Musician Mike Coykendall grew up in Norwich, Kansas and is currently based in Portland, Oregon. This Sunday, February 8, he’ll perform with fellow songwriters Freedy Johnston (formerly of Kinsley) and longtime Wichitan Bill Goffrier.
All three have distinguished themselves as singular voices within the musical world. Goffrier was a founding member of Kansas punk legends The Embarrassment who were inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame in 2020; Johnston has been making critically acclaimed albums since the 1990s and was also inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame in 2023. Although Coykendall (pronounced kirk-en-dahl) hasn’t been inducted yet, his contributions to Kansas and American music are equally notable. In the ‘80s he was a member of the Wichita band Klyde Konnor which fused English rock sensibilities with portraits of American life. Later, he moved to San Francisco and gained wider notoriety with Old Joe Clarks.
Since relocating to Portland, he’s recorded and released a series of deeply imaginative and stylistically diverse solo albums. He’s also amassed credits working on albums from bands such as Blitzen Trapper, appearing on record with Bright Eyes, and, for several years worked extensively with singer-songwriter M. Ward and in Ward’s project with Zooey Deschanel, She & Him, both as a recording and touring musician.
Coykendall says that Sunday’s show will find each of the performers trading songs and (most likely) telling a few stories.
He recently discussed the upcoming show as well as the role that KMUW played in his early musical career.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bill Goffrier was somebody that you were aware of around the time that you were starting to play music, right?
Yes, he was. I’d been playing for a while before I’d heard of The Embarrassment. We had our little high school band out in Norwich and I heard about The Embarrassment in maybe 1981. We weren’t exactly on the alternative radar out in Norwich. I was just happy to have a record by The Cars. But I found some Embarrassment music at Poverty Records in Wichita and loved it. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of them but they’ve held my attention all these years.
What did it mean that there were people making original music in the area?
It was encouraging because I thought, “No one will want to hear anything but covers.” I had had the experience of playing in early bands and there would be people out dancing as long as you were playing “Taking Care of Business” but if you played one of your songs, people would stop dancing. But when I heard about The Embarrassment and, later, The Blivets and The Mumbles, all doing original music, I realized that maybe it was possible for me. Then I learned about Kirby’s and Woody’s Back Door and The Spot where you could do that stuff.
You moved to Wichita at some point and KMUW wound up being the first place to play your music.
There we were at 3156 S. Fern. We’d been making recordings on a Tascam 144 cassette machine, just having a good time writing songs and making recordings. I would listen to KMUW sometimes at night when I could stay up that late because I had a job that I had to be to bed at 8 the next morning but I would listen and one night they came on and said, “Hey, local bands, if you’re making original music, send it in, we might play it.” I thought, “Wow, we’ve already got a bunch of stuff.”
I got out my four track and another cassette deck and mixed down six of my favorite songs and scribbled some stuff on the tape and tried to make some artwork and named the band Klyde Konnor at the last moment without asking the other guys. I named the band after our neighbor but that’s a whole other story. I sent it in and waited about a week and called said, “Did you get it? What did you think of it?” They said, “Ah, well, we’re looking for it.”
I checked again and checked again and about a month-and-a-half of that I just kind of gave up on it. What had had happened was that Charlie Maxton, who worked at the station, had taken it home to review and in the meantime while he had it at home to review, he had to move so it got put in a box and moved to a new place and not unpacked for a while.
I’d moved to Norwich with my parents and was going to save up money. I was going to move to Denver and be a musician in Denver. Then I got a call from John Raida who was one of the musicians on the tape. He said, “Hey, I got this call from KMUW. They’d like us to play their bash. I guess they’ve really been playing the tape and they’re really liking it.” I said, “What?” This was five or six months later. Sure enough, I tuned in that night and within five minutes one of our songs came on and I probably never felt more thrilled in my life. My thoughts of moving to Denver went right out the window. We started playing here in Wichita and that was the beginning of Klyde Konnor.
As a songwriter, to me, you do something that I don’t think a lot of other writers have done. In fact, I can’t think of another off the top of my head. You bring together these sensibilities from British psychedelia and country music.
I think you’re right. I think those were formative influences. I was British rock ‘n’ roll fan as well as fan of some of the Americans like Paul Revere and The Raiders. I had all that ‘60s stuff and liked that but before that I had been crazy about this record of the old country artists: Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Roger Miller. We had that record lying around the house and I used to listen to that a lot. I used to sing “Wabash Cannonball” at every talent competition we had for our little school. It was just natural that those kinds of things stuck in there. Sometimes they find themselves wormed into the same song a little bit.
How did you discover Freedy Johnston’s music?
KMUW. They were playing a cassette of his in the late ‘80s I believe. I remember hearing a song called “Down on the Moon” and that cassette version of that song was just so great. I still look for it. I’ve found the album version and I love that too but there’s a rawness to that first version that I remember. I knew that he was from Kinsley and Kinsley was a place that the bands that I had while I was in college in Dodge City and we’d play at the one bar there. It’s possible that Freedy lived there at the same time but I doubt it.
I’m looking forward to playing with him and Bill. They were doing great things while I was just struggling to get something going.
