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Written by Kurt Brighton
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
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 Mike Doughty is not one for taking the well-trodden path. He first met his Soul Coughing bandmates in 1992 when he was working as a doorman at the uber-hip New York club The Knitting Factory, and the band’s strange but compelling mélange of amped-up jazz, rock, and beat poetry quickly drew audiences and led to a deal with Warner Brothers in 1993.
The band’s originality won them an ardent underground following, but their unclassifiable sound meant record execs and radio stations didn’t quite know what to do with them, especially back when grunge-rockers roamed the earth in plaid, morose packs.
A string of semi-hits like “Super Bon-Bon,” “Circles,” “Rolling,” and “Screenwriter’s Blues” kept Soul Coughing on the label for three albums, and the band’s songs appeared in a variety of off-the-map pop culture settings like video games, cartoons, television shows and indie films. Drug addiction and general dissatisfaction with the band’s direction led to a break-up in 2000.
After cleaning up, Doughty went out on the road as a solo act, reportedly covering 9,000 miles in a rental car. Puzzled by the fact that fans all over the country were singing along with the acoustic guitar-based songs he had recorded in 1996 for an unreleased album called “Skittish,” Doughty found that the rough tracks had been leaked onto what was then the embryonic peer-to-peer MP3-sharing community.
Undaunted, Doughty touched up some of the songs in the studio, then went back out on the road with a box full of “Skittish” CD-Rs in plain white envelopes and sold them from the stage after shows, eventually dropping 20,000 copies of the disc.
A backstage meeting with Dave Matthews at Bonnaroo in 2004 led to a deal with Matthews’ ATO label, which released Doughty’s “Haughty Melodic”—featuring Matthews on the song “Tremendous Brunettes.” Doughty found some AAA (Adult Album Alternative—think KBCO) radio play with “Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well,” and while his songs retain his trademark rhythm, wit and wordplay, they feature more guitar and focus on melody—a more fully-realized version of the “Skittish” period. Doughty’s second ATO venture, “Golden Delicious” doesn’t come out until February, but he is on the road with his “Question Jar” tour, during which he takes written questions from audiences about life, the universe, and everything Doughty-related.
In keeping with the random nature of the tour and the questions people throw at him, Fort Collins Now decided to shun a normal, boring, musician interview and instead ask Doughty a series of random questions.
FC Now question No. 174: Your new album is titled “Golden Delicious.” What’s your favorite kind of apple?
Mike Doughty: Royal Gala.
FC Now question No. 32: What sort of Thanksgiving leftovers would go best with your music?
MD: Stuffing. The lo-fi Stove Top kind.
FC Now question No. 232 : Your boss at ATO Records, Dave Matthews, has a rep as a violent predator, and reportedly threatened to tase you if you wouldn’t let him appear on your last record, “Haughty Melodic.” What advice would you offer people working for an insane, control-freak boss?
MD: Make out with him immediately.
FC Now question No. 941,111: Did you get all your Christmas shopping done on Black Friday? XBox or PS3? What did you get for me?
MD: I got all my shopping done on Dec. 26, 2006. I am bad at videogames. I got you a special rock.
FC Now question #%^ No. 4,353,453: What’s your favorite flavor of lead-based paint?
MD: Cerulean.
FC Now question, er: Would you consider running for vice president on a Colbert/Doughty ticket? How about Doughty/Colbert?
MD: I’d make a much hipper VP. Or Secretary of the Interior.
FC Now question, um, yeah: As a goth/post-industrial/house/disco/trance/bluegrass artist, what’s your favorite shade of black? How about blue?
MD: Cerulean.
FC Now question 75y6t: Do you have any questions for me?
MD: How’s it feel to be a millionaire?
FC Now: Cerulean. | Only registered users can write comments.
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| | My name is Michelle Turley and I'm 28 years old. I live in Severance with my hubbie, Brandon. We have 2 dogs and a cat. We enjoy camping, four-wheeling, and just being in the mountains. I like to cook, clean (go figure), flea market, and play poker. I have so much to say about poker... | |
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