Mike Doughty, Blind Pigs, and Cigarettes

Last night, John and I went to a concert at a club in Ann Arbor called The Blind Pig. The artist was one of my favorites, Mike Doughty. He used to be in the band Soul Coughing, but is now on a solo career. I guess you would call what he plays "alternative" music, although I know that is not very descriptive. I first discovered him through a song in Veronica Mars (I Hear the Bells), and he has also had a song on Grey's Anatomy (Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well). Then he has several other songs that have played on the radio (including one from his new album called "27 Jennifers"). When I first heard 27 Jennifers, it was when everyone was discussing names for Liam, and I thought that was representative of the whole don't name your kid something too popular rule. The first lines of the song are:

I went to school with 27 Jennifers
16 Jens, 10 Jennys, and then there was her

Anyway, after listening to his new album on iTunes, I wasn't too sure that I would like all of his songs - maybe this was just a case of liking a few good songs from an artist. But the concert exceeded my expectations. He was great live and I loved all of his songs. Plus, he was funny and personable and even made jokes about Gary Kasparov and Ayn Rand, which gains bonus points in my book. Another thing he did that I could appreciate was to make fun of the "fake" encores that all bands do nowadays. He said, "we have come to a very important part of the rock concert - the song before the fake last song of the show." He said that after the fake last song, they would step to the side of the stage for about 30 seconds during which we could clap or do whatever we wanted, because they were going to come back on no matter what we did to play the real last song. :-) He did one song using recordings of random sayings. He used some sort of electronic board with a bunch of buttons on it and played various sayings in a funky rhythm. That was pretty unique.

There were just a few problems about the concert. First, the Blind Pig is basically a black box of a club, about the size of matchbox. Okay, maybe slightly bigger than a matchbox, but you get the picture. Low ceiling, tiny stage, standing only. Now add to this the fact that the smoking ban has not yet come to Ann Arbor and lucky for us, the people all around us were smokers! This made the air thick with smoke and pretty hard to breathe toward the end of the night. I was so glad to get out in the fresh air! The other problem was that John and I got there fairly early and grabbed what we thought was a great location to watch the show - it was right next to a counter that we could lean against so we wouldn't have to purely stand up for a few hours. But as the concert went on, more and more people crowded in front of us. Back home this might not be as much of a problem with all the short people, but here in the Midwest where they grow 'em tall and strong, I found myself contorting into all sorts of positions to try to see the stage. Luckily, there was a mirror on one wall where I could see Mike Doughty's reflection.

Despite these annoyances, we had a great time and actually stayed throughout the entire concert, which I didn't think we would do since it was late on a Sunday night. John has already reserved his new album at the library!