a near doughty paean to mike doughty

It all began with “Screenwriter’s Blues,” off the 1994 disc Ruby Vroom. The plodding synth opening, the chunka-chunka-chunk-chunk bass and drum lines, the antic tikka-tikka-tikka that chimes in anxiously, the weird vertiginous sense of music swirling around you like garbage caught in an updraft, and above it all, the slow unrolling poetry of the words: “Gone savage/ for teenagers with/automatic weapons and/ boundless love./ Gone savage for/ teenagers who are/ aesthetically/ pleasing,/ in other words,/ fly.” The voice, worn as a second-hand suit intones. “Los Angeles beckons/ the teenagers/ to come to her/ on buses;/Los Angeles loves,” it pauses, “love.”

This song got me. It gripped me in its weird jazzy hooks and its self-consciously ironic earnestness, and I felt fine with it. Sure, that disc by Soul Coughing was chock full of chewy musical goodness with “Janine” and “True Dreams of Wichita” and others, but it was this song that got me.

Mostly, it was Mike Doughty, who then called himself “M. Doughty.” It was he—and in particular his voice, frayed at the edges; and his lyrics, so thick and purple with possibility; and his attitude, ironic and woebegone—that I held close to my breast. I held it close and primal as kittens.

There have been a few songs/discs/bands that, like the DJ and the chanteuse of the disco song, have saved my life. There was Elvis Costello and the Attractions Imperial Bedroom, and once for about two months there was The Tom-Tom Club’s “Man With the Four-Way Hips,” and most recently, there has been Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. (There have also been flickers of songs that have risen meaningfully as comets and fallen just as quickly.) Few, if any, have done so with the regularity and consistency of Mike Doughty and his former band, Soul Coughing.

I apologize for my slavish worship at the alter of this artist. Rare, I know, is it that I rave about anything, and rarer is it that I effectively kowtow with such abject supplication, but there you go. This man’s music has that embarrassing effect on me, and as I am still fresh with the glow of seeing him perform last night at the Highline Ballroom here in glamorous Gotham, I can be forgiven, I hope.

Ok, seriously, if there were a Tiger Beat for post-college, self-referential, jazz-inflected alt-rock, eco-friendly, ironic bands, Mike Doughty’s pull-out poster would be on my locker. (It’s a magazine whose 60% post-consumer-fiber pages I have to pause and imagine. It would have articles about Dave Matthews recycling accompanied by pictures of him sorting his High Times and Greenpeace membership renewal requests from his cans of Trader Joe’s garbanzo beans and bottles of micro-brews. The headline would probably read something along the lines of “Hot 2 Recycle 2! Dave Loves 2 Reuse! Recycle! Reduce! (And So Can U!)” And then there would be an accompanying side bar with Ani Di Franco and Aimee Mann in a tank top and floral dress, respectively, carrying their bundled magazines to the curb. There’d be articles on Karen O and her favorite organic cosmetics, on Ben Folds and his turn-ons—Snoop Dogg, girls in glasses, perfectly tuned pianos—and turn-offs—fighting in orchestra halls, censorship and impossibly heavy piano stools, and on Michael Stipe “So He’s Gay! Bald! And 48! He’s Still Hott!”)

Last night’s show was pretty awesome. And while I recoil at having written that last sentence, let me attempt to redeem myself that while Mike Doughty and company—a tall, skinny bass player with random tattoos, a drummer who looked so incandescent with happiness he might at any moment have gone supernova, and a keyboardist who oscillated between ecstasy and brooding—were superswell, the crowd was not, even if they were incredibly decorous. Last night, I found myself part of a company that I hoped would reject me. It was a crowd best defined by their lack of make-up, devotion to the organic cotton ironic t-shirt, history of very expensive education, and undoubted unqualified, unquestioned, and inarticulate devotion to Obama. My friend Betty who went with me said that she was probably the only registered Republican in the room; she was no doubt correct.

But mmm…Mike Doughty. Like him, my default position is that of an apparent  cynic—but within every cynical candy shell beats the warm, gooey heart of a romantic; we are no exception to that truism. Many of Doughty’s songs center on an elusive and elevated woman, a woman who, as he sings of the unnamed woman in the blue dress represents “the perfect hourglass of my loneliness” and whom he just wants to keep dancing. There’s a lot of loneliness in Doughty’s songs. I feel his solitariness it rings the bells, joyful and triumphant, that I hear ring within me. Ring with genre-busting, pleasurably guitar-heavy, complex and ironic, rock aesthetic.

Which is, of course, the mark of any artist: how much you can see yourself in him or her. The artist has this weird catoptric relationship with his or her fan—if  the artist’s work does what it’s supposed to, it does more than just evoke the artist’s own  experience; it reflects that of the fan. I’ve always seen the shadowy shapes of my pain, my joys and my thoughts in Mike Doughty’s music, and for this I am profoundly thankful.

Mike Doughty is a blogger; you can find his blog here. Also, he {hearts} myspace. If you live in Gotham, you might be interested to know that he has another show in Brooklyn on 10 April at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. And finally, here’s a video to “Screenwriter’s Blues,” so you can hear what started me on my journey to Doughty genuflection.

Comments

[Eric Spitznagel]

Dude! I totally heart you because of this post. I have such inappropriate feelings for Mike Doughty. The first time I saw him in concert was 1995, when Soul Coughing opened for Jeff Buckley at the Metro in Chicago. My friends and I bought tickets from a scalper, just minutes before the show started, and then left shortly after Buckley took the stage. I distinctly remember making a very loud exit during "Hallelujah", making regrettably unkind comments about Buckley's waiflike voice, and then drinking heavily at a dive bar on Halsted, where we taught the bartender (who for some reason had an eyepatch) the lyrics to "Sugar Free Jazz." Trust me, the path to happiness is drinking excessive amounts of Sheep Dip scotch while singing "Schools he bombs, he bombs" over and over and over again, like a nervous schizophrenic, until everybody around you wants to punch you in the face.

I've seen Doughty no less than twelve times in concert since then, both as the frontman for Soul Coughing and as a solo act, stoned and sober (both he and I), in literally every time zone and altitude in the country. I have such a man-crush on him that I cannot talk about his music rationally with anybody who doesn't instantly tear up when hearing the opening guitar riff to "The Only Answer", and I still believe that offering to drink fuel strait from your lighter is the most romantic sentiment ever uttered in song.

I believe that a certain unnamed four-year old child (and Doughty muse) said it best. "Fire... truck! Fire... truck! Fire... truck! Fire... truck!"

Screenwriter's Blues has been #1 on my list of sexiest songs since I heard it in 1995, or maybe it was 94, but thereabouts. I had just gotten out of college and I was living in Chicago that year, and happened on to Soul Coughing at the Elbo Room. I was transfixed, literally. When I bought Ruby Vroom, I fell in total lust and love with the lyrics (already was hyped on the music itself), and wrote my first and last fan letter to a musician. I got so excited I quoted Derrida and Rilke both in the letter! (I know...I know...) Thanks for reminding me of that intense, taut but shruggy awesomeness that is Mike Doughty. Haven't seen the band or him play since back then....le sigh.

[Joy]

Thank you for Reminding me of him! I had forgotten about his CD's. I have such a massive amount od CD's and get in these ruts. I need to rotate my collection to put some of his songs into my rotation again!

[J.J. Adler]

Wowsers. How have I not run across Mike Doughty before? I feel like I've just discovered terra incognita and my internal explorer is as giddy as a 5-year-old with a tootsie pop. Thanks for the enlightenment.