Tomorrow, ex-Soul Coughing frontman and current solo singer-songwriter Mike Doughty is releasing Golden Delicious, the full-length followup to 2005′s Haughty Melodic. He’s joined by his heavyweight touring band and Grammy-winning producer Dan Wilson for the eleven tracks, though on this live video, recorded for Stereogum at the end of January in a New York studio, things are fare more stripped own. Start tapping that bass, silent sidekick.
“I love your baby fat… / …Your crooked nose is where it’s at.” Same here. There’ll be four more acoustic-minded videos going up this week: My Old Kentucky Blog (Tuesday),
Paste (Wednesday), Seattlest (Thursday), and SF Station (Friday). You can check out a different sort of video for the album’s first single “27 Jennifers” after the jump. No, not that kind of video.
See, it’s a green movie, not blue. Sorry. You can hear the studio version of “I Just Want The Girl…” at Doughty’s MySpace. You can also read his entertaining blog. Or just look at the pictures.
Golden Delicious is out 2/19 (tomorrow) on ATO.
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I was going to post what I thought of Mike Doughty, but I think I’ll wait until someone else posts and lets me know whether it’s cool to like him or not…
@ todd: that was a good one.
@ mike doughty: chill with the ba-rum-ba-dum-dums
I have to get this off my chest.
I was a huge Soul Coughing fan. The abstract lyrics and awesome rhythm section combined to really hook me during the time in my life that I was pulling away from main stream radio. Sure they had some hits, but I found so many album cuts engrossing that I was hooked. They kind of petered out and I moved on, so on the day that I heard that unmistakeable rasp over the speakers at the Barnes and Noble, I got really, really excited. It was the promo copy of Haughty Melodic and I just new that I had to have it. I could barely hear it over the speakers, but I knew that it was going to be awesome, right? It was released and I bought it, not reading any reviews or looking into whose label it was on. What followed could only be described as a heart break, for my expectations were crushed. Not only were the instrumentals on the record stock Dave Mathews toss offs, the lyrics became drivel as well. Far too direct, way to easy. And to add insult to injury, Dave Mathews was on the fucking record!
Suffice to say, I can’t listen to him anymore. These songs suck. I wish he would do drugs again.
i like mike doughty fine, but this smacks of “shilling for the man”.
question: what 80′s band had a semi-hit with the song “Eyes of a Stranger”?
@spilken8r: i know that you are not alone. i too was a huge soul coughing fan. and yet i did not give up on doughty. i ate up the whole ‘one man acoustic without a record label thing’, even dug the cuteness of that rockity roll ep.
but i had to draw the line at haughty melodic. haughty it certainly was NOT. it could’ve benefited from being haughty. it was so bland and so watered-down, and it was on dave matthews’ label and dave matthews sings on it. what a letdown.
i don’t like dan wilson either, for the same reasons. his last album was so high fructose corn syrup 70′s am radio pop, every song honeypie this and sugar that and baby doll that. given that he produced haughty melodic, i don’t think it bodes well for this doughty cd that comes out tomorrow.
BUT i will buy it, listen to it, and try to do so with an open mind.
mike doughty, i know you will read this.
Nobody else thinks that it’s weird that the ‘single’ for this new record has been released three times? (the first one being more than four years ago)
And from what i can tell, it’s the exact same recording…
“27 Jennifers” appeared in…
2003 – original self-release of the Rockity Roll EP
2004 – ATO’s re-release of the Skittish / Rockity Roll Double Disc
2008 – on the upcoming Golden Delicious
Spilken8r – maybe you’ll still like his “Skittish” solo album released earlier then.
Doughty’s still got it and I can’t wait for the new record. I can’t feel bad for your disappointment if you’re going to wish someone was still doing heroin.
I refuse to feel sympathy for anyone’s disappointment when they’re going to wish someone was still doing heroin.
The drugs thing is just a joke. And I did like the early ep after I found it. However, the whole haughty thing really soured me. And seriously, these new songs just bore me. I give up.
No, I agree with Spilken8r. Doughty’s drug songs are much better.
Think what you will of MD, but until you decide to toss In Rainbows (That’s Radiohead) and your MMJ records because of the graphic on the CD case, the “it’s Dave Matthew’s label” is a little worn out.
Well, at least he (dave Matthews) doesn’t turn up as a guest vocalist on any Radiohead or MMJ records. And he doesn’t seem to have anything to do with those artists other than distribution.
In MD’s case, his presence was jarring and unwelcome.
I’m not going to say that his post-Cough material is nearly as good as his Soul Coughing material, but I’ll be the first to admit that I actually really enjoyed Haughty Melodic and look forward to the new one. And say what you want about Dave Matthews and his music (I won’t argue) but you have to admire that he uses his record label as a means to help out his friends.
Solo Doughty fan or not, I think we can all agree that “Never Gonna Come Back Down” is still quite dope, and Slanky is the greatest collection of contemporary poetry ever.
I too was a huge Soul Coughing fan and saw them perform several times. In spring 2005 I saw Mike play solo at Bowery Ballroom and was so turned off by his literally “haughty” performance that I’ve never wasted a second listening to what he has to say since. He acted like he was doing us a huge favor by just existing, and, in his words, played “the shut the fuck up game” with some talkers in the back.
And Stereogum! That’s a cello, not a bass!
I too love Soul Coughing, though I have to admit, the first time I heard them was opening for Dave Matthews once upon a time. Oh.. and I’ll go out on a crazy unpopular limb here and say that Dave Matthews doesn’t suck… his last several albums did, but I still think everything he did up through crash was unique, original, and really good.
That being said, Doughty is great. The new song is OK, but I kind of enjoy the intimate timbre of his voice over the simple guitar riffs. The almost childish lyrics can be poetic in their simplicity at times. This is true for this song and much of his post Soul Coughing stuff.
In the interest of full disclosure…
I would go so far as to say that “Before These Crowded Streets” was actually a good album. Dark and angry, it showed that the DMB could do something besides jammy/showy frat rock.
But after that they just straight up blew, and it just sucks that they brought Mike Doughty along.
“He acted like he was doing us a huge favor by just existing”
Every time I’ve seen Mike he’s stayed after the show for about an hour to sign anything anyone wanted to, pose for photos… he was nothing but accomodating and polite. My girlfriend gave him 20 dollars because she downloaded his album and he was so taken aback by the gesture that it was stunning. I have nothing but good things to say about the guy.
I loved Soul Coughing. I’m cool with Mike Doughty’s solo work, too. A lot of artists have sort of main stream tastes, and sensibilites. When you get a group of them together, things may happen differently. Soul Coughing was a sorta bizarre band where Doughty’s cleverness was shining brighter than his emotional content (sometimes it wasn’t even there)
Doughty talks about Soul Coughing sometimes, as if he could have done better. He’s even said the lyrical content wasn’t there yet, and he’s talked about drugs inhibiting his creativity. If that’s how the man feels, more power to him! Again, I love Soul Coughing, but Doughty’s solo work is much more revealing than that band ever was.
As he moves from solo acoustic, to electronic experimenting, to a band, to an album with Dan Wilson producing – and he loses and gains listeners with every move. He’s a diverse guy making music he likes, and there’s people out there who appreciate it as well.
Basically my point is all this talk of “he should get back into drugs” “the band was better” “he’s shilling out to the man” doesn’t really make sense to me. He’s making music that he digs – either you like it or you don’t, that’s cool. But that doesn’t change whether or not his art is valid.
I, for one, dig it.
>>question: what 80′s band had a semi-hit with the song “Eyes of a Stranger”?
The long lost Payola$
BORING
Mike Doughty’s newer solo albums will always be purchased in our household, because we’re long-time fans.
That said, there seems to be a common theme with each new solo effort that comes out:
Cool, it’s Doughty…but it could have been SO MUCH BETTER!
He has a unique sound, and I enjoy it to a fault. Due to the uniqueness of his vocal styling, I tend to give him a pass on lyrical content, composition, and oh dear god, the backing vocals. Tangent time.
The backing vocals on the new album are horrid. There’s no two ways about it, they’re freaking intolerable, and that’s as PG as it gets because there are a few more choice words I’d love to throw at them. It’s putrid, man. Terrible. Our consolation prize for these awful backing vocals? There’s no, “Haaaaaay haaaaaay haaaaaaay” on this album.
If it weren’t Doughty singing these songs, and it were some generic dude, I’d be embarrassed to have it in my CD player, but the fact remains that it IS Doughty, so somehow it remains “cool enough.” Just cool enough to get a pass.
As an aside, I’m curious about the direction he’s going with the Abelton Live bit. If he could put out just one more track like “Never Gonna Come Back Down” errr…Freelancer, it would all be worth it. I hope that he and BT trap themselves on a deserted island until they crank out something similar…