The platter is called Yes and Also Yes and is set to drop on August 30, via Snack Bar/Megaforce/SonyRed. There are 14 golden delicious tracks that I can and will tell you more about in the next month or so. But I keep chewing over the idea that Yes and Also Yes might be Doughty’s best. And I should know. I’ve been living with the songs for a few weeks now.

A couple of the tracks on there include “Hapless Dancers” and “Day By Day By”, both of which MD played back in December during a visit to my compadres in L.A., at MoviesMusicMayhem.com. (Around minute 45:00 there’s also sweet mention of me, plus rockhands and a dirty cackle from Doughty). And the rest? Well, you’ll just have to wait. Patience, grasshopper.

The other piece in the Puzzle of Good News is that with the release comes an autumn tour across UhMerica. Yeehaw! (I’m feelin’ a roadtrip to Seattle. Who’s in?)

The tour starts October 25 at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC and wraps November 19 at the Bowery Ballroom back in MD’s homestate of NYC. Doughty mentioned that a further set o’ dates, including a jaunt to Canada, will likely take place early 2012. Check updated tour dates via MikeDoughty.com.

But whilst you’re here, you want to hear some of his awesome poetry about trials, tribulations and travel, right?

Doughty – if you don’t already know – is also a published poet and writer. Like stuff that goes onto paper, as well as into songs. His poems can be found in his first book Slanky, (a book MD hisself gave me in 1993 after rustling around the Soul Coughing tour bus looking for it), a few of which can be found on the rad 1996 spoken word collection CD, Poemfone. His memoir, The Book of Drugs, will be out early next year. He’s been published in magazines and music anthos. So all points seem to lead a really sexy-looking late 2011/early 2012 for the inscrutable, irrefutable Mike D.

Most recently, however, he got together with the bonkers free-form orchestra The Pookestra, and performed an 18+-minute-long poem called “Dodge Cuddley Jr” based around his journeys. You’ve probably never heard this, right? Now you can. Check out Mike Doughty reading Dodge Cuddley, Jr, now, if you would like.

And you know what? Stay tuned. Weird summer’s coming on….and it’s gon’ be funky.\m/

Because cool, as we know it, folks, implies effort. In fact, it doesn’t imply but expects the following: ironic t-shirts, jeans from Japan that you can’t ever wash though the ink dyes your white Vans blue, a predilection for “urban vinyl” toys, being able to say “I had a seriously peaty scotch at Diamond”, and a record collection that includes singles by mumbly teenagers from Sarf London. (Looking at you The XX.)

Awwww, yeah.

That ain’t Doughty.

And yet….

…what makes Doughty cool (besides his love for both open and closed brackets and his making of witty and catchy “small rock” choons) is that he is, well, no bullshit. Mike Doughty is just an honest guy making music. Writing. Doing Stuff.

He’s honest about himself, honest in his songs, honest when talking ABOUT his songs, honest about getting clean, being on crazy pills, breaking-up/dating/being single/fucking a republican, about what he thinks about his time in Soul Coughing (he’d rather dig out his own liver with a spork before reforming) and honest in every question he answers during his Question Jar live gig. (What’s a Question Jar? Put your questions in a jar! He’ll answer them! Even the ones about cheese or robots! Especially the ones about cheese and robots!) Read my review of his Question Jar show in Van, here.

So it being the season, and Doughty being the No BS guy,  the Backstage Rider had to ask:

Mike Doughty, honestly, what are your New Year’s Resolutions?

My New Year’s Resolutions by Mike Doughty

1. Be groovy
2. Eat my greens
3. Observe the first law of rocking, which is: Don’t stop rocking.
4. Avoid the key of D
5. Limit coffee consumption to sub-cocaine levels
6. Get really really fat
7. Eschew arson
8. Listen to more Tigrinya folk music
9. Wear fisherman’s waders
10. Burn guitars for fuel

See? No BS. . Except maybe about the waders…and the getting fat… and…uh, I’m not certain. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’ll answer honestly.\m/

Mike Doughty’s latest album is “Sad Man, Happy Man” and out now on ATO Records and orderable through all fine establishments. He’s also heading out on tour with his guitar, the incomparable Andrew ‘Scrap’ Livingstone on cello and the Question Jar. So check the dates and go. Come armed with any question except “What is the unsingable name?”.

Follow Mike Doughty on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikedoughtyyeah
Check his site for the blog and tour dates: www.mikedoughty.com
Watch his new video for the stonking “(You Should Be) Doubly (Gratified)”
Mike Doughty Live in Vancouver photos by Brittney Kwasney

Oh and hey: What are your New Year’s Resolutions? This website’s one of mine. Make with the commenting functionality below and let us know about your rockingest musical resolution for 2010… or why you think they’re utter bobbins in general.