Mike Doughty
Album: The Question Jar Show
Label: Snack Bar
Tracks: 28
Website: http://www.mikedoughty.com/

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager, live albums were my recordings of choice. Partly because of limited funds and partly because this was before I'd been to an actual real live concert; I figured that two slabs of vinyl in a gatefold sleeve offered all of a bands best songs and the closest thing I could get to being there. It was later when I found out that 'live' could actually mean 'tweaked a bit in the studio to make it sound better' that I fell out of love with the format until hearing Todd Snider's 'Near Truths and Hotels Rooms' and Ray Wylie Hubbard's 'Live A Cibolo Creek Country Club'. I then realised that, for the right artist, (i.e someone with something more to say than "Hello London" and "Thank you, goodnight") the live album was the right format.

Mike Doughty is such an artist. He posses, not just a collection of fine songs but an easy rapport with his audience and, on this album, an unique way of engaging with them. OK, it's actually not that dissimilar a concept to people texting Jack Dee in 'Live at the Apollo' but writing a question a card, placing in it a jar then having the cards randomly pulled out during the show seems, somehow, more organic. "Would you rather trip an old lady or kick a puppy?", "Have you ever killed anyone softly with your song" and "What's your stripper" are some of the questions Doughty and Andrew 'Scrap' Livingston (a remarkable cellist) answered throughout the show.

Even though the jar of questions is what distinguishes this from other albums, they do not over shadow the songs. 'Busting up a Starbucks' 'Shunned and Falsified' and 'Madeline and Nine' grave the first disc; 'Grey Ghost', 'Tremendous Brunettes' and '27 Jennifers' the second - and these are only half a dozen of my favourites. Some doubles feel like they are stretched a little thin but this one feels just right.

I know that this is not the same as being at Schubas, or Zanzabar or The Birchmere but I wasn't at one of the Question Jar Shows. I wish I was and this is as close as I'm going to get.

John 'The Jacket' Hawes