Just before this session was taped in San Francisco, Tyler Lyle and a few of his friends had made the decision to pack up their cars and leave Atlanta behind, for Los Angeles - of all places. If the story is correct, Lyle was dealing with a busted relationship and there seemed like no better time than the present for a change of scenery. It could just be that he had a premonition about the drudgery of a limping man, with a leaking heart, but the songs that he sang here are bruised and wonderfully downbeat. He shows himself as a skilled appreciator of a hot heart's woes, of those times within the blue luminosity of warm nights that are cold to a select few. Sometimes those few want it to be the way it is and most other times, they're miserable about it. Lyle comes to them from a place of inquisition, looking at them closely, seeing how they stare back, seeing how they blink just the way that he does and then he finishes his glass of wine, going for another. He senses that there are some secrets that the bottle and the ocean - much less all of the other people that he can't forget about - aren't telling him yet.
The Daytrotter Dream Interview, where Tyler Lyle takes it upon himself to ask and then answer his own questions. It starts now:
Q: Last year you moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles. What's the biggest difference you see between the two cities?
A: Atlanta is a livable sized town -- the neighborhoods are well defined and the people are friendly. You can find everything there, but you have to look. LA is gigantic. It took me two hours in traffic to travel eight miles from Santa Monica to West Hollywood last night. It's impossible to be a friendly, kind person after that. It feels like emotional abuse, except always and forever. There is no city center, there is no semblance of order. LA is chaos. In Atlanta, most of the culture is centralized in the southern and eastern communities around downtown. I still have a house in East Atlanta. It's cheap, it's easy, the neighborhoods are all together. LA is a beautiful smelly mess. I stay close to the beach when possible.
Q: How much money would someone have to pay you to euthanize a ferret?
A: I'm a little behind on the best methods, but I'd do that for free.
Q: What would you tell a nineteen-year-old who wants to write songs for a living?
A: Get a degree that forces you to read lots of books, and then get another degree in something that allows you to learn a skill that you can monetize (graphic design, web development, not photography). Don't play songs that don't feed you, or that you wouldn't listen to. Treat people well. Also, there's always the guy that picks up the guitar at the party -- never be that guy -- that guy is never any good.