First, it was his infamous treatment of 2002 tourmate Beck--truth be told, he put the Lips in front of the biggest audiences they'd ever played for at that point--who according to Spin, Coyne considered to be "overwhelmed with being famous and being cool or whatever. So I started fucking with him." Nice touch.
He's been yapping about that tour for years now. "So I started fucking with him" doesn't really sound like he was trying to make the best of the situation. Why didn't Coyne just avoid the guy when he wasn't dealing directly with him--we're pretty sure he and Beck weren't joined at the hip 24/7 on that tour--and move on. Jeez.
Fast forward to 2007: in the UK's Guardian, he proceeds to rag on Nirvana's Nevermind calling it a "a poisonous, pernicious influence" and disparagingly compares it to Nickleback (!) while assuming newcomers to the 1991 classic will wonder "What are these drug addicts going on about?” Which is pretty rich coming from a guy whose band’s key musical ingredient is someone who was a raging junkie for a decade.
An appearance at a 2008 festival in Mexico elicited this choice remark from Coyne:
We recently did a festival...and fucking Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots were worried about our confetti getting on their little guitar setups. And I'm just like, "Who gives a fuck?"
Sweet.
Now, we weren't there and obviously don't know what exactly went down with NIN and STP, but personally, when we perform live we make sure to get all our crap--gear and otherwise--off the stage for the next band, just out of respect. And, trust us, we're not playing on the same bills as international stars who expect a certain level of professionalism, but it's a courtesy we extend and welcome in return, so there you go. Coyne, meanwhile, needs to make an issue of it and poke fun at easy targets. (We can just imagine Spin readers gushing, "Ooh, he's so cool, sticking it to the big, bloated, rock star prima donnas.") Whatever.
The most recent object of Coyne's scorn are The Arcade Fire, who he skewers in a recent piece in Rolling Stone's "Smoking Section".
We don't care for The Arcade Fire, but Coyne's shit-talking has become a real turn-off. We recommend he leave the trash talk to Noel Gallagher, who's better at it and and actually has a sense of humor. Instead, he should be concentrating on making a decent followup to that crappy At War with the Mystics album and put to rest being the one-man TMZ he's kinda become lately.
Enough, already.
