GOOD ACT TO FOLLOW

Earlier tonight I saw M. Doughty, that razor-edged if occasionally dada lyricist -- except that he’s not even M. Doughty anymore, but just ol’ Mike Doughty, softer around those edges, more apt to sing of love than scat in the typical somehow-cynical random syllables.

He’s been solo long enough now to carry a show without relying on his Soul Coughing work, and he only played two of his songs from that period (and from the first Soul Coughing album, at that). Although the Paradise was packed, most people didn’t seem to mind, maybe because, although he was playing gentler stuff from “Skittish” and “Rockity Roll,” he still rocked a little harder than recent visits (back when the Somerville club 608 was still open). He talked less between songs. This is Doughty in transition, on the way to working with a band again.

The most cutting point Doughty made all night was on the predictability of encores. He acknowledged just before his second-to-last song that it wasn’t his second-to-last song, and when he’d done his putative finale he merely told the audience he was going to go stand in one corner of the stage for awhile. The audience applauded as he stood in plain sight, his back to the audience swigging water, and finally looked around as though just noticing the cheers, walked back and did a couple more songs.

It was funny, and hardly snarky, but it’s about time someone started making fun of the tedious drill encores have become. The band leaves; the audience claps; the band returns. The suspense is mainly in how long the audience can stand clapping without becoming irritated that the band is making it clap for so long.

Once a music critic, then someone who regularly wrote such incisive polemics as “My eye like a noisegate the number 8 frustrate and I roll to the floor fruit,” it would be nice if Doughty kept this up long enough to set an example for other musicians. More, Doughty, more!