PASCAL's
KEVIN COYNE HOME PAGE 
TIM PENN REMINISCES...
Tim Penn played piano with the Kevin Coyne band on Matching Head
and Feet (1974)
I
read that Matching was produced by Geoffrey Haslam "who had worked with the
Velvet Underground for Loaded, the MC5 High Time and the first J Geils Band"
Is that true?
Yep, Haslam had worked with the bands you said. However, I seem to remember he 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. The whole album was recorded in about 3 or 4 days.
So who really produced? Kevin? the whole band? I was reading these old articles about Matching and it's funny to see the writers were almost relieved that Matching was a bit more "easy" or "commercial" than Marjory or Blame it. (I don't think saviour or Turpentine were that "easy") 3 or 4 days for such a sophisticated Lp does not seem much. The band must have been really tight. Had you been playing the songs a lot live?
I guess what Geoff really did was to say 'yeh, 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' & definitely the strings on R&R Hymn.
Saviour was literally written from that bass riff of Archie's which Gordon immediately developed with the Slide Riff. The mid section and arrangement on Tulip was very much Andy Summers.
Mrs Hooley was given shape (compared with the early versions (June BBC session)), by Archie suggesting that given the Irish theme it needed something sounding like those Irish drums (bodums I call 'em but that's the caffetiaire maker - it's actually a bodhran I think) and Irish marching bands (hence the swirling Summers guitar solo). The 2 versions of this song (June BBC and MH&F) perhaps best emphasis what Virgin was asking Kevin to try and do with the album.
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 randomn 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 :-)
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'. Lonely Lovers is possibly my least favourite song on the album along with Lucy.
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 (though I have not heard this early version). The feel of it was very much was 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. I like the song a lot, but I find the way the slow tempo was played a little stiff for my taste -- the drum and bass parts are too on the beat, and makes the feel a little like a slow military funeral 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. Having said that Archie was actually the easiest guy to get on with in the new band, and I think was genuinely sorry to see me and Gordon go after the Rainbow Gig, which was I think the only gig that the Matching Head & Feet line-up actually played.
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 8. The whole thing was written in about 10 minutes -- Kevin thought it might make a good single (how wrong he was :-) ). I was never convinced by the strings!
One Fine Day first started life as Right in Hand (listen to the lyrics) which I first heard at the BBC session in Aug 74. Kevin wanted to get away from his 'strumming guitar' sounds, so the little cod reggae feel was put together in the studio though devotees will know that Reggie in a Chicken World had reared its head during the Autumn 74 tour when Pete Nu had temporarily replaced me in the band - so the reggae feel had not appeared out of the blue. . I think I suggested using the wah-wah on the piano part and then overdubbing the organ. My memory suggests that this was the very last song recorded (Tulip was also quite late in the sessions).
Have I missed any songs ? Summers and Leggett had joined the band in late December or early January and we had done a fairly miserable tour of Spain using the ex Gong drummer. Most of this was with the old band material. 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. I am fairly sure some songs were attempted for the first time in the studio (e.g. Turpentine / Sunday Morning Sunrise). I think these were the first rehearsals I ever did with Kevin, apart from the time when I played with him back in October 73 for the Commonwealth Institute gig to promote Marjory Razor Blade. Perhaps I have false memories but the Hyde Park band never rehearsed as far as I remember - if it did it would have only been once or twice when I joined in June 74. Virgin were definitely looking for a different approach / sound than that on Marjory / 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!). In my opinion the best songs are the ones that have endured (Saviour, Sunday Morning Sunrise, Turpentine) and that Kevin still plays.
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Tim Penn is now playing piano with The Guvnors