Experimental pop artist to perform Friday
For Mike Mineo, songwriting is an experiment. He never knows how it will turn out.
"I've probably written more than 250 songs, and there's never exactly a same way I've written a song," he said. "Sometimes, I'll just press 'record' and see what happens."
He and touring drummer Darin Scott will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St., to display their one-of-a-kind soulful sound. Admission is $8.
On the Florida native's début album, Eccentricity, Mineo showcases his influences, from '60s Motown soul to '70s Afro funk to '20s waltzes, as he belts out vocals and plays acoustic guitar.
He compares his touring duo sound with the power that a trio possesses.
"When we play live, I send my acoustic guitar through a two-channel mixer, which cues my acoustic guitar to sound like a bass and a guitar at the same time," he said. "It gives us more of a full-band vibe."
His music has been compared with that of Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and Jeff Buckley, and his wide range of musical instruments gave him a unique advantage when he recorded his début album.
"On the album, I played everything from the drums, accordion, guitar, upright bass, harpsichord, and piano," he said.
With all of Mineo's instruments and influences on the album scattered all over the place, he breaks his music down into a genre he seems most fitting.
"I'd categorize my music as avant-garde pop," he said. "It's got lots of roots from early music; there's sort of a Motown-ish vibe and definitely an early jazzy sound from New Orleans feel to it as well."
Scott remembers meeting Mineo as being not that all auspicious.
"The first time I met Mike, I sort of stumbled into him on the street," he said. "He seemed kind of on cloud nine at the time, and I think our conversation mainly revolved around our love for Bjork. And then he sort of disappeared, and that was that."
It was somewhat difficult to learn Mineo's material, Scott said.
"It was definitely challenging transitioning to his music," he said. "… I think I learned a show's worth of material around three hours in a month, that was pretty rough. He's got kind of a weird feel to his music, and when you start to play it, the songs get pretty technical, but I've got them down.
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