Langford on Coyne

This is Jon Langford’s obituary for Kevin Coyne that appears in the latest Mojo.

“The phone rings in the mixing room at North Branch Studio in Chicago and my wife breaks the news that Kevin died this morning. We’re busy finishing off an album he started with my band, the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, on his last visit to the United States. It’s the last day of mixing and I’d been excited to send him the final product.

I talk to his wife Helmi in Nuremberg and she tells me he died at home in her arms. This, at least, is good news, as Kevin’s been slogging around Europe with an oxygen tank and breathing tubes in tow for the last few months, playing blinding shows but living in constant terror of dropping dead in some hotel room, all alone. He was diagnosed with fibrosis soon after returning from the Chicago trip. It’s a vicious disease that turns your lungs to concrete and places an unbearable strain on your heart. Kevin downplayed the seriousness of his condition and continued playing and recording, painting and writing ‘til the end. He had a gig in Vienna the night he died and shows booked well into December.

Advance ticket sales were so bad for his last Chicago show I had to beg, bribe and threaten people to turn up. Kevin was charming, rude and hilarious, vogueing for the crowd like some mad medieval friar while ad-libbing whole songs with masterful ease and precision. The crowd was amazed (Kevin was amazing) and I got phone calls and e-mails for days from grateful friends I’d bullied into coming.

First spied in 1974 on the Old Grey Whistle Test with his guitar on his lap, moaning and yelling, fretting the chords with his thumb, Kevin caused a stir at my school on a par with Alvin Stardust’s dramatic TOTP debut. Apart from a slew of reggae albums, Kevin’s Millionaires and Teddy Bears and Babble were the only thing worth nicking out of the Virgin Records press office when we were briefly labelmates back in 1979. John Lydon once confessed to pilfering from his arsenal of crazed squawks and wails, and my pal John Hyatt unashamedly channeled Kevin for The Three Johns.

In 1990 The Mekons covered one of his songs, “Having a Party,” an unsubtle stab at Virgin’s owner (Richard Branson is reportedly a huge Coyne fan to this day) that mirrored our sorry situation on A&M at the time. One night at the Duchess of York in Leeds I handed him a copy and he looked a bit baffled.

For a man who turned down the job as Jim Morrison’s replacement in The Doors, was billed as the English Beefheart and refused to write lyrics for Tubular Bells, Kevin Coyne spent a remarkably long, yet fruitful, time in the rock wilderness.

Brutally neglected in Britain and never even on the radar in the USA, he made his home in Germany where he found love and respect and created wonderful artwork, books and albums that are out there just waiting to be discovered.

Last year, Paul Morley predicted a Kevin Coyne revival, but maybe in death he’s still too wilful, wild and cantankerous for your average conservative rock fan.”

Hap Tip: Tom D