Bleeding Fiction

And A Game Of Shut The Fuck Up

I kicked out and saw the tremendously awesome Erin McKeown tonight. As always, she pulled off a splendiferous show. Erin's set list ran: White City, Beautiful (I Guess), Cinematic, To The Stars, The Taste of You, Aspera, Life On The Moon, We Are More, Float and Le Petit Mort. That might be a little bit out of order, but not hugely so. Erin put a little bit of a slow reggae or samba take on Taste of You; this girl needs to release a live album but now!

The crowd was a little small, but she was an opening act and the Showbox is pretty sizeable. The folks on the floor, though, were pretty into it. And why not? Erin can pack a huge amount of music, and a grand passion for it, into a very puny frame. Truly, the girl is small. Tiny. That this is true is a source of continuous wonder to me.

After Erin's set I picked up a t-shirt (the brown one - I now have 3 out of 4 colors. This is maybe a little sad) and got Erin to sign my copy of ...Birds. Since this wasn't an Erin show, per se, the girl wasn't swamped with fans, so I had a moment to talk to her, socially. I always feel a little weird about that; what do I have to say to Erin? I mean, I don't know much about her aside from the "public persona" (i.e. the music) and she knows nothing about me, so once the "I'm a big fan" is out of the way, where do you go? Nowhere, as it turns out - just to how she's not in Seattle enough, but hopes to come back in January.

Maybe I'll think of something witty to say by then...

* * *

Erin, as I said, was the opening act tonight. She opened for a guy named Mike Doughty, who has the world's worst band website. I say this because the "samples" of his songs contained thereon are each only 3 seconds long. That's just stupid. So, I was left, for a while leading up to tonight, wondering whether or not he'd be worth sticking around for after Erin was done playing.

Then, out of nowhere on Saturday, The Delightful Jeni Garber sent me an email to tell me that Mr. Doughty, who is the former front-man for Soul Coughing, was playing with Erin and, since I was likely going to the show anyway, I should make sure to check him out. "I really like his sound," says Jeni. "It's worth seeing."

Serendipity!

Mike came out to much applause and said "The name of my band is the name of my name. We are the Mike Doughty Band." And then he started playing. The Delightful Jeni Garber is no liar; his sound is worth seeing. It's really good, too. Sort of a small-scale rock jam-band, with keyboards and bass (as in standing bass, not bass guitar) backing the guitar and drums. Dude had me hooked from the first.

In contrast to Erin, who, for all that she clearly enjoys what she does, has a strong touch of grace about her, Mike has a sense of disbelief about him, as if his every smile says "Can you believe that I get paid to do this shit?" Not that he doesn't take what he does seriously; when the ambient noise from the crowd got to be too much for him he stopped playing in the middle of one song and said "how about we play a quick game of 'shut the fuck up?' I'll say 'shut the fuck up' and you all say 'shhh.'" Fans, as fans often do, tossed out the names of songs they wanted him to play. "Mmm... no," he said, and "Probably not. Maybe. Sure, but later. No. No. What else? No, not that." In other words, he's a funny guy.

I wanted his CD but, sadly, from purchasing Erin's T-shirt, I'd run out of the cash to buy either of his albums. I'll order them online, though, sometime soonish if I can spare the money. I wonder, too, if Soul Coughing is any good. I'm only passingly familiar with them, which is to say I know the name and not much more.