The Phantom Venice

Venice may well be a city of lovers and labyrinthine canals, a miracle of architectural poetry and the home of Casanova.
It is not, however, somewhere that takes kindly to singer-songwriters from Kilrea. Especially ones who treat one of the great civic spaces of Europe like Shaftsbury Square on a Saturday night.
How do we know? Well, the evidence is written all over Robyn G Shiels’ beaten-up face.
“We got brought over to play a showcase gig for Northern Irish music,” he tells us in undisguised disbelief, “We met (Belfast dance doyen) David Holmes in the airport and got rat-arsed on the plane.”
By the time they reached Venice, they were, he says, cheerfully steamed. “We decide to go down to St Mark’s Square at half two in the morning,” explains Shiels. “It was bucketing down. Todd thinks it would be a great idea to take our shirts off and go for a run around the place. We set off and start singing Frank Sinatra songs at the top of our voices.”
From the shadows, a figure detached itself, ran up to Shiels and, with a cry of “this is my square!” punched him in the face. “There was blood everywhere. I thought for a minute about chasing after him, but if someone came outside my house and started acting an eejit, I’d deck him too. So, fair play to the boy.”
Travel, you see, does encourage empathy.
The last time we spoke to Shiels, he was ensconced behind the counter of a city centre newsagent’s, looking like a bifocaled cross between Harvey Keitel’s shop-keeper in Smoke and the titular ‘hero’ of Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer.
Back then, he was busy fending off petty thieves, supplying top-shelf reading matter to office workers, and providing a retreat for many of Belfast’s indie ne’er-do-wells.
Talk was of a sterling new EP doing the rounds called Two Nights In June and the possibility that, some day in the future, a full-blown album would slouch toward Belfast to be born.
Today, dragged reluctantly to a coffee shop in a leafier part of town, he’s recovering from a painful (non-Venetian induced) tooth extraction, that has, apparently, left him out of his mind on crazy drugs.
Guess what he’s brought with him?
Yes, Mr Shiels has become the proud father of a proper, living, breathing, sleep-depriving album. What’s more, spend 43 minutes in the company of A Lifetime Of Midnights and you will be left in no doubt of the record’s paternity.
Opening up with the kind of couplet (“The question’s long at the hours of darkness/I drink alone because I’m tired of Belfast”) that would surely have gladdened the parched heart of that old Elmwood Avenue resident, Philip Larkin, A Lifetime percolates with tar-black humour (‘I’d Go To Funerals’ points fingers at grave-side hypocrites, while also citing Harold and Maude), and wee hours bleakness (‘Shiny Wet Stones’ could well be the most strikingly morbid Northern Irish lyric since ‘TB Sheets’).
Add in a streak of raucous, unhinged, noise-mongering and you have a record that probably shouldn’t be left alone in company.
In case you’re wondering, this is a compliment.
“The whole album is surprisingly strong,” says Shiels. “ I thought it would fall flat on its arse but it passed the Sunday night test. I came home pissed and depressed, stuck it on and thought 'I’m brave and happy with this. I’m proud of it. Fair play me'.”
If you are concerned that A Lifetime Of Midnights is one of those loathsome, monochrome, woe-is-me, slow-core atrocities beloved of callow Smog-obsessives, take heart. Tracks such as ‘Two Nights In June’ and ‘Playing Host To Ideas’ come close to delivering joyous pop moments. As long as you avoid the lyric sheet.
“My Ma loves ‘Playing Host’. She thinks it’s a lovely wee number," says the singer. "I’m like ‘fuck sake, ma – listen to the words!’. It’s bleak, but that’s just me. Scary Robbie. It comes seeping through the floorboards. I hear the flutter of leathery wings. Bats in the belfry, do you say? But I’m happy on the outside, honest.”
Robyn G Shiels – you’ll find him singing in the rain.