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Mike Doughty |
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North 6th
Brooklyn, New York
08.21.03 |
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review by Jesse Jarnow
When ex-Soul Coughing front man Mike Doughty went solo in early 2000, he adapted his former band's sample-heavy pop to self-described acoustic "small rock." It sounded pretty good. Or, at least, it sounded full, casually revealing the individual rhythmic machinations at the center with surprising tenderness. With two years of touring and the album Smofe + Smang: Live In Minneapolis under his belt, as well as an EP and formal studio record on the way, the New York-based singer now sounds like he's reaching for a band again. But the band ain't Soul Coughing. It's somebody else.
At Brooklyn's North 6th club, Doughty moved through the bulk of his repertoire, his post-Soul Coughing music dominating the setlist to the point where the singer finally seems free from the quartet's lengthy shadow. Songs from his solo debut (Skittish) blended with numbers from Smofe during the set, along with a smattering of newer tunes. For the past year, Doughty has been gigging on an electric guitar, a strangely dorky sight. At first, the ultra-clean tone imitated the sound of his precious acoustics, though for his first hometown gig in some months, his guitar work revealed a tinny, trebly voice reminiscent of the rocksteady records that played an influence on early Soul Coughing.
The guitar did well to cut through the crowd, as Doughty strummed his trademark gangadank rhythms, a folk fusion of hip hop and reggae. The songs themselves were of the same yearning narrative variety Doughty has specialized in for the past several years. Numbers that once sounded plaintive, such as Smofe's "Madeleine And Nine" and Skittish's "The Only Answer," seemed to operate with a different rhythmic drive. Where they had once been powered by snapped and stuttered acoustic guitar, they now seemed to churn like David Byrne's dry chops on early Talking Heads' recordings. One could imagine a new band falling around Doughty's fresh blueprint, the faceless players grooving somewhere in the singer's head.
With bread and butter occupation in his live show, Doughty's shtick is his work, arranging and rearranging low-key jokes and banter to best serve the evening. It's not quite high art, and it's not particularly ambitious within the realm of pop, but Doughty shows an infectious devotion to it. Despite the fact that he frequently repeats apparently spontaneous stories from night to night, it's hard to begrudge the guy his routines. After all, it's plum entertaining, and that's how he makes his living. Besides, he's got an impeccable sense of timing. Doughty tried out a few new bits on the Brooklyn audience—a rant about Friendster, new inserts in Irresistible Bliss's "The Idiot Kings," and a fresh bridge to "Grey Ghost" (where, in a previous gimmick, he had only sung nonsense syllables). If the latter is any indication, Doughty seems about ready to move forward, though not without a last go-round.
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