From one Burg to another: St. Pete's MiniM co-headlines Jamburg this Saturday

Jam music isn't easy to describe in an elevator pitch. The musical style, known for improvisation and combining different styles like reggae and funk, can be amazing, surprising, exhilarating and provide a joyful experience for its fans. For some, jam bands can be too sprawling, tedious and jumbled.

Regardless of your threshold for instrumental noodling, a huge posse of devoted fans travel across the nation to see them play.

One defense of jam music: It can be full of surprises. In San Diego, Spafford — the headliner for the Leesburg concert fest Jamburg this Saturday, benefitting the Leesburg Center for the Arts — brought the house down with their cover of the 1980s hit "Mad World" by Tears for Fears, a somber-but-catchy electronic tune that, initially, wasn't as popular in the U.S. as it was in its U.K. motherland, but it simmered in popularity over the years and has become a pop classic thanks to a number of covers.

"Spafford really puts their own flavor to this cover and combines high energy transitions with electronic and rock elements to push the song to new and unique levels," wrote the jam music publication Grateful Web.

Sharing the bill with the energetic Prescott, Arizona-based band this Saturday is a St. Petersburg act known as MiniM, who've been playing just short of two years but have quickly and steadfastly attracted a following.

The Creative Loafing Best of the Bay-nominated band joins the South Florida quintet Tand and Tulsa's Underground Springhouse and will open the show.

The band's built-in manager of sorts, David Rakower, sings, plays piano and keyboards for the band. He says he and his bandmates are big fans of Spafford and are excited to make their Leesburg debut.

Like Spafford, you can't put MiniM in a box. Their sound is appealingly atmospheric. Though songs can meander, they have plenty of hooks and can make you want to dance.

Rakower says that MiniM started out as friends who liked to play music together.

He and guitarist Michael Hibler, drummer Billy Sanders, bassist Hunter Richey, vocalist and guitarist Ross Borgias and percussionist Shane LaVigne began playing in Tampa Bay in January 2022.

Rakower's keyboards set the band apart but he got his inspiration from another band, Electron.

"Electron's Aron Magner had this keyboard on the top of his rig that I was able to hear on Jam Cruise, and whenever that keyboard would go off, I would, I could even be just talking to someone and I would hear it, it would stand out. I would look up at it, and it was this an Access Virus keyboard," Rakower explained. "I never imagined at that time having like a band and that we'd be playing Halloween. It's just insanity. ... As things started progressing, I wound up coming about one of these keyboards."

While their keyboards are the dreamy-creamy topping of MiniM's sonic pastiche, the bass and rhythm are at its foundation.

"We just all come in all powerful," Rakower iterated. "We are all these kids in a candy store when it comes to making music, and the keyboard allowed us to add a lot more of the atmospheric component to our songs."

The guys live somewhat of a subdued life overall. Rakower, at 49, has a young daughter named Amelia. He says the band is split between married guys without kids and dads. he's the eldest of the MiniM guys who range in age between early 40s and late 40s. "We practice a lot also that I think that's really the key is that we practice," Rakower emphasized. "We're very, very committed to the band and to each other. We have a lot of different dynamics. Three of us are dads. Three of us are married. The marrieds aren't necessarily the dads."

So, how did they come up with the band name?

"Minim a minimum is a measurement of water," Rakower explained (a minim is one 60th of a fluid dram, about one drop of liquid). It's also a measurement of music as a note (the time value of two quarter notes or half of a whole note, represented by a ring with a stem).

"So, we perceive the name as a whole. We kind of lay it in to a context of its liquidity — the fluidity of music."

MiniM kicks off Jamburg, playing from 4 to 5 p.m. Underground Springhouse plays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tand hits the stage from 7:30 to 9 p.m. and headliner Spafford rounds out the night from 9:30 to 11:45 p.m. The concert takes place at the Pat Thomas Stadium, 240 Ball Park Road, next to Venetian Gardens in Leesburg.

Proceeds will go to the Leesburg Center for the Arts, an organization with professional artists educating children and bringing fine art and an arts festival to downtown Leesburg.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: St. Petersburg's MiniM makes its debut in our Burg at Jamburg