Mike Doughty

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For the rally co-driver, see Mike Doughty (co-driver).
Mike Doughty
Background information
Birth name Michael R. Doughty[1]
Born (1970-06-10) June 10, 1970
Fort Knox, Kentucky
Genres Alternative Rock,
Indie Rock
Instruments Vocals
Guitar
Years active 1992–
Labels ATO, MapleMusic Recordings (Canada)
Associated acts Soul Coughing
Website Official website

Mike Doughty (/ˈdoʊtiː/ DOH-tee;[2] born June 10, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and author. He founded the band Soul Coughing in the 1990s.

Early life

The son of an army officer — he spent his teenage years living on the grounds of the United States Military Academy at West Point — he came to New York City at age 19 to study poetry at the New School University, where singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco was one of his classmates in Sekou Sundiata's poetry course, "The Shape and Nature of Things to Come".[3]

Career

Soul Coughing

While a doorman at the New York club The Knitting Factory (in that era, a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), Doughty founded Soul Coughing. The band released three critically and commercially successful albums, Ruby Vroom (1994), Irresistible Bliss (1996) and El Oso (1998). The greatest hits album Lust in Phaze was released in 2002.

Solo career

Doughty broke up Soul Coughing in 2000 due to personal problems: He was wearying of the band, and he was addicted to opiate painkillers, heroin, and alcohol. He was promptly dropped by Warner Brothers, and began traveling in a rental car (covering 9,000 miles on his first tour) playing acoustic shows. After shows he would sit at the front of the stage and sell copies of his acoustic album Skittish — then on CD-Rs in plain white sleeves. Warner Brothers had rejected the record in 1996.[4] During his three-year tour, Doughty sold 20,000 copies of Skittish and gradually developed a following independent of Soul Coughing.

He remained without a label until, when playing the Bonnaroo music festival in 2004, Doughty bumped into Dave Matthews, a longtime Soul Coughing fan who had the band open for him on two US tours, including shows at Madison Square Garden. When Matthews professed to be a fan of Doughty's solo record Rockity Roll and the song "27 Jennifers", Doughty gave him a CD with rough mixes of an album he had been working on in Minneapolis with singer-songwriter and producer Dan Wilson. Matthews eventually released the album on his ATO label as Haughty Melodic (an anagram for 'Michael Doughty'.) Haughty Melodic's single, "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well," was featured on episodes of Veronica Mars and Grey's Anatomy, and appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, marking a return to the musical mainstream.

In 2012, Doughty published a memoir called The Book of Drugs, covering his formative years as a musician, what he called the "dark, abusive marriage" that was Soul Coughing, and his experiences with addiction and recovery.[5]

Doughty took part in the YouTube project The Good Stuff in an episode dedicated to the "rock star lifestyle". He was interviewed by Craig Benzine and discussed his opinion of what it is like to be a rock star.[6]

On September 17, 2013, Doughty released a crowd-funded[7] album remaking a collection of old Soul Coughing songs. The official album name consists of the titles of all 13 songs on the album, but Doughty shortens it to Circles Super Bon Bon... on his website.[8]

Solo discography

A two disc re-release which includes the out-of-print Skittish, the Rockity Roll EP, and five bonus tracks.
Doughty's first full-band album, released on May 3, 2005.
  • The Gambler (2005)
Six song EP only on iTunes Music Store. Title track is a cover of the Kenny Rogers hit.
Doughty's most commercially successful solo album to date, until the release of his 2013 Soul Coughing "covers" album (see entry).
  • Busking (2008)
Limited edition Live LP sold only at shows. Contains 12 tracks from a 2007 busking performance in the 14th Street – Union Square station in New York City.[9]
  • Busking EP (2008)
An EP, featuring five tracks from the Busking LP, released as a free add-on to Golden Delicious in Borders book stores.
An electro/sampled/sonic-slice-and-dice album put out as an appetizer to the singer/songwriter album, Yes and Also Yes.[10]
A two disc album compiling the best of his Question Jar tour.
  • The Lo–Fi Lodge (2012)
An online subscription album which will include 32 previously unreleased songs dispersed weekly.
An album consisting of cover songs originally recorded by various artists such as Cheap Trick and John Denver intermingled with original material from Doughty.
  • Circles, Super Bon Bon, and The Very Best Of Soul Coughing (2013) #65 U.S.
A crowd-funded album of Soul Coughing songs "re-imagined". In other words, as he'd initially imagined them in the 90s before his bandmates manipulated them, to his disliking. As expressed in The Book Of Drugs, he feels animosity toward the Soul Coughing versions. Fans had a mixed reaction to this, the more Doughty-inclined Soul Coughing fans supported the idea (racking up 100% on PledgeMusic, a crowdfunding platform, in a little over a few hours) while other fans stayed loyal to the other three members, preferring the songs as they were originally recorded. The album did better commercially than any of his solo albums ever did, hitting #65 for two weeks. Soul Coughing's most successful album, however, was El Oso, charting at #49. [11]
  • "Water and Washington" (2013)
A bonus album available to participants in his Pledge Music campaign for Circles, Super Bon Bon.... The album, available as a download to pledgers who ordered a copy, consisted of 20 acoustic tracks, including acoustic versions of the Soul Coughing songs on the album, as well as several tracks that were not included on the album. [12]

Music videos

  • "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well"
  • "27 Jennifers"
  • "Fort Hood"
  • "Put It Down"
  • "(You Should Be) Doubly (Gratified)"
  • "(I Keeping On) Rising Up"
  • "Na Na Nothing"
  • "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
  • "Sunshine"
  • "Super Bon Bon (Re-Imagined)"
  • "The Idiot Kings (Re-Imagined)

References

  1. ↑ BMI Repertoire
  2. ↑ "Mike Doughty: The Making of the Small Rock, Aired on NPR May 4, 2005". Npr.org. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  3. ↑ Mike at July 20, 2007 8:57 AM (July 20, 2007). "Super Special Questions Blog: Sekou Sundiata, 1948–2007". Mikedoughty.com. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  4. ↑ "Robitussin for the soul – Music Feature – Music – September 7, 2006 – Sacramento News & Review". Newsreview.com. September 7, 2006. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  5. ↑ Doughty, Mike (January 28, 2012). The Book of Drugs. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-306-81877-6. 
  6. ↑ Doughty, Mike. "The Real Rockstar Lifestyle". The Good Stuff. 
  7. ↑ http://www.pledgemusic.com/blog/553-mike-doughty-reimagines-13-soul-coughing-hits-for-new-record
  8. ↑ http://www.mikedoughty.com/circles
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ "Immutable/Inscrutable, Urrbody! So, I did an". Mkdo.co. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  11. ↑ http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/mikedoughty
  12. ↑ http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/mikedoughty/updates/25987

External links

Authority control
Mike Doughty
Studio albums
EPs
Live albums
Singles
Compilations
Written Works
Related Topics
Soul Coughing
Studio albums
EPs
  • Soul Coughing (Hello CD of the Month EP)
  • Made Especially for You by Soul Coughing
Live albums
  • New York, NY 16.08.99
  • Berlin / Amsterdam 1997
  • Rennes, France 03.12.94
  • Tokyo, Japan 03.02.97
Singles
  • "Down to This"
  • "Sugar Free Jazz"
  • "Screenwriter's Blues"
  • "Soundtrack to Mary"
  • "Super Bon Bon"
  • "Soft Serve"
  • "Circles"
  • "St. Louise Is Listening"
  • "Rolling"
Compilations
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