Back in 1973, ‘alternative’ and ‘independent’ records which seemed so bold and subversive have, with the benefit of hindsight, proved to be anything but. This after all was the year in which Tubular Bells was released, a record which, when John Peel played it on the radio in its entirety, seemed like a radical statement to launch a new direction in serious Rock music.

It explains why I – a shy, impressionable 15 year old -together with other gullible innocents, were led down the garden path into the cursed kingdom inhabited by the dinosaurs of progressive(sic) rock (check out ELP’s ‘Brain Salad Surgery, Camel’s ‘The Snow Goose’ and anything by Barclay James Harvest if you dare).

Mercifully, Messrs Rotten, Strummer & crew arrived on the scene to save the day.

‘Marjory Razorblade’ , now widely recognised as the finest album by Kevin Coyne (1944 – 2004), was released in the same year as Oldfield’s opus.

I remember hearing Coyne (also on John Peel show) but I’m ashamed to say that I dismissed him then as an eccentric novelty act. With his raspy voice, lack of dress sense and an appalling haircut he didn’t look like much of a role model. “What a tongue – what an abrasive manner” he sang, the description of Ms Razorblade could have been describing himself. His style was a bit like bluesman Joe Cocker but there was also a bizarre music hall flavour to his music.

Only now I can see the error of my ways and can recognise that his rebellious eccentricity and open non conformity made him a true punk prototype.

I think what makes ‘Marjory Razorblade’ a great record is its honesty and its defiant refusal to adapt the sound to sell it to the mass market. Virgin once labelled him an ‘anti-star’, which he almost certainly took as a complement.

I can now hear what I missed so completely at the time – a brilliant collection of raw, ragged yet rousing songs – in other words exactly what modern blues should sound like and what the best of Punk rock was.

Many of these have a Captain Beefheart quality to them, especially on the remarkable a-cappella title track and ‘I want my crown’.

There are also great surreal touches like in his hilariously scathing piss-takes of the high church (Dog Latin) and foreign holiday rituals (This is Spain).

What comes across very strongly is Coyne’s compassionate stance towards outsiders and social misfits. Probably this is because this is how he saw himself and he would have found other subjects while working in his day job as a social therapist and psychiatric nurse and then as a drugs counsellor.

Probably this is best represented by House Of The Hill, which opens with the lines:
“Well I’m going to the house upon the hill, the place where they give you pills/ The rooms are always chilled, they’re never cosy /Where they give three suits a year and at Christmas time a bottle of beer /And at Easter time the mayor comes round, he’s always smiling/Where the old ladies sit by the garden wall and they never hear the bluebird call/Never notice the leaves that fall cause they’re all crazy”

You can see him performing this on The Old Grey Whistle Test:


You can download the album here .