MIKE DOUGHTY
''THE FLIP IS ANOTHER HONEY''
NOVEMBER 6 2012
51:58
1/Sunshine
Mike Doughty/3:39
2/A Fanfare
Mike Doughty/0:28
3/Jimmy Bell
Cat Iron/4:30
4/Take Me Home, Country Roads
Mark Danoff / William Danoff / John Denver/3:16
5/Southern Girls
Rick Nielsen / Tom Petersson/3:16
6/Tightrope
Mike Doughty / John Squire/4:05
7/Send in the Clowns
Stephen Sondheim/1:01
8/Running Back
Phil Lynott/3:44
9/Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat
Mitchell Torok/1:48
10/Boy + Angel
Thomas Bartlett/4:30
11/Reach Out/Higher State of Consciousness
Pete Comita / Bob James / Josh Wink/5:50
12/Ta Douleur/5:11
13/God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)
Randy Newman/2:44
14/Mistress
Mark Kozelek/3:49
15/Words
John Nichols / Mimi Parker / Alan Sparhawk/4:07
REVIEW
by Gregory Heaney Released hot on the tails of both a studio album (Yes and Also Yes) and a live album (The Question Jar Show), Mike Doughty's third record of 2012, The Flip Is Another Honey, finds the singer/songwriter completing his release trifecta with an album of cover songs. In the style of all great covers, Doughty isn't content to just perform someone else's work, but instead recasts these songs in a way that they could plausibly be his own. On "Southern Girls," the ripping power pop of Cheap Trick is transformed into a slower, more atmospheric number, propelled along by the mechanical thump of a drum machine and occasional keyboard swells. Similarly, Thin Lizzy's "Running Back" trades its gritty blues shuffle for a folk-tinged arrangement, mellowing the song out and giving it a more sentimental vibe. Elsewhere on the album, Doughty uses another song as a jumping-off point, like "Sunshine," which lifts a sample of John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" as the basis for a song that finds the singer dusting off his Soul Coughing flow. Likewise, "Tightrope" is a whole new song crafted around the chorus of a Stone Roses song of the same name, allowing Doughty to build a new narrative around something familiar while managing to keep the spirit of the song intact. With all of the interesting changes Doughty is able to make to so many familiar songs, it's strange that the album's best moment comes when he plays it closest to the original. "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" is done with an arrangement that keeps the basics of the Randy Newman classic intact, but expands its toolkit with the help of longtime collaborator Andrew "Scrap" Livingston, who adds an ominous cello line to the songs existential musings. Albums like these always have to strike a careful balance between mimicking the original and killing the spirit of the original, but it's a balance that The Flip Is Another Honey is able to find quite comfortably.
BIOGRAPHY
by Lee Meyer
Before emerging as a solo artist, Mike Doughty (known as M. Doughty during the early stages of his career) was best known as the frontman of the unique avant-garde group Soul Coughing. Formed in 1992, Soul Coughing took shape after Doughty met Yuval Gabay, Sebastian Steinberg, and Mark de Gli Antoni while working as a doorman at the Knitting Factory, a staple of New York City's underground music scene. The four musicians signed with Slash/Warner Bros. in 1993 after making a name for themselves on the local scene with a fusion of rock, Doughty's beatnik-inspired lyrics, and elements of hip-hop and electronic music. Releasing their first of three albums the following year, Soul Coughing enjoyed only moderate commercial success over the next six years with the singles "Super Bon Bon" and "Circles." However, their unclassifiable style kept Soul Coughing apart from the mainstream, which became beneficial as the initial boom of alternative rock in the early '90s subsided considerably.
In March 2000, the members of Soul Coughing split up to work on their own side projects. Shortly after the breakup, Doughty -- who had been writing as a columnist for New York Press on the side -- embarked on a solo acoustic tour, playing material from a then-unreleased solo album recorded in 1995 entitled Skittish. After bootleg copies of the album surfaced on the file-sharing network Napster, Doughty released an official version of Skittish on his website in October 2000. A stripped-down acoustic effort, Skittish featured some of Doughty's most direct and personal lyrics, accompanied by his signature, syncopated guitar-playing style.
In addition to overcoming drug addiction and beginning work on a second solo album, Doughty continued to do solo tours and was heard contributing vocals to BT's club hit "Never Gonna Come Back Down," and collaborating with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants for a CD that accompanied an issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. He also composed the soundtrack to a trailer for New York City's Gen Art Film Festival.
In July 2002, Doughty released the limited-edition live album Smofe + Smang: Live in Minneapolis. It featured a large selection of solo material as well as Soul Coughing classics. A book of poetry entitled Slanky, which was initially self-released in 1995, also coincided with the live album. In 2003, more solo work surfaced in the form of the Rockity Roll EP, which was then combined with the Skittish album and re-released with a handful of bonus tracks when Doughty signed to ATO Records in 2004. In 2005, Doughty released his first solo effort to feature a band, Haughty Melodic, which contained fleshed-out studio versions of several songs debuted on Smofe + Smang, and 2008's Golden Delicious followed suit. The latter album cracked the Billboard 100, Doughty's first solo release to do so, and he quickly returned in 2009 with another record, Sad Man Happy Man. In 2011, he released the full-length Yes and Also Yes on his own Snack Bar label. In 2012, Doughty released a second book,The Book of Drugs, a memoir about his life with Soul Coughing and his struggles with addiction, as well as the live album The Question Jar Show, and The Flip Is Another Honey, which featured Doughty covering artists from Thin Lizzy to Randy Newman.
''THE FLIP IS ANOTHER HONEY''
NOVEMBER 6 2012
51:58
1/Sunshine
Mike Doughty/3:39
2/A Fanfare
Mike Doughty/0:28
3/Jimmy Bell
Cat Iron/4:30
4/Take Me Home, Country Roads
Mark Danoff / William Danoff / John Denver/3:16
5/Southern Girls
Rick Nielsen / Tom Petersson/3:16
6/Tightrope
Mike Doughty / John Squire/4:05
7/Send in the Clowns
Stephen Sondheim/1:01
8/Running Back
Phil Lynott/3:44
9/Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat
Mitchell Torok/1:48
10/Boy + Angel
Thomas Bartlett/4:30
11/Reach Out/Higher State of Consciousness
Pete Comita / Bob James / Josh Wink/5:50
12/Ta Douleur/5:11
13/God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)
Randy Newman/2:44
14/Mistress
Mark Kozelek/3:49
15/Words
John Nichols / Mimi Parker / Alan Sparhawk/4:07
REVIEW
by Gregory Heaney Released hot on the tails of both a studio album (Yes and Also Yes) and a live album (The Question Jar Show), Mike Doughty's third record of 2012, The Flip Is Another Honey, finds the singer/songwriter completing his release trifecta with an album of cover songs. In the style of all great covers, Doughty isn't content to just perform someone else's work, but instead recasts these songs in a way that they could plausibly be his own. On "Southern Girls," the ripping power pop of Cheap Trick is transformed into a slower, more atmospheric number, propelled along by the mechanical thump of a drum machine and occasional keyboard swells. Similarly, Thin Lizzy's "Running Back" trades its gritty blues shuffle for a folk-tinged arrangement, mellowing the song out and giving it a more sentimental vibe. Elsewhere on the album, Doughty uses another song as a jumping-off point, like "Sunshine," which lifts a sample of John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" as the basis for a song that finds the singer dusting off his Soul Coughing flow. Likewise, "Tightrope" is a whole new song crafted around the chorus of a Stone Roses song of the same name, allowing Doughty to build a new narrative around something familiar while managing to keep the spirit of the song intact. With all of the interesting changes Doughty is able to make to so many familiar songs, it's strange that the album's best moment comes when he plays it closest to the original. "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" is done with an arrangement that keeps the basics of the Randy Newman classic intact, but expands its toolkit with the help of longtime collaborator Andrew "Scrap" Livingston, who adds an ominous cello line to the songs existential musings. Albums like these always have to strike a careful balance between mimicking the original and killing the spirit of the original, but it's a balance that The Flip Is Another Honey is able to find quite comfortably.
BIOGRAPHY
by Lee Meyer
Before emerging as a solo artist, Mike Doughty (known as M. Doughty during the early stages of his career) was best known as the frontman of the unique avant-garde group Soul Coughing. Formed in 1992, Soul Coughing took shape after Doughty met Yuval Gabay, Sebastian Steinberg, and Mark de Gli Antoni while working as a doorman at the Knitting Factory, a staple of New York City's underground music scene. The four musicians signed with Slash/Warner Bros. in 1993 after making a name for themselves on the local scene with a fusion of rock, Doughty's beatnik-inspired lyrics, and elements of hip-hop and electronic music. Releasing their first of three albums the following year, Soul Coughing enjoyed only moderate commercial success over the next six years with the singles "Super Bon Bon" and "Circles." However, their unclassifiable style kept Soul Coughing apart from the mainstream, which became beneficial as the initial boom of alternative rock in the early '90s subsided considerably.
In March 2000, the members of Soul Coughing split up to work on their own side projects. Shortly after the breakup, Doughty -- who had been writing as a columnist for New York Press on the side -- embarked on a solo acoustic tour, playing material from a then-unreleased solo album recorded in 1995 entitled Skittish. After bootleg copies of the album surfaced on the file-sharing network Napster, Doughty released an official version of Skittish on his website in October 2000. A stripped-down acoustic effort, Skittish featured some of Doughty's most direct and personal lyrics, accompanied by his signature, syncopated guitar-playing style.
In addition to overcoming drug addiction and beginning work on a second solo album, Doughty continued to do solo tours and was heard contributing vocals to BT's club hit "Never Gonna Come Back Down," and collaborating with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants for a CD that accompanied an issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. He also composed the soundtrack to a trailer for New York City's Gen Art Film Festival.
In July 2002, Doughty released the limited-edition live album Smofe + Smang: Live in Minneapolis. It featured a large selection of solo material as well as Soul Coughing classics. A book of poetry entitled Slanky, which was initially self-released in 1995, also coincided with the live album. In 2003, more solo work surfaced in the form of the Rockity Roll EP, which was then combined with the Skittish album and re-released with a handful of bonus tracks when Doughty signed to ATO Records in 2004. In 2005, Doughty released his first solo effort to feature a band, Haughty Melodic, which contained fleshed-out studio versions of several songs debuted on Smofe + Smang, and 2008's Golden Delicious followed suit. The latter album cracked the Billboard 100, Doughty's first solo release to do so, and he quickly returned in 2009 with another record, Sad Man Happy Man. In 2011, he released the full-length Yes and Also Yes on his own Snack Bar label. In 2012, Doughty released a second book,The Book of Drugs, a memoir about his life with Soul Coughing and his struggles with addiction, as well as the live album The Question Jar Show, and The Flip Is Another Honey, which featured Doughty covering artists from Thin Lizzy to Randy Newman.
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