KEVIN COYNE Vinyl Records and CDs

... altered its name to Siren. Reviewing the band's 1971 LP Strange Locomotion, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "Like Fleetwood Mac, this is British blues that neither chokes on false roots nor enmires itself in boogie reductionism. Kevin Coyne's humorously belligerent drawl embodies the band's wit and its punk chauvinism. Mistake: 'Fetch Me My Woman,' which (second mistake) goes on for 7:40." In 1973 he appeared on the BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test, performing "I Want My Crown" and "House on the Hill" with guitarist Gordon Smith and percussionist Chilli Charles. In late 1975 and 1976 Coyne completed the musical England, England, written with playwright Snoo Wilson, and described as "an evocation of the Kray Twins". The musical, directed by Dusty Hughes, was performed on stage in August 1977 at the Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre, in Holborn, London. It was one of the first theatre pieces to reference the fascist associations of a kind of British nationalism that later became more prevalent with the rise of the National Front and the election of Margaret Thatcher. From 18 August to 24 September 1977 it played at the Bush Theatre in Shepherds Bush. In 1978 Coyne collaborated with fellow Derby Art School graduate Ian Breakwell to produce the film The Institution based on Breakwell's Artist Placement Group work at Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire. Early in his career, Coyne turned down a meeting with founder of Elektra Records Jac Holzman (Coyne's band Siren were on Elektra in America) to discuss replacing Jim Morrison in the Doors. "I didn't like the leather trousers!" was Coynes' alleged reason. Coyne was the second artist signed to Virgin Records, after Mike Oldfield, where he continued his uncompromising stance. It was this attitude that endeared him to label-mates such as John Lydon, who played "Eastbourne Ladies" on a Desert Island Discs–type show, and the Mekons, who recorded his "Having a Party", a scathing attack on Richard Branson. Coyne's first solo album Case History (1972), primarily with just his own voice and guitar, was powerful and direct, was recorded for Peel's Dandelion label. When Dandelion ceased to exist, the album largely sank into obscurity. But not before it had come to the attention of Virgin Records, who were sufficiently impressed to sign Coyne and release his 1973 album Marjory Razorblade. The single "Marlene" (b/w "Everybody Says"), taken from the album and released in August 1973, was the first Virgin single. Described as being musically "... a mixture of blues and music hall comedy, with a punk edge", the 1973 album contained many notable songs, such as the bitter and irreverent "Eastbourne Ladies" and the plaintive "House on the Hill" about life in a psychiatric institution. It was the record that was to be largely responsible for putting Coyne on the map of mainstream rock. Another Virgin album release, Babble, by Coyne and singer Dagmar Krause, courted controversy when Kevin suggested, in the theatre presentation of the piece, that the destructive relationship between the two lovers could have been based on The Moors Murderers. Two performances at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, London were cancelled at short notice by Newham Council following negative press reports in The Sun and the Evening Standard. The show was eventually staged, for four nights, at the Oval House in Kennington. Reviewing the show for the NME, Paul Du Noyer wrote: "Babble" is a particularly thorough, painstaking exploration of the reality of one relationship, stripped of romance and artifice. The format employed is correspondingly stark. Against a stage-set of light-bulb, table and ch