www.Scratchley.org : blog

Wil Wheaton turned me on to something I hadn’t heard for years aplenty. Back in the day, in about 1994/95, I worked (shudder) as a ’sales associate’ at a stereo shop. [Insert sad painful images of Judge Reinhold here].

While working at that sweatshop with a bunch of wannabe coke-heads I was encouraged to buy a number of CD’s for demonstrating hardware. What I found however was that I was enticed to purchase contemporary CD’s with high production value and unique acoustic treatments.

One of those CD’s (thank my stars) was an album entitled “Ruby Vroom” that changed no small part of my universe. As an urban twenty-something I had an unpleasant affinity for the glam hiphop of C+C Music factory, Ram Jam, Boys to Men and others I have chosen to forget.

The “Deep Slacker Jazz” played by Soul Coughing was a lyrically unique and musically eclectic ride through (what I imagined) was Greenwich Village coffee shops, Kerouac-esqe flop houses and back alley clubs.

When Actor, Poker Player, Childhood idol, and ST:TNG Veteran Wil Wheaton mentioned Mike Doughty and Soul Coughing in a single cohesive sentence, I managed to feel the electric tingle of memory flowing up my arms like a human “jacobs ladder”. The thought of Soul Coughing triggered that memory (now 7 or 8 years old) of the ‘blue eyed devil‘ living in the ‘5% nation of Casio-tone‘ that carried me through countless hours of programming and coffee brewing in college. (Yes - you’ll have to get Soul Coughing’s Ruby Vroom to ‘grok’ that.)
“I MUST LIMEWIRE!” I shouted to myself though my iPod headphones “AND GET A …. SAMPLE”.

Will only played the intro to “Down on the river by the Sugar Plant” from Mike’s album Rockity Roll (Radio free Burrito EP 5) - but there was enough familiarity in that Casio created single-track melody to peak my curiousity again.
I found and ’sampled’:

Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well from Haughty Melodic
Down on the river by the Sugar Plant from Rockity Roll
The Pink off Skittish
Sunkeneyed Girl from Smofe and Smang (Live) [ <- HAWESOME! ]

Chalk that up to 3 albums I must now buy. Lyrically brilliant - acoustically engaging, toe-tappin happy and sad music.

It would appear from the ‘Wiki’ on Mike Doughty that he had a rough run for a few years after the Soul Coughing experience - breaking up the band in 2000 to get clean after a battle with substance abuse.

Welcome back to the world - and great work Mike - you’ve come through this as solid an artist as you started…

Go buy these albums. Don’t walk - run.

Thanks Wil.