Ithaca favorite and ex-Soul Coughing front man, Mike Doughty, is back after selling out Castaways for a run of DSP shows in the Fingerlakes. He’ll appear on November 19th at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse and the following night, the 20th in Ithaca at Castaways as part of the 2009 Question Jar Tour – Acoustic! Tickets for both shows will be $20 advance and $25 day of show. Tickets for the Castaways show are on sale HERE. Tickets for the Westcott show are on sale HERE. Fanclub sales start Monday, August 31st.  Both shows will be general admission seated with standing room in back. You can find more information about the Westcott at www.thewestcotttheater.com. Doughty will be out touring in support of a to-be-named new album out this fall on ATO records. With the spontaneity of his question and answer banter and the intimate seated style of these shows, both are sure to be packed with more unforgettable moments.

Mike Doughty’s father was in the U.S. Army and Doughty was schooled on Army bases in the United States and Europe. “The army in the ‘70s was a fucked up place,” Doughty recalls. “I had an ordinary public high school experience, but the army seeped into everything, very regimented, strict and masculine. I was a fish out of water in the extreme; I was too sensitive, too questioning. When I found music, it changed everything. I didn’t know anything about music or how to play it, but put up posters of Iggy and the Stones and the shit hit the fan. Rock was not beloved by the culture that was spat on and called baby killers.”

Doughty played bass in a high school band and started writing songs as soon as he picked up the bass. “When I could play two notes, I’d yell something over it and call it a song.” By the time he entered the New School in New York City to study poetry, he’d developed his syncopated guitar style. “I listened to Public Enemy and tried to play their rhythms on guitar; with a combination of ineptitude and persistence, I started playing the rhythms within the melodies.”

Doughty credits Sekou Sundiata’s poetry class and the work of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks with sparking his interest in the craft of songwriting. “Sundiata told me to let the poem, or the song, do what it wanted to do,” Doughty explains. “He spoke about how to be musical, how words exist within time and transcend time. I’m rhythmically driven; it’s my blessing and my curse. The rhythms of my guitar, the nature of my voice and the strange cadence of the lyrics aren’t funky enough to be funk, but they’re too funky to be rock.” This dilemma is at the heart of Doughty’s art—an inability to compromise his desire for honest communication for the sake of the marketplace. “I’m an adult, trying to be an adult. It’s not the most commercial move to make at 37, but you have to let the music take you where it wants to go.”

Doughty’s solo career started with Skittish, a solo acoustic album Doughty made in 1996. His band, Soul Coughing, was signed to Warnes Bros. Records at the time; the label rejected Skittish, but it leaked and became a hit on Napster. After the band split in 2000, Doughty rented a car and started playing acoustic shows. “People who knew the songs from the Internet lip-synched every word,” Doughty recalls. In four years, Doughty sold 20,000 copies of Skittish at gigs and through his website, with virtually no promotion. He was actually making a living playing music. “Even when I was in Soul Coughing with hits on alternative radio and a video on MTV, I was writing CD reviews under a pseudonym to make ends meet.”

Being on the road sent Doughty’s creativity into overdrive. He released a live album called Smofe + Smang in 2002 and the Rockity Roll EP in 2003. He was working on the songs that became Haughty Melodic when he ran into Dave Matthews, a big Soul Coughing fan, at Bonnaroo. Matthews signed Doughty to his ATO label and released Haughty Melodic. ATO also issued a two-CD set comprisingSkittish and Rockity Roll, along with several bonus tracks.

Haughty Melodic followed in 2005, Doughty’s first solo album with a band backing him, and reached the top 5 at AAA radio on the strength of the hit single “Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well.” Doughty and his band—simply billed as Mike Doughty’s Band—performed at Bonnaroo and the Austin City Limits Festival, supported arena tours with Dave Matthews Band and Barenaked Ladies, and headlined successful nationwide club tours. And through it all, Doughty has maintained a widely read blog (mikedoughty.com/blog) chronicling his unique shows, creative endeavors, international travels and more.