He's got Oscar Wilde's spirit in his glass.
I drink a toast to the way he was
I'm lying in the gutter but I look like a star.'
Tales of destruction
L.A. glam metal is all very well, but surely there has to be more to life than girls, girls, girls, sex, drugs and hair?
Well of course there's more. The Dogs D'Amour. Fronted by the inimitable Tyla - part gin-sodden beat poet, part pop artist, part demi-god, pure alcoholic genius - the Dogs were an altogether different kettle of fish. A very British kettle of fish.
You see, the Dogs spoke to people like me, people who, much as we may have liked the idea of cruising down Sunset on the back of a Harley with a rattlesnake suitcase under our arms, ridin' the wind, forever free etc. etc. in fact were far more likely to find themselves falling down the stairs (although not always conveniently into the arms of someone who really cares) after drinking too much Thunderbird wine. And, yes, all I want is a cup of tea an' all...
Last bandits
First formed in 1983, the Dogs were to go through several changes in personnel before finally settling, in 1987, on the definitive line-up we all know and love: Tyla on vocals (or 'Absolut fire breath spilt on pure grain poems of sex loved by hate and bad tasting wine and stale tabs in a burnt gretsch' - tell he's from Wolverhampton can't you. Not. His real name's Tim Taylor, by the way, fact fans.)
Jo Dog on 'Hellfire Guitars', Steve James on 'Brimstone Bass' and Bam on '100% skin velvet bonfire Kilburn kick scars and silver snare' (that's drums to thee an' me).
For what you are about to receive...
After a few false starts (1984's The State We're In, and their (Un)Authorised Bootleg album), the Dogs' first 'proper' album, In The Dynamite Jet Saloon, was released in 1988, and it was at this point that folk began to take an interest in this dishevelled bunch of reprobates. And quite rightly too, as it's a damn fine album, and contains one of my favourite songs ever, 'Heartbreak' (which is the one about falling down the stairs).
Debauchery
ITDJS was quickly followed by acoustic collection Graveyard of Empty Bottles (1989), and then, in the same year, by Errol Flynn (or King of the Thieves, if you happen to be American). This is probably my favourite Dogs album (although it depends what kind of a mood I'm in - if I'm feeling particularly maudlin then it can only be Graveyard). From the self-conscious swagger of 'Drunk Like Me' to the heartbreaking melancholy of 'Princess Valium' via the upbeat cheeriness of 'Satellite Kid' (which even saw the Dogs miming drunkenly on Top Of The Pops - 'Bros didn't like it but Liza Minelli did') this is a top record. Play it loud, play it soft in a darkened room surrounded by dripping candles jammed into empty Jack Daniels bottles... who cares? Just play it!
Trail of tears
1990 saw the release of Straight!??! (as if...), and another stab at chart success with 'Victims of Success', a song reputedly 'about bands like Guns N'Roses', or so Tyla claimed at the time; 'about the bands and "personalities" we encountered [in L.A.]' he later amends this to, on the sleeve notes for their Dogs Hits & Bootleg Album (1991). 'Yesterday's punks can buy a Beverly Hills home...' the Bulletproof poet drawls disparagingly. Still, when touring the States to promote the album, this didn't stop the daft bugger getting so upset at the lack of enthusiasm displayed by L.A. audiences that he slashed his chest open with a broken bottle... Messy.
I don't want you to go
And so it was that, victims of their own success (or perhaps, rather, of the lack of it) the Dogs decided to call it a day. Bam went off to play drums for up'n'coming hotshots the Wildhearts, Steve James went off to form his own band, the Last Bandits, and Tyla went off to sort himself out. By 1993 he'd managed this, and to my great delight, the Dogs reformed (minus Jo Dog, who was replaced by ex-Crybaby guitarist Darrell Bath) for one more glorious album, More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace. This is another musical triumph, a rollercoaster ride through the twisted tunnels of Tyla's mind, pitching the listener from the heights of rock'n'roll adrenaline ('What's Happening Here?', 'Mr Addiction') to the depths of bleak despair ('More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace', 'Put It In Her Arm'). Oh, and it was at this point that I finally got to see them live, at the Edinburgh Venue. They really rocked.
Flyin' solo
And yet, once again, they called the whole thing off. Tyla went solo, and has brought out several albums, including a collaboration with Spike from the Quireboys entitled Flagrantly Yours (1996), under the somewhat strange guise of 'Spike and Tyla's Hot Knives'. Yup, the 20th Century Gypsy Pirate rides on into the 21st Century... and beyond.
When the dream has gone
As for the others, Steve is now a roadie for the Levellers, and makes his own guitars... Jo has been seen consorting with the likes of Andy McCoy and Gilby Clarke, whilst Bam married Share Pederson from Vixen (!!) and has formed a band with her called Bubble. Spooky.
She thinks too much of me!??!!
So just what is it about the Dogs that's so bloomin' marvellous, and which makes the prospect of a canine reunion so darned exciting? Well, for me, the music, the style, and the poetry of the Dogs will never fade, never date or grow old and tired, but will remain forever timeless, unique. Melancholy, emotive, intelligent, their music conjures up a world a million miles away from the cheese 'n' sleaze of the likes of Poison and Mötley Crüe. Theirs is a truly European glamour, the tawdry glitz of Soho and the Champs Elysées, the fin-de-siècle decadence of opium dens and sequestered dance halls, far removed from the brash voyeurism of Sunset Strip. Theirs is the dissolute charm of Oscar Wilde, dying penniless and friendless in Southern France, absinthe-soaked and lonely. Lying in the gutter, looking at the stars...
Written 2000
'He gave Jesus tattoos and took the Devil's soul.
He got the angels drunk and gave them the gutter for a home.
This is the ballad of the Bulletproof Poet
This is the ballad, baby don't I know it...'
Happy ever after? Tyla and the Dogs ten years on
'We got back together because we'd all bought computers and realised how many Dogs websites there are' - Bam, interview in Q January 2001
As the world's most excitable Alice Cooper fan you can perhaps imagine that when I went to see the King of the Pantheon himself on his Monsters Of Rock/Descent Into Dragontown tour in November 2002 I was pretty hyped-up. Especially as the reformed Quireboys were also on the bill, along with the 1990s' answer to Status Quo, the mighty Thunder. So can you imagine how I felt when I entered the SECC arena to hear the inimitable strains of 'Last Bandit' ringing out... and realised that those far away figures on the stage were in fact the Last Bandits themselves, the Dogs D'Amour?
Oh. My. God. I thought I'd died and gone to glam heaven. Straight down the front to check my ears weren't deceiving me but no, it was true: the Dogs were back (well, minus Steve and plus Share Pederson) and they were sounding great. The new material from Happy Ever After was instantly appealing, losing none of the trademark Dogs' piratical swagger, and sat nicely alongside such classics as 'Firework Girl', 'Drunk Like Me' and of course 'How Come It Never Rains'.
Wired and wide awake
But sadly the reunion was not to last. Shortly after the Alice tour, Jo, Bam and Share decided to quit and pursue solo projects. But finding himself alone again was not about to stop our Tyla, ooooh no.
2004 saw the unearthing of the Dog's legendary first album The State We're In, thought to be lost to posterity forever but now lovingly remastered from, er, a bootleg C90 or something.
The result of a gloriously drunken, drugged up jaunt to Hanoi-home Finland (and it's worth buying the album just to read the tale, scrawled across the sleeve in Tyla's unmistakeable hand), this is possibly the most debauched sounding album in the world, ever. Raucous bluesy slide guitars, shambolic Pistols-style riffs and slurred vocals so steeped in JD they're practically drowning: the band sound like the New York Dolls at the end of a long, hard night. Raw, undisciplined and brimming over with attitude, this is rock music gone out of control, all fired up with chemically fuelled energy. From the exuberant swagger of opener 'Wired and Wide Awake' to the wistful comedown of the final track, the almost anthemic 'State I'm In', this album is the soundtrack to the lock-in of your life.
Ain't no loser
By contrast, When Bastards Go To Hell, Tyla's first Dogs album sans, well, the Dogs really,was a bit of disappointment. First up, no Tyla cover artwork. Sacrilege! It's like buying a Guns N'Roses album only to discover that Slash is playing the bongoes and some guy from the Rasmus is on guitar. Add to that the terrible recording quality that makes The State We're In sound crystal clear by comparison, and you might be forgiven for thinking that the Dogs minus all the Dogs except Tyla equals barking up the wrong tree.
But then Tyla always was Top Dog, wasn't he, and will carry on regardless. And, while When Bastards Go To Hell is certainly closer to one of his bedroom recording session solo albums than it is to a 'proper' Dogs album, there's certainly enough of that unmistakeable upbeat piratical swagger to tip this into canine territory.
One of the things I love about Tyla is that he's not afraid of growing up, of learning from his (many) mistakes and transforming them into art. Not for the 21st century gypsy pirate the puerile posturings of an '80s hairband desperately clinging onto their youth, insisting still on singing dated ditties about sex, drugs and groupies (hmm... who could she mean?). The melancholy, introspective tone of acoustic numbers like the eerie 'Bad Habit Motel' (like the Hotel California, except it's probably in Whitby), 'Grace of God' (listen not-that-carefully and you'll hear the hiss of the tape machine in this one) and the title track makes a mature and pleasing counterpoint to classic Dogs material like 'What Price?' and 'Ain't no loser... babe' (which, thanks to the crap recording, sounds more like 'Are you ill, Lucifer?' - not a bad name for a Dogs song actually...).
I think it's love again
Yet another best of slipped out under the wire in 2004, the splendid Heartshaped Skulls, distinguished not just for being a great collection of tracks but also for the inclusion of a DVD of the Dogs early videos, which is unmissable. The opening vid for 'The Kid From Kensington' is an absolute classic - a cut price 'Prince Charming' complete with serving wenches, monks and an executioner. Oh, and Tyla spinning around in a frock coat, which is pretty much par for the course in all the videos that follow: Tyla spinning around and doing some crap acting in 'How Come It Never Rains'; Tyla spinning around on a rope in 'Satellite Kid'; Tyla spinning around on a chandelier in 'Trail of Tears'... you get the picture. Ah but wait, what's this? Tyla with pierrot make-up doing some kind of strange David Bowie-esque mime, in what looks like the vampires' lair from The Lost Boys? Victims of Success? Not successful enough to spend more than £20 on a video. And don't we just love 'em for it!
Let sleeping dogs lie
2005 saw - what? - yup, another Dogs album, the critic-proof poet burning the midnight oil again, to bring us another insomniac special: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. If only he would. Much as I love the man, at this point I started to feel that Tyla should sit back and take stock of what makes him so great, and stop churning out music as if afraid to stop.
Not content with reducing the Dogs to a one man operation (plus the ubiquitous Yella), he was writing the theme tune, singing the theme tune and (regrettably) recording the theme tune on a four-track in his bathroom.
Okay Let Sleeping Dogs Lie was a nice enough album. It certainly doesn't suck, particularly the ballsy opener, 'Never Give Up' and sloppy late night ballad 'Love of my Life'. But it lacks the gritty swagger and lyrical genius of, say, Errol Flynn, or even Happy Ever After. Less a gallant, two-fingered salute to sobriety, more a tired slip into drunken exhaustion. 'I thought life was just another film, and I'd seen it,' the gypsy pirate laments mournfully. Well, I thought life was a Dogs D'Amour album, but sadly I was starting to think I've heard it.
XII shades of acoustic melancholy
Since then, the bulletproof poet/artist.singer-songwriter has continued to pour out material at an alarming rate. And most of it is well, kinda lonely and sad. Take As It Was How It Is, (yet another) collection of classic Dogs songs given the mournful accoustic treatment by the bedsit bard. Yes, it's all very melancholy and moving, but it does mean that upbeat, rocking songs such as 'Cardboard Town', 'Scared of Dying' and 'I Don't Want You To Go', all sound, well, kinda depressing. Although it also proves that, however it's played - on a blade of grass, a comb and the spoons - 'How Come It Never Rains' is still one of the most gorgeous songs ever written.
And then there are the countless solo albums, each as maudlin and gin-soaked as the last (unless I missed the upbeat one - to be honest I don't have them all) and as for the live performances, well, read it and weep...
A definite must-have, however, is The Poet and the Dragon Live... Somewhere in this World. The Poet is, of course, Tyla and the Dragon is his drinking buddy Dregen, of Swedish rockers Backyard Babies fame. For some unknown reason, the disreputable pair decided to embark on an acoustic tour of Sweden, the UK and Spain at the end of the 1990s and this album is the live evidence - and it's worth purchasing just to read Tyla's torrid tale of the tour, complete with burds, booze and Barcelona.
What's happening here?
Like all great geniuses (Mozart... Sylvia Plath... JK Rowling...) Tyla is an enormously creative and driven artist: scribbling down poetry on napkins in a greasy spoon or recording on his eight-track in the dead of night, he never seems to stop. And if some of his output is, well, not as good as it could be, hell, sometimes Mozart wrote too many notes too.
Because this is Tyla, and in the end, he can do no wrong (even if he can never do right either). 'To be commercial you must appeal on a mass scale/To be a loser... babe... you must appear to have failed,' he drawls moodily on When Bastards Go To Hell. Well hell, give me failure any day... babe.
Written 2010
'Look at me I'm the one in the spotlight.
I'm a goddamn, motherfucking Rock Star...
...I'm a goddamn super star.
You can't move for the fuckers these days.
First out the cab, last up the bar.
Goddamn Rock Stars.'
'Did I ever tell you about the time I was out of me head?'
