MON., JUNE 16, 2008
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eMusic Selects Feature: Mingering Mike, Pt. 2
by J. Edward Keyes
There are so many entry points to the story of Mingering Mike it's difficult to know which one to choose. You could start with Dori and Frank, the two crate diggers who fortuitously stumbled upon boxes of Mike's homemade cardboard records at a flea market while in search of rare funk 45s. You could start with the internet — specifically, the SoulStrut message board — where Mike's legend slowly grew to epic proportions. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the best place to start is with Mike himself.
Mike — that's as much of a name as he'll give, and as much as I'm willing to push for — grew up in DC in the 1960s, raised by his sisters, first Cathy and then Ladosca, at the peak of the soul music explosion.
"It was fantastic," he beams. "It just seemed like everything that was pouring out of the radio was great."
We're sitting at a table in the back of Marvin, directly across from the enormous, imposing portrait of The Man himself. Mike, when all was said and done, was only 30 minutes late, a delay due not to prima donna posturing, but the inability to find parking.
As is often the case during interviews and public appearances, Mike is accompanied by Dori Hadar, who is as warm and affable as Mike is shy and gentle. Mike's current popularity is largely because of Hadar, and, in what could be read as a combination payback/apology, Hadar acts as a kind of publicist and agent. Call him the Mingering Manager. The two of them have a rare and natural chemistry. Any time Mike starts to talk about his life, Hadar leans in close. He's surely heard Mike's story countless times over the last four years, but his rapt attention and frequent questions make each telling seem like the first. It's easy to understand his enthusiasm; hearing Mike speak is like heaving open a huge window across decades. Peering through offers a view of five-and-tens with plate glass windows, old green Fords coughing exhaust and blaring Motown, and legendary soul venues with lines around the block.
"My brother used to work at the Howard Theater," Mike recalls. His voice is rich and low, a slight drawl seeping into slow-to-come words. "I was about 15 at the time, and I saw James Brown there, I saw Junior Walker there. At every show, they'd have local acts open up for the stars." When Mike wasn't using his family connections to score an audience with the King of Soul, he was spending his spare quarters on 45s. "I was the 45 king back then!" he says. "Because of the way the economy was, it was better for me to buy the 45s instead of the LPs. There used to be a bargain store that sold 45s for 25-cents apiece, so pretty soon I had stacks and stacks of them."
In what will come as no surprise to any avid record collector, as a teenager Mike was a bit of a loner. He often refers to himself as the "Silent Observer," and even now, listening to him talk, it's easy to hear the tentative tones of a quiet little kid, the kind who went to soul shows alone and who would soon begin to construct an elaborate career of his own. As Mike puts it, "Sometimes you reach a certain point in life where you think, 'Well, I could do that.'"
For Mike, that point arrived at age 16.
"I had a small reel-to-reel player," he explains, "and I would just record by myself. I wasn't satisfied with the beat, I couldn't do that too well, so I just concentrated on the lyrics and tunes. When I met up with the Big "D" and found out that he had the same interest, we started getting together and doing stuff. It seemed like that took it to a higher level."
The Big "D" is Mike's second cousin, and the two whiled away whole weekends pouring homemade soul songs onto reel-to-reel tapes, using their voices, an afro comb and a telephone book to create their own variations on the 45s Mike was so enthusiastically amassing.
"A couple of songs that we did, it was just me and him," Mike says, "but it sounds like a group. Later on, other family members got interested, and they tagged along, too. They would just resemble the music. One of them would be a trumpet, some kind of horn. Big "D" would make the percussion with either his hands or an afro comb. We always recorded in the bathroom, because of the acoustics. We just threw a sign on the door that said: 'Recording.'"
To read more of J. Edward Keyes' feature on Mingering Mike, click here.
Mike — that's as much of a name as he'll give, and as much as I'm willing to push for — grew up in DC in the 1960s, raised by his sisters, first Cathy and then Ladosca, at the peak of the soul music explosion.
"It was fantastic," he beams. "It just seemed like everything that was pouring out of the radio was great."
We're sitting at a table in the back of Marvin, directly across from the enormous, imposing portrait of The Man himself. Mike, when all was said and done, was only 30 minutes late, a delay due not to prima donna posturing, but the inability to find parking.
As is often the case during interviews and public appearances, Mike is accompanied by Dori Hadar, who is as warm and affable as Mike is shy and gentle. Mike's current popularity is largely because of Hadar, and, in what could be read as a combination payback/apology, Hadar acts as a kind of publicist and agent. Call him the Mingering Manager. The two of them have a rare and natural chemistry. Any time Mike starts to talk about his life, Hadar leans in close. He's surely heard Mike's story countless times over the last four years, but his rapt attention and frequent questions make each telling seem like the first. It's easy to understand his enthusiasm; hearing Mike speak is like heaving open a huge window across decades. Peering through offers a view of five-and-tens with plate glass windows, old green Fords coughing exhaust and blaring Motown, and legendary soul venues with lines around the block.
"My brother used to work at the Howard Theater," Mike recalls. His voice is rich and low, a slight drawl seeping into slow-to-come words. "I was about 15 at the time, and I saw James Brown there, I saw Junior Walker there. At every show, they'd have local acts open up for the stars." When Mike wasn't using his family connections to score an audience with the King of Soul, he was spending his spare quarters on 45s. "I was the 45 king back then!" he says. "Because of the way the economy was, it was better for me to buy the 45s instead of the LPs. There used to be a bargain store that sold 45s for 25-cents apiece, so pretty soon I had stacks and stacks of them."
In what will come as no surprise to any avid record collector, as a teenager Mike was a bit of a loner. He often refers to himself as the "Silent Observer," and even now, listening to him talk, it's easy to hear the tentative tones of a quiet little kid, the kind who went to soul shows alone and who would soon begin to construct an elaborate career of his own. As Mike puts it, "Sometimes you reach a certain point in life where you think, 'Well, I could do that.'"
For Mike, that point arrived at age 16.
"I had a small reel-to-reel player," he explains, "and I would just record by myself. I wasn't satisfied with the beat, I couldn't do that too well, so I just concentrated on the lyrics and tunes. When I met up with the Big "D" and found out that he had the same interest, we started getting together and doing stuff. It seemed like that took it to a higher level."
The Big "D" is Mike's second cousin, and the two whiled away whole weekends pouring homemade soul songs onto reel-to-reel tapes, using their voices, an afro comb and a telephone book to create their own variations on the 45s Mike was so enthusiastically amassing.
"A couple of songs that we did, it was just me and him," Mike says, "but it sounds like a group. Later on, other family members got interested, and they tagged along, too. They would just resemble the music. One of them would be a trumpet, some kind of horn. Big "D" would make the percussion with either his hands or an afro comb. We always recorded in the bathroom, because of the acoustics. We just threw a sign on the door that said: 'Recording.'"
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