Tyla
Glasgow Pivo Pivo, 18th December 2008
Ever had one of those dreams where you get to meet your favourite rock/movie star and you're really excited, only he doesn't actually look like your favourite star at all – he's about three stone heavier and wearing the wrong clothes – and yet you know it has to be him?
Welcome to Pivo Pivo last Thursday, where Tyla, aka one of the most prolific artistic geniuses of the current age and definitely one of my favourite rock stars, is limping onto the tiny, tinsel-festooned stage at Pivo Pivo to a splatter of applause.
Sporting a natty tweed three-piece with black fedora, red silk shirt, black cravat and a plaster cast on his right foot, he more resembles a Victorian cockney gennelman down on his luck than the romantic 20th century gypsy pirate of yore. But, pushing his thick, Daniel Kitson-style black-rimmed specs further up his nose, he launches into a glorious, heart-warming, red wine induced set of Dogs standards, kicking off with 'Billy 2 Rivers' followed by 'Satellite Kid'. Sounds like the recipe for a perfect evening, does it not? Except for one ingredient: the audience.
To boost poor ticket sales (and the gig was advertised where?) two local bands have been drafted in, along with their rent-a-crowds, many of whom don't seem to recognise a true rock'n'roll legend when they see one (glasses and plaster cast not withstanding). Yet, as the backdrop slips down wearily behind him and someone throws a sock at his head, Tyla soldiers on undeterred, dragging us from the sublimely maudlin depths of 'Heroine', 'Victims of Success' and 'Empty World' to the unchartered care-free heights of 'Last Bandit', 'How Come It Never Rains' and 'Ballad of Jack', right into the MySpace present, with some newer traxx, including a sweet tribute to the new love of his life (so it's goodbye Yella, then – my heart bleeds).
Exceeding his slot by 40 minutes (although he did start late), it looks as if he could go on playing all night, 'til the fairy lights go out and he's left alone in the dark, wringing out tales of heartache and heartbreak wine, drunken nights and wasted days, success, excess, sadness and madness, debauchery and joy.
As the set trails off and the audience dwindles away, we make a sharp and sober exit. Tyla is a god to me, and it's rather depressing to see him reduced to playing a small backstreet bar on a Thursday night, his guitar drowned out by the roar of the hand-driers in the gents – kind of like spotting Elvis serving on the checkout at Asda. Still, if it bothers him, he doesn't let it show, shrugging off heckles from the crowd with raffish Wolverhampton insouciance. The Bulletproof Poet? More like the Teflon Troubadour...
Dogs D'Amour, 17th and 18th October 2005
