February 19, 2005
Mike Doughty with Damon and Naomi, and Emiliana Torrini at Housing Works Used Book Cafe, 2/18/04
On Wednesday, I saw Mike Doughty open for the Polyphonic Spree. On Thursday, I learned he was playing a benefit show at Housing Works Used Book Cafe. Yesterday, I went.
First, a note about the venue. The Used Book Cafe is part of Housing Works, an advocacy group that dedicates its efforts to homeless people with HIV/AIDS. All of the proceeds from their sales and shows goes towards advocacy and charity for these people. The stores are run entirely by volunteers, and everything you see for sale has been donated. Their thrift shops have been the source of numerous items of clothing for me.
Back to the show. There were two openers. The first was Emiliana Torrini an Icelandic-Italian folk-singer chick. Sounded nice, but didn't really do anything for me.
Next was Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, who go by the moniker Damon and Naomi and who comprise two thirds of the band Galaxie 500. Sounded almost exactly the same as Emiliana, to be honest.
Neither of these did anything for me, but that's probably because I wasn't entirely in the mood for slow, emotional folk music. That's where Doughty didn't disappoint. It was pretty clear that the only reason most of the crowd was there was to see him, as there were at least 50% more people in the room for his set than there were for the openers, and the crowd response was a lot more enthusiastic as soon as he got on stage.
He really seems to enjoy himself on stage and interacts with the crowd a lot. Most people will probably remember him best from the estimable Soul Coughing, but his music now seems a lot... happier. A lot of the Soul Coughing corpus was pretty dark. There are definitely elements present that clearly identify both his previous and current work as being distinctively his - vocal style, and a way of having lyrical phrases wrap around musical phrases that adds a sense of motion and energy to the songs - but the tone is very different. As good as Soul Coughing is, I'd say his work has improved with age.
Doughty is releasing two albums in the next two months, and I'll probably get both of them, as songs he played last night and on Wednesday are showcased there.
Next up: "12 Angry Men" on 42nd St. I'm thinking of going either tonight, tomorrow, or Monday. I mean, heck, why not?
