How to Never Have a Hit: The confessions of an unsuccessful singer-songwriter

Foreword by John Niven

Alan Tyler is the singer of The Rockingbirds, the chaotic, swashbuckling country-rockers who galloped haphazardly into the 90s Camden indie scene, got signed, appeared on Top Of The Pops, went head to head with Nirvana at Reading ‘92 and produced, eventually, four albums of unsurpassed Americana. 

From DIY/punk beginnings, in 1980 Tyler arrived at the experimentalists’ haven of the London Musicians Collective and was soon playing swingy pop at Bernie Rhodes' Club Left, sharing the agitpop aspirations of Scritti Politti and other Rough Trade acts before being there at the dawn of Creation Records. At various times he’s been a choirboy, a fanzine writer, a Young Socialist, a tap dancer, a polytechnic philosopher, a cycle dispatch rider, a news-monitoring video pirate, an ill-suited civil servant and a Deptford Creek dwelling river poet. Long after his Heavenly Recordings heyday, Tyler remains a stalwart of London’s roots music scene: a critically recognised singer-songwriter who has never had a single hit.

Buckle up for a ride from the suburbs to the city, and from the city to the country. From the lowest dives to the tallest buildings and, finally, to pride of place in your local bookshop's self-sabotage section...