knows. I mean, IÕm not a businessman, IÕm just a bloody artist, you know." (." Sounds, April 24, 1976)

 

"The albums biggest highlight is 'Evil Island Home'. Never ever ever ever have I heard a song so full of hopelessness. It's all in Coyne's voice as he screams the chorus, 'Here is my home. My evil island home.' I just die with him as I hear that. Combine that with a reverb soaked, schizo blues guitar and you have pure gold. It's beyond me as to why this song never garnered any sort of notoriety in the least, even among hardcore music lovers. I think Coyne would have wanted it that way anyway." (headheritage.co.uk 2004)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I went down to a little studio in Wimbledon, in an old church or something. I literally went down on the bus, with my wife and a guitar, and recorded the whole thing in about four hours. And then Peel, once again, rushed to my aid and said 'It's marvelous, you don't need to put anything on it, just put it out'. He could have interfered with those songs no end really, but he literally put it straight out." (1994 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

Clive Selwood: "'Case History' is the finest album I ever produced and which still moves me to tears. Kevin Coyne was an extraordinary performer" (Cherry Red website)

 

Kevin Coyne: "The album reflects my work in Whitingham psychiatric hospital and as a social worker for the Soho project in London. The intensity of it all reflects my concern and passion for the problems of the underdog. It's dedicated to the unfortunate among us. One of the songs, 'Uggy's Song', is about a black tramp who was teased and eventually murdered by, I think, the police in Leeds in the early 70s. I read about this case and decided to write the song. The memory of the event still haunts me today." (Interview by Frank Bangay, 2004, published in Mental Health magazine, Feb 2005)

 

"I love 'Case History' more than anything. It was a problem in itself to get hold of that album, but it was odd that the people I found who did were often in their forties and didnÕt normally listen to records. It reached them. Which made me think that I was really singing for adults as opposed to children." (1973)

 

  "Looking back, I never stopped being a social worker." (Interview by Robert Chalmers, 2004)

 

 

Evil Island Home

 


x 'Marjory Razorblade' (1973)

  "...Oh what a picture she made..."

Wiser after the flop of laid back, hippie Dandelion, Coyne signed with Virgin Records, then the new 'indie' label. Kevin was the second signing, after Mike Oldfield. It was even suggested that Kevin might add vocals to 'Tubular Bells', which he wisely declined!
Backed by Virgin's clout, Coyne was finally about to show the world what he could do. The album was recorded in a few days at Manor Studios, initially as demos with Dave Clague from Siren, then with session musicians assembled for the occasion. Some of them would form the first Kevin Coyne Band.
After Kevin, the album's hero is Gordon Smith, the great acoustic slide guitarist (he'd released the album 'Long Overdue' on the Blue Horizon label). The sound and cohesiveness of the album are largely down to him; the arpeggios of 'Everybody Says', the slide of 'House on the Hill'. Smith is the ideal accompanist; supportive yet modest, brilliant yet subtle.
Over thirty years on, 'MRB' remains the flagship Kevin Coyne album, delivering some of his most famous songs: the moving 'Talking to No One', 'Eastbourne Ladies' and 'House on the Hill', but also the comic 'Karate King' and 'Good Boy'. Or 'This is Spain', a satire of the paranoid British holidaymaker who perceives Spain as primitive and hostile.
Hungry for studio time, frustrated by the demise of Siren but sure of his ability, Kevin threw body and soul into this record, a double album of rare inventiveness. He was convinced fame was round the corner and freely declared: 'I really think I'm a better vocalist than almost anybody I see on stage' and 'I'm quite prepared to take on the whole world.'
He was also very demanding and unwilling to compromise. The record's opener, for example, where he wails a-capella 'Marjory's' morbid lament, must have put more than one listener to flight and helped create his reputation as a mentally ill alcoholic. The Virgin bigwigs probably tore their hair out trying to persuade him to open with the catchy 'Marlene'. But the stubborn Coyne would always defend the integrity of his work at all costs, even at the risk of scuppering his career.
The album was reissued in 2010 as a 2-cd pack with bonus tracks.

 

Kevin Coyne: "I thought, well, thatÕs it – for a bit anyway. IÕll just lay around and see – I know somebodyÕs gonna ring me up. And sure enough about a week later I got a call from Virgin." (Sounds, April 24, 1976)

 

"I thought it was just a record shop." (1994 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"Virgin do much of what Dandelion did, the principles are very much the same but they have so much more knowledge, so much more genuine intuition about things. There's money too. Wonderful chain of shopsÉ" (Capitol Radio, 1974)

 

"I think there were quite mixed feelings about what I should do and what I wanted to do. They at Virgin Records had all listened to 'Case History' which is not just an album – itÕs a whole period of my life IÕm very glad was recorded on record but is at the same time not very easy to listen to for many people. I think they just wanted to tie the words in with something strong and melodic so I think they originally indicated that I should write with somebody else, and my first view of the Manor [recording studio] was listening to some of Mike OldfieldÕs tapes and trying to work out a connection there, but heÕs a very different person to me." (Zig Zag Mag #36, 1973?)

 

"The feeling at Virgin was: 'Give it a go and the freedom of the Manor is yours,' so I initially went down with Dave Clague and tried a few things out. We did some demos, we just worked out some songs, and it all started from there. We were there for about two days and we did eleven tracks, just guitar and second guitar" (Zig Zag Mag #36, 1973?)

 

Gordon Smith: ÒThe first lot was at the Manor, and we went down to Worthing, to a studio down there. And also there was another one in Chipping Norton which, coincidentally, was something to do with Blue Horizon. They were involved with that studio where we did the last session with Jean Roussel on the keyboards.Ó (Interview with Clive Product, 2007)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I signed for Virgin records. 'Marjory Razorblade' was my first attempt. It was a double album full of my best efforts of explaining myself. IÕll admit I was extremely lonely. It came as a shock when people started to listen. 'Marjory' still is just a little private." (1976)

 

"I canÕt pretend to be starving. Virgin have helped me and have a lot to be proud of in that respect. They saved me at that time (the fading of Dandelion into fresh air) from total obscurity. But I think something else would have turned up anyway. I know I am an important songwriter and I know that what I do will reach more people." (Liquorice, 1976)

 

"Richard Branson was just into money. Not obviously at first, because he seems a very nice bloke. I always find him very amiable and easy to talk to – if nervy, like his mind's on other things. He seems a man with a heart. Till I realised I'd never received any royalty statements. It was a shambles in that respect." (The Independent, 2001)

 

"I knew Richard Branson had very little interest in rock music. I think the only tune he ever knew was 'Green grow the Rushes'. I think he always confused me with Captain Beefheart, he thought we were the same people." (Radio Darby, 1990)

 

"Richard Branson certainly made some money. He canÕt say he didnÕt. I know 'Marjory Razorblade' and 'Millionaires and Teddybears' sold very well, and continue to do so – if available. No I wonÕt have it, I didnÕt lose any money for Virgin at all, I very much dispute that. HeÕs very casually dismissive of business failure, you know and itÕs not true. I cost very little to record, almost nothing and whatever, IÕve never understood the logic behind it. I think it suits his image to say these sort of things." (Classic Rock magazine, 2001)

 

"I was always told 'Well, you're in debt, you know, you recorded at the Manor Studio and it costs', you've got no way of checking. But you've been doing gigs and there's a decent crowd there, you're selling albums in some way, that's what I always thought. The high points, I played in all the big theatres, including the Olympia in Paris, and you know it was not a particularly big crowd that day but lots of places packed and you wonder: 'All these people, they're buying these fucking records!'. You walk in all the shops and here they are. And I was very naive you know." (Interview with Pascal Regis, February 2004)

 

Mick Brown: "I was with Richard [Branson] a couple of years ago. He turned to me and said: 'You know the one I really loved? Kevin Coyne. He was amazing.'" (Quoted by Robert Chalmers, 2004)

 

Kevin Coyne: "You say yesÉ when Richard Branson rings upÉ He's a mutli-millionaire. It takes a very strong person to say no. When you haven't got much money. But I think it's very different now. But is it really different? There's still the same sharks out there and still people enter the music business, there's no book, there's no money, they all think they can do anything. Oh easy money! I had a lot of guys, I had gangsters running my life and all sortsÉ one of them is in prison now. It was all a challenge and I certainly don't regret any of it but if I started now, I wouldn't know what the hell to do, so I'd do exactly what I did before, because I didn't know a thing." (Interview with Pascal Regis, February 2004)

 

"I thought 'Case History' was good. In comparison to what was going down at the time, it was very strong. But you couldnÕt even buy it anywhere for a start. Somewhere along the line it got strangulated. And it was a bit hard to come back after that. I did a tour of Europe with the Dandelion people and it was very successful in its own way, and I thought I was getting through, but I came back to England, as has happened so many times, and there was nothing. No mention of the album, no reviews, nothing. I got very upset. I cracked at that point. I didnÕt go down but I became very sad and self-absorbed for a long timeÉ something I try and avoid now. I thought, whatÕs the point, they donÕt deserve it. Virgin came along, and I was determined to go back into the studio and show everybody. I still had a lot to say, still have, and I wanted to get it down. If the Pistols were angry, shit, I certainly was when I made 'Marjory Razorblade'. (1979)

 

"'Marjory Razorblade' really overlaps with my London experience, after the hospital. ThereÕs more of a universality to the songs; they are as much about people on the outside who have the same kind of problems. ThatÕs one thing I always try to do, that is to write about real people." (1978)

 

"Gordon Smith, Tony Cousins, Jean Roussel, Chili Charles arrived at the sessions and I liked them. That became the band." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

Gordon Smith: ÒI was working in a Virgin record shop in Notting Hill Gate. I«m not sure exactly how we got together. Kevin had heard of me, obviously, through my Blue Horizon stuff. Well, we met, we hit it off. We became good friends. And, at the time, I was having trouble with my girlfriend. I moved in with Kevin in his house in Clapham. It was a big flat in Clapham and they gave me a room. I took my trunk, my possession, to his place. I didn«t really stay there very long. I used to stay there on odd days. I was going back and forwards to my girlfriend«s, and going back to Kevin«s place. Most of the time I was drinking a lot and doing other thingsÉ I remember playing music in Kevin«s flat, just the two of us with acoustic guitars.Ó (Interview with Clive Product, 2007)

 

Tony Cousins: "The first time I met him would have been when Simon [Draper] said one day, ÔDo you wanna go and play bass with this guy KevinÕ about whom I and Gordon [Smith] didnÕt know, and I said, ÔWell of course, why not, itÕs worth a go isnÕt itÕ. And we went up on a Sunday. That was the first time I would have met him, and also drummer Chili [Charles]. Chili was Trinidadian and he had a girlfriend who was working there, and he was just living there I think, while he was trying to find his feet. In the same way as Simon knew that I played bass, he knew that Chili was a drummer. So he said, ÔWhy donÕt you play drums?Õ It was literally that ad hoc. I mean, the drum kit that Chili had, it wasnÕt even a complete drum kit. It was just bits that he found there, that either people had left or that were just available." (Interview with Eugene Coyne, 2009)

 

Gordon Smith: "He was a prolific songwriter. He just used to make songs up on the spot. I wasnÕt a songwriter myself, I was a blues guitar player, and it just seemed that we fitted in perfectly." (Interview with Eugene Coyne, 2009)

 

Kevin Coyne: "My favourite track is a thing called 'House on the Hill' which has a lot of dobro style steel playing from Gordon [Smith]. This is a track that really moves me to tears.

I think the album is an entity as a whole, and thatÕs why if you lift a piece out, it sounds sort of undressed. ThatÕs why I say 'Marlene' should be heard following on from 'Marjorie Razorblade', which is a takeoff of an old Music Hall pub singer singing, and then into 'Marlene'. It works beautifully you know, and I keep wanting to hear 'Marjorie Razorblade' before, but it would never get any plays". (Zig Zag Mag #36, 1973?)

 

 

"This is a song called 'House on the Hill' - if you're depressed, this will make you feel worse". (Live talk, 2001)

 

Gordon Smith: Kevin always said I was the blues part of the band. Kevin obviously wrote all the songs, or most of them, so we just had to put our stamp on it. It was a great little band! It used to rock!Ó (Interview with Clive Product, 2007)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I really didn't recognize how the hell I'd managed to do this ['House on the Hill']. It was done in one take. There was not a single fault in the recording of that song." (1997 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"I write to state the case, like on 'House on the Hill' about an asylum, I felt it important to write about it as I'd been in one so I did. It's not a condemning picture, it's an admission that madness is quite uncontrollable and that there has to be some facility to accommodate  these people. Having been mad myself I know that without the concern of the people around me I would have been 'placed away' quite quickly." (Soundmaker, Feb 26 1983)

 

"'House on the Hill' from 'Marjory Razorblade' is about Whittingham hospital, about the grey atmosphere, the primitive conditions and the rest. It's a song with a glimmer of hope, but not much. My time as an out of work drunk wandering around Brixton is mentioned too. It's a very personal song." (Interview by Frank Bangay, 2004, published in Mental Health magazine, Feb 2005)

 

Paul Bennetts: "Kevin is a wonderful poet and his lyrical work can be far richer than any other of the so called singer songwriter poets such as Dylan or Cohen. Their work is based largely on the external world and is therefore very visual lyrically whereas Kevin can take us to somewhere else: an internal world with all its fears, etc. As you would expect, it may not be a world that is logical or rational at all and yet beauty and enlightenment can be found in the most unexpected places. Perhaps we can imagine standing with the Princes on the watchtowers or eating oranges with Suzanne at her place near the river but Kevin's fearless honesty seems to have the ability to take you to the very edge sometimes. That I would argue is his genius".

 

Kevin Coyne: "What I learnt about making art is that when people are in the turmoil of breakdown, they become more direct. Their masks fall away, they paint from heart to hand. I incorporated those concepts into my music. The first thing that comes into your head is often your best shot. I improvise everything, with the attendant mistakes, but I want to get at the heart. I loathe the 'well-crafted' pop song. We're supposed to find something out about ourselves with art, and craft wrecks that. I've no time for The Beatles. I'm appalled they're back at N¡1. A whole generation is trained to believe they represent truth and honesty. I think 'Sgt. Pepper" sounds like shit." (The Independent, 2001)

 

"I said I loathe the well-made songs, well-tailored, the middle-eight and all this macartnesque. I never liked the Beatles anyway so all my life I tried to avoid all this shit, I just can't stand it. 'This is a good song, you know'. Producers will tell you this. I remember the first time I ever recorded for the BBC, we went in, we did a song called 'Soon' which is on the Siren album and the middle-eight is a bit strange and the producer said 'That's not right, you know, it does not sound right', I said 'Fuck off! This is our song!' You know, the BBC type, smoking a pipeÉ unbelievable." (Interview with Pascal Regis, February 2004)

 

Tony Cousins: "I was adequate at best as a musician in those days. I knew about chords and all that but usually if I was playing with anybody at least IÕd run through it first. And Kevin, heÕd sit down with his guitar, play the thing through and weÕd take it. Because of course he understood the importance of expressing your ideas as succinctly and as directly as possible without embellishing it endlessly and losing the essential emotion involvedÉ I canÕt remember which song we started with or any of that sort of thing but we just kind of, rattled through things. The first day we must have done half a dozen songs." (Interview with Eugene Coyne, 2009)

 

Kevin Coyne: "You have like a computer bank or something, it just floods into your head, memories, facts, accurate and inaccurate. Language too, the use of language, you know, I just enjoy doing it. I've tried to unlock the key – that may sound pretentious – but I find a way to do it almost at will, so that it all tumbles out. I'm not a great fan of little exercise books full of scribblings and little neat lyric sheets." (Record Collector, July 2002)

 

"I usually start with a title mainly, a particular theme. A few lines like 'battered babies' or 'house on the hill'. A one-line image built into that as a process. And it has to be something which has directly affected me, it has to have some relation to the truth, a real experience.

I love blues more than anything, and jazz musicians, people like Elmore James, and Muddy Waters. ItÕs just great stuff with a power and truth that I just donÕt find in Yes or Bob Marley and Little Feat, or any of those people. They donÕt move me at all. Essentially I find it meaningless for instance word-wise. You canÕt tell what theyÕre singing about half of the time and the details of the songs are usually to do with loose ladies on the road, the hard struggle to become a professional musician. ItÕs incestuous, just words to hang on to a riff.

I donÕt see the point in doing anything unless youÕre going to say something, unless youÕre going to try and communicate, or even to instruct in some things, to share or pass on a feeling that hasnÕt reached other people. To encapsulate certain feelings for people that they havenÕt been able to express. Sounds a bit pompous, but IÕve got the ability to do these things. So, why not use it?" (Liquorice, 1976)

 

"There are still a lot of times and a lot of situations I havenÕt written about. You just wait for something to spark it". (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

"After only five visits to the Manor, Saturn and Chipping Norton Studios he had laid down 26 songs for an album. It then became impossible to choose only 11 of them, so a double was decided upon." (Virgin Press Release for the single 'Marlene' and the album 'Marjory Razorblade', 1973)

 

Tony Cousins: "I donÕt remember second takes of anything unless somebody really fucked up. I do remember we all really liked the song 'Eastbourne Ladies' and that was the only track where we tried to insist on getting a better take - we must have done a dozen takes or something - and ended up using probably the first or the second one because we just couldnÕt get it any better. And Kevin was getting very annoyed by then, because he hated doing things that many times.

The overriding thing was this sense of uncompromising attitude and getting straight to work. You werenÕt larking around." (Interview with Eugene Coyne, 2009)

 

Gordon Smith: We would have done it live. I done a few overdubs but most of it was live. None of this rubbish about taking six months to do an album. We done it in a week or something like that.Ó (Interview with Clive Product, 2007)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I was surprised that people didnÕt cotton on to [the fact that] this was really genuine white blues. And not like black blues, but it was blues. It owed something, obviously, to the Delta and Robert Johnson, but it wasnÕt like Van Morrison, trying to out-do the greats. It was something rather individualistic but using the blues poetic lyric formÉ The actual content of the lyrics and the relapses into the vernacular, the Midlands and all that, was something no-one had really ever done before." (1996)

 

John Peel: "The thing about Kevin is that nothing in his voice is contrived. He hated the idea of 'white blues'. But what he does seems to come straight from the soul. You could say the same of Elmore James or Robert Johnson, or Howling Wolf." (Interview by Robert Chalmers)

 

Kevin Coyne: "My one possible drawbackÉ itÕs strange because at the same time itÕs my strongest asset in a wayÉ is that I write so quickly. I never labour over songs. They come incredibly easily to me." (1978)

 

'I Want My Crown': "I am familiar with the version from Big Joe Williams. As usual I couldn't remember the exact words so I added quite a few of my own. It was the spirit of the song I wanted to capture and I think I succeeded." (Interview by Frank Bangay, 2004)

 

"I was disappointed by the album reception. I felt I was tapping into something exceptional. I'd managed to transfer Englishness into blues form, those crackly old records coming through the ether had touched something inside me. And I thought I was speaking for the people I'd worked with. People in trouble have told me those songs mean something to them, particularly 'House on the Hill'. And it sold well. But it didn't reach people properly, it was misunderstood. The papers said I was trying to sound like Al Stewart." (The Independent, 2001)

 

"It was a real pity that album was released in America as a single record; it totally destroys the concept. The record company really undermine their own artists sometimes."(Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

John Peel: "Kevin has one of the best voices in contemporary music, every word he sings contains real emotion, be it anger, hurt or joy. HeÕs one of the great ones, ladies and gentlemen." (1973)

 

Clive Selwood: "A huge talent. Colossal. I really believe that he had the capacity to become famous on the scale of Bob Dylan." (The Independent, October 27, 1988)

 

John Peel: "A lot of people thought he was the Great White hope, but to be frank, I think you have to be a bit of a bastard to make it on that level. And Kevin hasn't really got that element in his make-up". (The Independent, October 27, 1988)

 

Alex James: "This album is widely agreed to be the masterpiece of English folk-blues artist Coyne, while being early and underground enough to have slipped under even your radar. Entrancing, freaky and desolate in turns, it should grab you by the throat and shake your brains around as well as reminding you why it's quite nice to be a cheese farmer and writing for The Spectator". (The Daily Telegraph 2007)

 

"Kevin Coyne's mind was a dying seaside town; broken-windowed alehouses, charity shops, battered lives in bleak attics forgotten by everyone but him. His ugly-beautiful mutter bawling his stories like a mongrel locked out in the rain. One-eyed songs on crutches spilling fag ash in their drinks. Demented old ladies, like the knife-tongued Marjory Razorblade, who might just be Gracie Fields's bastard sister; Eastbourne Ladies flashing their knickers; Jackie in his boarding house, paper hat on head, pining for Edna, his love long gone. Lives played out in the shadow of the mental hospital on the hill where Coyne once worked. Max Wall singing the blues. A desolate, desperate, beautiful scrapbook of stories, a scuffed blues bestiary spat out by England's Gogol, the Bard of Derby." (Jeff Young, The Guardian, 2006)

 

Frank Bangay: "...a mixture of blues and music hall comedy, with a punk edge." (2004)

 

Jeffrey Lewis: "That album is absolutley fantastic, I really must thank you for introducing me to it! I read up a little bit on Kevin Coyne and it just makes me more and more fascinated by him and by those recordings. And of course everybody I play the album to loves it too. One of the best gifts I've gotten!" (2003)


'Blame it on the Night' (1974)

x

The unobtainable record. For mysterious marketing reasons, this essential album was only pressed in limited quantities and today can only be found at crazy prices, being also the sole title excluded from the CD release of Coyne's Virgin back catalogue in the 90s. For years, before the 2010 download only reissue (and its many bonus tracks), fans would scour the internet in search of this overlooked masterpiece, and masterpiece indeed it is.
Perhaps less startling than 'Marjory', 'Blame It On The Night' is nevertheless in the same vein. On the one hand there is the folk-blues-boogie of 'I Believe In Love' and 'Poor Swine' (and its amazing lyrics where Coyne feels pity for a coal mine boss facing his employees). On the other, the disturbing madness of 'Witch' or 'Don't Delude Me' (is Coyne presenting a clinical case, or is he himself mad?).
The album is again perfectly served by Gordon Smith and band, a solid blues-rock combo compliant to every whim of the maestro Coyne. The album begins with the opening cackle of 'River Of Sin', a laugh that some feel was echoed by Johnny Rotten in 'Anarchy In The UK'. Rotten later admitted to being a Coyne fan. Rebels Of The World, Unite.

 

Kevin Coyne: "The record sounds a little contrived in places. These record company situations: they say you have to go one way when you want to go another. I didn't do 'Blame it on the Night' that way for that reason, but that idea is in the back of my mind now. As it turned out, the album didn't sell like 'Marjory Razorblade' and I admit I panicked in some respects." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

 "So far, Kevin Coyne is supposed to be the new Bob Dylan, the new Joe Cocker, the new Jim Morrison, the new Loudon Wainwright, the new Wild Man Fischer, the new Dr. John, the new Roger Chapman and the new Captain Beefheart. Actually, heÕs the old new Kevin Coyne" (Press release 1974)

 

Kevin Coyne: "Why not compare me to music-hall people – Max Miller, George Formby Senior or Al Reed? IÕve borrowedÉ the manner on stage, a bit of Les DawsonÉ things that donÕt really belong to rock and roll." (Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

"I like the Northern kind of comic. Freddie Frinton kind of humour. Les Dawson. People like that. Although I think he's become just a little bit of a product of the media of late. But he's a great stand-up comic generally. And I love the way they always break into song." (NME, 27 March 1976)

 

Gordon Smith: "He was a one-off. He was unique. He had the comedy and everything. Totally English as well. He was a natural comedian. A bit like a Les Dawson character really. He had that same sort of sense of humour. He used to put on these voices, just like Les Dawson. He wasnÕt trying to copy him. It was just a natural thing." (Interview with Eugene Coyne, 2009)

 

Kevin Coyne: "I think a song like 'River of Sin', what with the laughing and the sound of it, is very close to 'Anarchy in the UK', or one of those. And I realize now that John Lydon must have listened very closely to some of those things. I was supposed to meet him one time. It was supposed to be a 'meeting of minds' or something. I was very drunk. I collapsed under a table and was taken out. I never saw him. Which is more in the spirit of punk that what he was up to." (1994 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

People always said, 'Oh he has 'it' but he doesn't quite fit inÉ' or they tried to push me as another great white soul singer, or bought in Van Morrison and BeefheartÉ it can still happen." (New Musical Express, February 3, 1979)

 

"Coming from a fairly well-to-do suburban lifestyle, Coyne's catalog of life's outsiders and losers has always struck an ominous chord with me. It's kind of like seeing a bad traffic accident. The carnage is horrible, yet there's something fascinating about the horror that makes it hard to take your eyes of the scene." (RDTEN1 rateyourmusic.com)

 

 

'Blame it on the Night'

 

 


x 'Matching Head and Feet' (1975)

The sound of the first two albums was no longer enough. Coyne wanted big venues and a big sound. The spiral that would lead to to a live double album (that inevitable '70s beast) was set in motion, probably stoked by Virgin, who wanted hits and commercial success.

The faithful Tony Cousins was replaced on bass by Archie Leggett (ex Kevin Ayers). Gordon Smith stayed, but was buried beneath the sound of Andy Summers (studio guitar-hero just out of Eric Burdon's New Animals) who would bring the house down with The Police a couple of years later. (Kevin always remembered bumping into him in the studio during the recording of 'Outlandos d'Amour', and chuckling at his new peroxide hairdo: 'We thought, this is Andy's last chance to make something.' Apropos The Police, Sting is also a declared Kevin Coyne fan). The battle of egos between the two guitarists swang in favour of Summers, who remained to shine alone on the next two albums.
'Matching Head and Feet' is an imperfect album full of gems. While 'Saviour' or the marvellous 'Sunday Morning Sunrise' always remained live crowd pleasers, songs like 'Rock'n'Roll Hymn' or 'Tulip', plus the '70s production, leave the album somewhat dated.
Still, the critics found it more 'accessible' at the time, more 'commercial'  than 'Marjory' or 'Blame It', which they considered too 'introspective'.
Geoffrey Haslam had production credits with The Velvet Underground ('Loaded'), The MC5 and The J Geils Band, but contented himself with simply adding the odd touch of strings or brass.
The album was reissued in 2010 as download only with lots of bonus tracks.

"'Matching Head and Feet' not only fulfils but actually surpasses all anticipations that heÕd record an album to shake the world" (Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 1975)

 

Kevin Coyne: "This album sold very well. It actually went to the Top 30 in England as I remember."(Sounds, July 26 1975)

 

"Although that might have been my fault, I make no apology for wanting to dominate the direction of the music. I have to have that control. I sometimes get angered by musicians who donÕt fully appreciate what IÕm doing" (Melody Maker, 1975)

 

Gordon Smith: ÒA lot of egos flying around, yeah! There was a lot of tension at the time. Lots of drinkingÉÓ (Interview with Clive Product, 2007 as all of Gordon's quotes for this album)

 

Tim Penn: "I seem to remember he [Producer Geoffrey Haslam] had very little input into the album bar adding horns on a couple of tracks and getting the string arrangement done for 'Rock & Roll Hymn' – which I hated (the strings) at the time. I guess what Geoff really did was to say 'Yeah, that's working or not' etc. I cannot remember any ideas really originating with him, except I think the suggestion to horns on 'Its Not Me' and the flute on 'Tulip' and definitely the strings on 'Rock & Roll Hymn'. The whole album was recorded in about 3 or 4 days." (Interview with Pascal Regis, 2003, as all Tim's quotes for this album)

 

Kevin Coyne: ""His [Geoffrey Haslam's] forte was brass arrangements and bringing in loads of session people to sit around and moan all day." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"There are some good songs on it, but they are grossly arranged in many ways. Everybody in the band was weighing in too heavy. But I felt pretty angry when I did it. There was some of that pressure again and I objected to just saying, 'All right, let's do a rock'n'roll album'. I didn't quite work out that way." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

Tim Penn: "'Saviour' was literally written from that bass riff of Archie's which Gordon immediately developed with the slide riff."

 

Gordon Smith: ['Saviour'] ÒThat was my riff. That was me trying to do a Fred McDowell sort of thing on the slide guitar. I«d met Fred McDowell and loved his music. That«s where that riff came from."

 

Kevin Coyne: "When we were recording 'Saviour', I kept thinking: 'My God, what kind of monster are we giving birth to here?'" (Melody Maker, 1975)

 

 

'Saviour'

 

Tim Penn: "The mid section and arrangement on 'Tulip' was very much Andy Summers."

 

Gordon Smith: ÒI think the idea [of Andy Summers joining the band] was from Virgin. They were trying to make them into a pop star thing, make them more commercial.Ó

 

Tim Penn: "'Mrs Hooley' was given shape by Archie suggesting that given the Irish theme it needed something sounding like those Irish drums and Irish marching bands (hence the swirling Summers guitar solo). The two versions of this song (the BBC session and 'Matching Head and Feet') perhaps best emphasis what Virgin was asking Kevin to try and do with the album."

 

Kevin Coyne: "What I wanted to avoid more than anything was a mainstream rock sound. They really wanted something like a band sound with a mixture of the more quirkyÉ the real Kevin Coyne stuff strewn around occasionally, to add a little bit of eccentricity to the thing. But the main push being on a radio commercial-bound rock sound, I would say, something which maybe comes through on the records. I don't think my ideas come across best when watered down. I gradually got away from all of that, to the point where I pretty well did what I liked." (Interview with Richie Unterberger, 1988)

 

Tim Penn: "'Turpentine' – I think Geoff said it didn't sound angry enough and Kevin suggested I just banged the piano with my fists, etc (I think I overdubed the piano, so that we could have several goes at the random  anger – but it may have been put down live. I can't remember now, but I can remember that my hands were bleeding afterwards!). I think I did quite well!"

 

"'Matching Head and Feet' remains, I think, Kevin's most extreme and provocative statement. It was characterised largely by a mood of rage and apocalypse. I remember vividly listening for the first time to 'Turpentine', Kevin's ferocious vision of suburban violence and terror ('I know in Seven Oaks, there are plenty of folks who carry guns, carry KNIVES, smash the faces of their WIVESÉ Turpentine – BURN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD RIGHT DOWN NOW): as the song reached a frightening climax a speaker literally flew off the wall of the studio and Archie Legget narrowly escaped severe concussion. It was that kind of album." (Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 1976)

 

Tim Penn: "'Lonely Lovers' – Kevin basically said he wanted the piano part to sound like an amateur suburban piano player just banging out a tune, and the end sounding like poor piano practice. The screaming 'cat sounds' guitar solo was Andy's idea and I wasn't completely convinced either by the piano part or the guitar. Kevin's songs never really needed any 'gimmicks'.

'Sunday Morning Sunrise' – I remember Kevin improvising several different lyrics in the studio. To me it was a new song, but it had been tried out for 'Blame it on the Night'. The feel of it was very much Summers, who I thought was a much better song arranger and guitar orchestrator than a natural soloist in the Gordon Smith mold. Actually, I thought that Gordon and he provided a very good foil for each other, as can be heard on the album and also on the two tracks that survive from the Rainbow gig in March. Gordon again proved he was more than just a bluesman on this song (but I think he really felt that the blues was the more honourable master to serve!).

'It's Not Me' was just a rocker done in the studio, the best part of the song being the interplay between Gordon's guitar and the piano, which the overdubbed sax (Mel Collins I think) picked up on to work his solo around.

'Lucy' I hated at the time and still do. This song epitomised what I most disliked about the rhythmic feel of the new band. Archie Leggett's tumbling bass line gave the whole thing a very frenetic feel. Maybe I dislike it because I could not find any space to do anything with it on keyboards – to me rhythmically the track just doesn't sit anywhere.

'Rock & Roll Hymn' was just a little lick I was messing with in rehearsals that Kevin just started singing to, Archie helped shape the middle eight. The whole thing was written in about 10 minutes – Kevin thought it might make a good single (how wrong he was!).

'One Fine Day' first started life as 'Right in Hand'. Kevin wanted to get away from his 'strumming guitar' sounds, so the little cod reggae feel was put together in the studio. I think I suggested using the wah-wah on the piano part and then overdubbing the organ."

 

Kevin Coyne: "I was very much influenced by the place we were recording the album at – Little Chalfont, very suburban, extremely so, and with a very irritating redneck attitude to us, just even walking down the street and going into pubs. So it was all rage, and on the spot reaction – 'I know in Sevenoaks, there are peopleÉ'. I know that behind this superficial well-mannered situation there is a lot of anxiety and pain. It was my total irritation at their pretence at normality." (Liquorice, 1976)

Tim Penn: "Summers and Leggett had joined the band in late December or early January. Andy then suggested Peter Woolf as a new permanent drummer and I think about a week of rehearsals for the album were done before going into the studio – so the band was not exactly gig tight. The rehearsals certainly did not produce definitive arrangements of the songs for sure, and were more about trying to find more varied feels away from what Kevin and the previous band had been doing. Perhaps I have false memories but the Hyde Park band [30th June 1974] never rehearsed as far as I remember. Virgin were definitely looking for a different approach/ sound than that on 'Marjory' and 'Blame It On The Night' – so we did not go to the Manor (which was not exactly a great studio at the time) and we used the Stones Mobile 16 track and recorded it out at a farm studio in Beaconsfield (I think!)."

 

Gordon Smith: ÒIt [the band] did collapse a few times! That«s from over-indulgence. I remember one time, we did this tour of Spain with a new drummer. I can«t remember his nameÉ And just before we went on stage, in the dressing room, he drank a whole bottle of brandy. In one go! A big bottle! And then we went on stage and he just collapsed at these drums. (Laughs) And we«re getting these cans and all sorts of things thrown at us from the audience. Tin cans flying off my guitar!Ó.

 

Tim Penn: "I remember little of my past. Well as the clichŽ says, if you can remember the sixties (or was it the seventies), you couldn't have been there. However, at some point during my colourful youth I was a member of Kevin Coyne's band and played on his third album 'Matching Head and Feet'. Whilst with Kevin, I vaguely remember being attacked by a wasp on stage at Hyde Park in 1974, and getting voted top live band in Belgium, beating Eric Clapton in second place. I can also remember a strange incident in Sweden with a certain Mr Andy Summers, a stripper and a glove puppet that looked remarkably like a fox. I think I also played in Dorris Henderson's Eclection in the 70s, and worked with her again from about 1999 until she died last year." (www.guvnors.com)


x 'Heartburn' (1976)

 

This album is not unlike 'Matching Head & Feet', but is more problematic. The coldness of the sound and the cleaner production rob us of the wild side of Coyne. 'Strange Locomotion', with its pleasant psychedelic imagery, is superb but is an old Siren number. 'America' is both strangely lyrical and comic, while 'I Love My Mother' wallows in thick layers of strings. Most of the songs were set to benefit from live renditions on the next album.
'Heartburn' is a transitional work that has some aces in the pack but doesn't quite manage to succeed. Was Virgin hoping to cash-in in a Joe Cocker way with this "mainstream" album, followed by the strangest Kevin Coyne singles ever? (a cover of "Walk on by"! A disco version of "Fever"!! - Who needs covers when you have a songwriter like Kevin Coyne!). It's fascinating to see that, at the very same time, Coyne was collaborating to the most avant-garde projects: Michael Mantler's "Silence" with Carla Bley and Robert Wyatt, "England England" play, "Don't Make Waves" radio play and all the beautiful and full of emotions songs like "Mona where's my trousers" (what a title...) that would later emerge in the "Beautiful Extremes" LP.
Heartburn's disturbing sleeve is by Hipgnosis.

Kevin Coyne: "You can tell by the title it wasn't up to much. With the band I was just sort of losing my grip on my own individual things – playing a guitar and singing, which is what I do best. I was going on stage almost as the leader of a rock band with all the classical posturesÉ I got to feel a bit like Joe Cocker. I was getting to feel a bit mindless, like going through the processes. I felt very depressedÉ I haven't even got a copy of 'Heartburn'. My thing about albums is that they should read like diaries and I felt that the diary lost a few pages during that period." (New Musical Express, February 3, 1979)

 

"There's an element of compromise. Yeah, I have to admit that – in the sense that I've nearly had to stop being too direct and temper it with a little more musical skill. But it's not too much of a compromise because it's enjoyable for me and I'm learning a lot at the same time. But I don't want to lose the qualities that were there and I don't think I have. I think that on a lot of the stuff I've been doing lately on my own, it's stronger than ever in that direction. And that will see the light of day soon." (NME, 27 March 1976)

 

"Again I like it, butÉ it feels a little manipulated. There's not as much spirit there, even in some of the songs. As I said, I generally write about real people. On that album, it seems like I'm the only real person." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

Neale Paterson: "It's as if Virgin wanted to punish Kevin Coyne for his recalcitrance by imprisoning him in studio rock hell and not letting him out until he came up with a gold record. And Kevin Coyne responds like a naughty schoolboy, promising the headmaster to be a good boy - with his fingers crossed behind his back. That's what makes 'Heartburn' so fascinating, and weirdly subversive. [É]  It's an amazing piece of work, in its way. Pure musical theatre, as with 'In Living Black And White' – but unlike the live album, this one has all the subtext kept well out of sight, neatly swept under the studio carpet – and not less powerful for that..." (Kevin Coyne Group, 2008)

 

Kevin Coyne: "It's the least successful  album I ever made in terms of sale and yet it was the most expensive, silly cover, which, I would say, is the art student view of Kevin Coyne." (Liquorice, 1978)

 

"'My Mother's Eyes' is essentially a Jewish song of devotion to the great mother." (Sounds, January 21, 1978)

 

 

'Shangri-la'

 


'England England' (1976 - unreleased)

 

Snoo Wilson: It was Coyne who prompted the theme of twins in 'England England'. HeÕd wanted to explore the relationship between him and his brother for a long time. I felt the theme needed a bit of expanding. We started out with the silliest of synopses which I gradually transferred on to file-cards, noting which characters were singing the songs." (Time Out, Aug 19-25 1976)

 

Kevin Coyne: "That did cause quite a stir and it did really go down that well. There were a few of moral objections, saying we glorified two ruthless criminals. But they missed the point entirely. We were only trying to understand why they did what they did. And anyway, the music was well received." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

"I suppose I was fascinated by The Kray Brothers because they were villains and baddies, something to do with childhood. I knew that they were probably pretty ordinary guys, the sort of guys who could live on the Council estates where I was born, who'd grown to this enormous size of myth and legend and I just wanted to normalize them a little bit, bring in elements of the '50s. take away the myth, find the flesh and the bones, the reality of it all.

I can only see them as working class boys struggling, trying to make it the only way they could. They could have been boxers or footballers – possibly the only other choice left to them was to be gangsters. To make money it seems to be the only way. Where I lived it was a similar thing. I moved into 'pop music' to make money – I had very little possibilities to achieve anything else anywhere else." (Chasing Rainbows, 1977)

 

"I thought it was great. I thought it was very misunderstood by silly old men who didn't understand anything. There was a lot of intellectual bullshit about it in the posh papers – completely crap, totally misunderstood. People prefer 'Jesus Christ Super-star' or the Elvis musical, they still want a degree of fantasy. I was excepting all sort of things to happen, legs getting shot off. There was one day when we went into the theatre and there was this badly spelt note on one of the showcases outside and it said 'Tell the truth', that's all it saidÉ actually we had told the fucking truth." (Liquorice, 1978)

 
'In Living Black and White' (1976) / 'On Air' (1975)

 

One of the best known Kevin Coyne records, with its famous cover (on the back we find that the smiling Coyne conceals a cut-throat razor..), 'In Living Black & White' attracted a whole new audience. The concerts were billed as 'An Evening With Kevin Coyne, His Music, His Words, His Band'.
The band is a perfect whole, in sound and in power. Summers is a giant, whether with lavish solos, the frenzied rhythms of 'Eastbourne Ladies', or even the acoustic purity of 'Big White Bird'. Virgin must have rubbed their hands in glee at three sides of great rock. Yes, only three, since the first side succumbed to the inevitable Coyne axiom: when it gets too obvious or easy, do the opposite of what people expect. So this live double opens with 'Case History #2' – an unprecedented piece, perhaps one of the most astonishing of his career. Accompanied by the sublime Zoot Money on electric piano, Coyne, backed by earie spoken-words tapes, delivers strange dreamlike texts and poetical ravings, followed by some grotesque and distressed crooning. Then come the famous roars of 'Fat Girl', with Coyne's primitive guitar lashing out a furious rhythm.
When the full band eventually comes together on a diabolical 'Eastbourne Ladies', it is clear that we are dealing with an unclassifiable artist, a giant personality. Unclassifiable, and unmarketable... Were there economic reasons that forced the break-up of this group, or did Coyne decide to take risks again?  'The last band I had was so good I don't think we could do very much more,' was his comment. Whatever it was, Virgin were keen to capitalise on the live album but found themselves on the next tour with only Coyne and Money alone on stage, low-budget music-hall style. Some memorable TV appearances around this time won more than a few converts: on the French show Chorus, where he broke the acoustic guitar's strings one by one, and in Germany on the later, unforgettable Rockpalast, where Kevin pushed theatre to a point where it was hard to believe he wasn't actually mad. The legend was born.
'On Air,' another great live album featuring the same band as 'In Living' appeared in 2008.

'Knocking on Heaven's Door' from "In Living Black & White'

 

Kevin Coyne: "I wanted a lot more anger in the music, a lot more frustration in the playing. The power we had was becoming a little too orthodox. It didnÕt have the power I needed."

"The show opened with a large woman on stage, surrounded by magazines and packets of cornflakes. She was part of the show and she was symbolic, as it were, of something or other in the corner. A domestic setting through the whole gig. There was a settee. I love settees and that on stage. As near you can get to suburbia. And she was great, actually. She was required to participate when she felt necessary, which was, on some occasions, rather frequently. She'd make to attack me on stage if I was particularly chauvinistic and hard. And there was also a tape running. It started off the show. A blank stage and this tape recorder." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"The piano player [Zoot Money] has been aware for far too long thatÉ what? Well, heÕs been aware and formerly a LIVE star of the sixties. HeÕs an artist.  This tour contains Andy Summers, I love him although IÕm not allowed to touch him. Why isnÕt he famous? A million questions but no answers.  Steve Thompson plays the bass and doesnÕt require too much of anything only to play the bass in good company.  Peter Woolf is the original time keeper, the original heartbeat. Pete doesnÕt make a lot of noise because if he did, the walls would fall in. I think I know him ". (Programme to 'An evening with Kevin Coyne, his music, his words, his band', 1976)

 

"The originality is something to which the band responds. As cynical as you can become after being in the business as long as they have, it is something theyÕve never heard before. TheyÕre discovering something, not only something about me, but about a whole area of music they never knew before. ItÕs very important to me this band. Even if it stopped tomorrow, I believe it will have made some sort of mark. The principle behind it is only now becoming a reality. I get exhausted just thinking about what we could really achieve." (Melody Maker, May 19 1975)

 

Andy Summers: "Kevin is only as strong as the musicians behind him, he needs musicians who can translate his ideas with the same kind of authority. My main contribution would be to focus KevinÕs music with more clarity. To give it more power, more edge, more precision which it lacked in the past." (Melody Maker, May 19 1975)

 

Kevin Coyne: "The album was produced by Robert John Lange who later went on to AC/DC. I argued with him from Day 1." (1996 interview, from 'Beautiful Extremes, Conversations with Kevin Coyne')

 

"I go out on a stage with all kinds of intentions, to disrupt as well as entertain an audience. And one dissenting voice, one cry of ÔWanker!Õ, that can change the whole performance. Then, IÕll want to see that person. Have him up on the fucking stage. IÕll want to see this man, see who he isÉ Something like that can change the performance into a vicious and violent attack. And I really do relish that kind of situation. I really do." (1976)

 

"The spectre of performing to an audience who expect something well defined and calculating has depressed me for a long time. I have a real dread of, say, Alvin Lee or some wanker like that, whoÕs basically totally unreal, and treats his audience as if they were unreal, too. IÕve no ambition to get through to the screaming masses who donÕt even bother to think about what it is theyÕre experiencing. It would break my heart to have to do something like that. IÕm unpredictable and I want more and more to work in the kind of atmosphere where people will understand that." (1976)

 

"There is a genuine need for communication, on the part of the audience. They want to be communicated withÉ theyÕre bored and frustrated with being bombed and blasted, verbally and musically, and generally regarded as a silent herd of cattle. And I donÕt care anymore if people say Ôthis is weirdÕ, because I know itÕs not. What IÕm saying is, you talk to me, weÕll all talk. IÕm not hiding behind a battery of giant amplifiers." (1977)

 

Michel Besset: "I organised a concert for Kevin Coyne in 1974 or 75, October or November, in Carmaud [South-West of France], in Hall de la Verrerie. We sold 250 tickets. Shows how curious people were at the time, seeing as it would be difficult to do such a score with an unknown artist those daysÉ That was one of the first shows I promoted. People there did not know nothing, we did not know nothing about music at that time, except dance halls bands from around. Everybody was sort of intimidated by Kevin. They enjoyed the show but did not dare to say it. They did not even clap! They were not used to rock shows at all. But Kevin understood that. He ended the show, let everybody out, and once the last person got out of the door, Kevin went back on stage and started the show again! The audience came back and loved it!" (interview with Pascal Regis, October 2011)

 

"Without doubt one of the most powerful presentations IÕve ever attended. When it was over Kevin was drained, his band was drained, the audience was drained. We sat dazed in a sort of silence after he staggered back on stage to say he couldnÕt possibly do an encore because he was too shattered." (NME, 1973)

 

Kevin Coyne: "IÕve never been an easy person to work with – I mean, just in terms of wanting to change things all the time, always wanting to develop, never wanting to do the same thing twice. Which can be a bit disturbing for regular musicians – but this band arenÕt regular. I think with this band we can do anything really." (Sounds, April 24, 1976)

 

Zoot Money: "I can see it lasting as long as we want it to." (Melody Maker, May 19 1975)

 

Andy Summers: "IÕm a great believer in good songs, because I think you can communicate something through that form. People get very bored with long solos; unless theyÕre laid by a really gifted improviser whoÕs feeling quite inspired, theyÕre such a waste of time. IÕd rather hear an instrumentalist playing something quite succinct within the contest of a good song. It can be much more creative and satisfying than a 15-minute solo by some basically anonymous guitar here." (Melody Maker, July 31 1976)

 

Kevin Coyne: "You know, I think Zoot's a great player. A great artist. They all are. And with the addition of Steve Thompson – a very strong player – the band's really become complete in a way that it wasn't this time last year. That was an interesting bandÉ Incredible variety of people in it, and must have worked more gigs than most. We did all of Europe several times."

 

"That was a very pointless thing [Virgin releasing the double album in America as a single dic] to do. I think the record industry people genuinely underestimate the intelligence of the people who buy their records. As an artist, I'm trying to communicate to that audience. Those industry people should trust me for a change. It may cost them a bit at first, but at least, these people woud be treated as they are – people." (Trouser Press, January 1978)

 

 

'An Evening With Kevin Coyne, His Music, His Words, His Band', filmed for TV in 1977. Songs are Talking to no-one, Strange Locomotion, Sunday Morning Sunrise, Shangril-la, Turpentine, America and Big White Bird.

 

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This book © Pascal REGIS – 2009-2011

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