Mike Tyler is a celebrated non-academic, post-beat poet and musician in the American tradition. \u2018Erection\u2019 is his second album, creatively processed more like a novel than a recording. There is an incredible control over the work, with subtle musical innuendos and effects, as well as an incomparable sense of humour throughout. \u2018Conversational Spanish\u2019 has a false ending similar to Bacharach\/David’s \u2018The Look of Love\u2019, the song \u2018Man Alone\u2019 is in, of course, Mono, and entertainingly facile lyrics like \u2018I\u2019d like to throw a pie in the face of remorseless piety\u2019 and \u2018I was standin\u2019 by a Wilson Picket fence at \u2018bout the midnight hour\u2019 prop up album wide. <\/p>\n
A recurrent theme of this record is a feeling of discovery and understanding, as if it\u2019s laying a sympathetic palm on your shoulder and saying \u2018there there. There there!\u2019 There\u2019s something comforting in an understanding that comes across as understanding itself. When he first met his producer Bl\u2019EVE this was exemplified; different backgrounds, different musical tastes, but an incredible feeling of shared understanding. <\/p>\n
It is a record about the feeling when you are over something that has broken you up. Your heart has healed but it has reformed jaggedly. The sadness of the blues is connected with the success of rock ’n roll. This sets it apart from ISM (one of Mike\u2019s own idiom creations meaning ”Incredibly Sad Music” usually characterised by a back and forth of romantic wailing and a more modernist hard-edged disdain). Felt\u2019s Lawrence, a cult hero of jangly \u2018ISM\u2019 (bands Girls and Real Estate both refer to him) is a major influence for Mike Tyler. As is the secretive poetic narrative of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. He says:<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the blues forward it has been as much about words as the music. Even an instrumental guitar track like Wipe Out would be nothing without, well, \u201cha, ha, ha, ha, ha, wipe out.\u201d It can be a condensed language, it can be cryptic, it can be repetitive and rhythmic, yeah that\u2019s right it\u2019s poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike came from the New York City tradition of Lou Reed, mentored in a bar by the American poet Delmore Schwartz (who wanted poets to be as famous as baseball players), Patti Smith (a poet first) and Tom Verlaine of Television. Stand out moments of Mike Tyler\u2019s career were catalysed by his way with words. Banksy stencilled his words \u201conly the ridiculous survive\u201d outside of London\u2019s Paddington Station, while Beck fell under his charismatic spell while honing his song writing craft. He became known as The Most Dangerous Poet in America after breaking his arm during a reading and his poem \u201cThe Most Beautiful Word in the American Language\u201d is on people\u2019s Facebook walls, MySpace pages, and blogs, not to mention fridge doors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Tyler is a celebrated non-academic, post-beat poet and musician in the American tradition. \u2018Erection\u2019 is his second album, creatively processed more like a novel than a recording. There is an incredible control over the work, with subtle musical innuendos and effects, as well as an incomparable sense of humour throughout. \u2018Conversational Spanish\u2019 has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":295,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press_releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livestagemusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}