aaamusic | On 14, Aug 2011

Mike Doughty

‘Yes and Also Yes’

November 7^th -Snackbar records

Listen: http://snd.sc/qeHeuX

“Mention his name in certain circles and domes will fizz.  He encapsulated the sound of post everything beat music. His drawls of proto-noir stories shredded with postmodern pop references soundtracked my formative years, and his is still the voice I listen to most. He’s thoroughly deserving of cult status.” Tom Vek for the NME ‘Ultimate Cult Heroes’ feature.

“Tough and energizing.” Daily Mirror ****

“Experienced and embittered. Harmonious acoustics meet toe-tapping blues.” Clash

November 7^th marks the release of ‘Yes and Also Yes’, the fourth brilliant solo album from New Yorker and former Soul Coughing front-man Mike Doughty, which features ‘Holiday’ – a duet with Roseanne Cash.

A beaty, groovy affair, ‘Yes and Also Yes’ maintains Doughty’s trademark hybrid of indie rock, folk, Americana and blues, sometimes sung, sometimes rapped. The album has a heart of pop and a bright mind full of vivid lyrics. It’s unmistakeably Doughty, and is his most inspired solo effort to date.

Possessing all the warmth and soul of classic country music, ‘Holiday’ is a Christmas

song written and recorded with Rosanne Cash. “I did a show with her, and she said, onstage”, ‘I feel nervous playing my new songs, because Mike Doughty is here, and he’s such a great songwriter.’ “That blew my mind”, he concludes.

Also involved in the writing of ‘Holiday’ was Dan Wilson, who co-wrote Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ plus ‘Secret Smile’ and ‘Closing Time’ for his band Semisonic.

The single, ‘Na Na Nothing’, was partially stolen from a song written by Nikki Sixx and Dan Wilson. “I got their permission to steal it” Mike clarifies, for the record.

The eerie ‘Into the Un’ was written for and rejected by the Twilight soundtrack and is “about goth kids on LSD in a train station”, says Mike. ‘Vegetable’, to these ears, is quite possibly the first ever song that compares the food group with drug use.

Ever the leftfield head, Doughty used a capsule of the antidepressant Duloxetine as a percussion instrument on several tracks. He plays a Chinese lute (called a Zhong Ruan) on the song ‘Telegenic Exes, #1’ and ‘Rusell’ features John Cale-esque dissonant violin.

The album was recorded in Koreatown, Manhattan and features Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, who has played with Anthony and the Johnsons, the National, David Byrne and Yoko Ono.

Most of the songs were written at the legendary artists’ colony Yaddo, where Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, and a lot of other all-time giants worked. “It was founded by a railroad tycoon’s wife, in her mansion, built in the 1890s”, says Mike. “They put up artists for a month or two, feed them in an opulent dining room, and give them space and time to work.”

A prolific blogger and writer, Mike also recently penned a novel about his “ugly, drug-doing years”, called ‘The Book Of Drugs’ which is published by Da Capo/Perseus.

On his time as a still using addict, Mike says, “the worst thing that happened to was that I OD’ed at Thanksgiving dinner, literally, with my parents. My lungs started closing. My brother drove me to the hospital, and they gave me a bunch of shots, and they put this thing in my mouth so that I could breathe. And then I got home and I took more dope. So it really was like… you know, if I were to tell myself something, it would have been, “you’re going to die if you keep doing this.” Mike is now clean.

Incidentally, “the title, ‘Yes And Also Yes’ was the headline of my profile on an online dating site”, explains Mike. “I improvised it off the top of my head, because they wouldn’t let me post until I wrote a headline. I was wretchedly unsuccessful at online dating.” Women’s loss has been music lovers’ gain.

http://www.mikedoughty.com/  / http://www.facebook.com/mikedoughty / http://mkdo.co/