The Mikel K Band
Sober
$
An album of brutally abusive free-form jazz and poetry from Atlanta, Georgia. While the poems aren’t performed “slam” style, their content is enough to understand Mikel K’s tortured personality. For instance, he talks about heroin addiction a lot, but doesn’t appear to have been an addict himself. It’s just that those around him kept dying, thus frying his soul over a blazing fire. He does, however, appear to have been an alcoholic as “poetry buffet… I outrank charles bukowski” and “frequent drinkers club” discuss how the protagonist no longer drinks.
It’s a very long CD, I’m pretty sure they packed the full 73 or so minutes available, but it became so tedious half way through with Mikel K’s eternal question (am I a poet now?) coming up one too many times. Then I forced myself to listen to “… Mick Jagger can’t control his dick,” “… I want to shoot the guy who shot john lennon” and “everybody’s got short hair like henry rollins” just because their titles were more interesting than the bulk of the poems on the album.
If you’re someone who can stand poetry like this, more power to you. I’ll stick with Ogden Nash. $ Records, 185 Peters Street, Atlanta, GA 30313
