| Art

Rock and Roll Poet – Mike ‘Stick’ Tyler.

Something of a mystery, Mike Tyler has a sort of brash appeal that comes close to being the ironic supernova of the archetypal hipster.

With Erection Mike Tyler’s latest ‘release’, and much of his poetry, we’re drawn into that middle-class space of discomfort where we’re the subject of a grubby finger jabbing us in the chest punctuating ‘feel that discomfort, that feeling is the Truth’

Except, he looks like Will Ferrell, and that truth is a YouTube clip of a teenager on a bicycle wearing purple leotards.

The party line is as follows:

“Mike Tyler is a celebrated non-academic, post-beat poet and musician in the American tradition. ‘Erection’ 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. ‘Conversational Spanish’ has a false ending similar to Bacharach/David’s ‘The Look of Love’, the song ‘Man Alone’ is in, of course, Mono, and entertainingly facile lyrics like ‘I’d like to throw a pie in the face of remorseless piety’ and ‘I was standin’ by a Wilson Picket fence at ‘bout the midnight hour’ prop up album wide.”

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. Standout moments of Mike Tyler’s career were catalysed by his way with words. Banksy stencilled his words “only the ridiculous survive” outside of London’s Paddington Station, while Beck fell under his charismatic spell while honing his songwriting craft. He became known as The Most Dangerous Poet in America after breaking his arm during a reading and his poem “The Most Beautiful Word in the American Language” is on people’s Facebook walls, MySpace pages, and blogs, not to mention fridge doors.”

The poetry itself is of a particular sort. Does the emptiness within match the indifference without? I now feel his pain.


Chuck Berry is

Chuck Berry is

an American artist

an American artist is a fractured skull

sometimes you’re told your ass is nice

sometimes you’re told you are an asshole

Georgia O’Keeffe painted the American skull

framed in beautiful blue and red

American artists love the American flag

sometimes I want my country to love me

other times I want my country to love me

I am an American artist

an American artist is a fractured skull

 

Four Geeks Who Conquered The World

This is the story

this is the story

of four geeks

who

conquered the world

 

hey dadio

get your kids outta school

hey dadio

they’re breaking the golden rule

 

hey mommy sutra

which refrigerator is best

hey mommy sutra

juniors out at an A-Bomb test

 

one two three nine

I’ve got a long spine

if only

if only

if only we could do

 

if only

if only

if only we could do

 

to do what would be real neat

 

my pimples tell me I am not clean

my pimples tell me I am not clean

 

I do not like to clean

 

three two nine one

bobby’s got a blow gun

if only

if only

if only you could wear

 

if only

if only

WHY CAN’T YOU Blah YOUR HAIR

 

it would be real neat

if you’d stopped messing up the sheets

 

you could be a big band

if you started kicking sand

 

rotor rotor rotor motor

moca ocra toga ogre

 

this is the story

this is the story

of four geeks

who

conquered the world

 

cause as leather Mozarts

they never kicked sand

 

fourty-seven, thirty-two, five, twenty

I hope I can always be as funny

 

even if your old

never get old

old people blow up things

 

Rock ‘N’ Roll

In the eel tuned night

of desperate brogue

we worked with cave eyes

dead to restrictions

stalked by the afraid

 

Fixed with neutral noise

we impaled on loudness

twisted precinct chalk

into rubber bands.


Mike Tyler’s album Erection is out in August 2012. Check his Website for more details. 

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