At first I thought I dreamt it (I tend to check Tweets at around 3am when I’m trying to give the Piledriver and People’s Elbow to my insomnia, so I can never be too sure) but the other night, poet, friend and maker of the small rock, Mike Doughty, quietly and to his tweeps announced the release date of his fifth full-length solo album. The cover – or some approximation of it – turned up on his website yesterday.
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/