"Small rock is dead" he proclaims at the beginning of the show, "All hail MEDIUM ROCK." Mike Doughty has reached 175 on the Billboard music charts with the launch of his new album, "Haughty Melodic."
For those people who might still be infatuated with the M. Doughty of Soul Coughing, this is not that guy. Doughty has been through the ringer, up against the ropes, and spit out by the machine, yet he has come out better than ever. His songwriting is clearer, his music cleaner, and this week his album beat out … Creed.
Mike Doughty with "Handsome" Dan Chen
Entertainment Art
The Black Orchid
Chicago, Ill.
May 13, 2005
There is something to be said about a guy that can do all of that. That something is AMAZING. Doughty is a performer that retains a humble sense of humor about his life, his music, and just about everything. After screwing up on stage for the second time tonight, Mike did what any of us would do: He asked is accompanist to play "Push it" by Salt and Pepper. Why not? It shows how much Mike is enjoying what he is doing. For this tour Mike has done something a bit daring in cutting back on the amount of Soul Coughing songs he will play. This could be because Doughty as a growing catalogue of songs and thus less need to draw on his Soul Coughing past. However, it is more likely that he is trying to establish himself as, well, himself. "The nice thing about shilling for this record is that it feels really complete to me; I really like it. I hear it and think: Yep, that's what I mean?" quips Doughty, "Nice feeling."
However you slice it, Mike Doughty showed up in Chicago, and medium-rocked it. The show consisted of Mike on guitar and vocals and "Handsome" Dan Chen on the keys and electronics. Yeah, just the two of them. The duo plays as if they have known each other for decades with Chen's ability to stay close with Mike's random chord changes. Mike writes in his Blog about a previous show, "There was a moment where I inadvertently held onto a chord in "Sunken-Eyed" and Dan was right on top of it – we let it ring out for a dramatic moment." At the Black Orchid, Doughty and Chen were able to keep that creative fire going as they reworked some of Doughty's previously unreleased material and carved a new niche for old Soul Coughing standbys as well as a crowd pleasing tribute to Kenny Rogers with "The Gambler."
If there were any detractors to this show they were limited, but if I must name some, they were as follows: 1) As a classic style venue, The Black Orchid is a classy place, but it's all a bit fake. I would have rather seen Mike at the Double Door, The Chicago Theatre, The Empty Bottle, The Metro, The Logan Square Auditorium, Subterranean, House of Blues, or The Aragon. Why his people picked the Black Orchid remains a mystery to me, but he would have sounded a lot better in a real Chicago venue where people would not be confined to their seats and served drinks by black tie clad wait staff. 2) Mike was reluctant to play "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago". Maybe it is because the newly clean and free of drugs mike was rumored to have come to the concept of the song while High, spawning this explanation from the man 9 or so years ago:
"Once, tripping in the metropolitan capital of Illinois, I came up with this theory that everything outside my body was Chicago and all within was not. A nice simple way to look at the world. I would point at, like, a chair and say "Is Chicago," and then at my chest, and say, "Is not Chicago." This entertained me for a good twelve hours or so."
With all now said, this was a great show, One in a string of many for Doughty I am sure. Mike is a consummate entertainer with a gift for lyrical poetry and one of the most unique deliveries around. He is not the aloof and bitter fallen star that some might expect him to be, but a rebuilt model on his way back up.
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