Tim Mahoney is upset. At what you ask?

His latest CD, Now, is riding high. He is consistently on tour and has made his way to the top ranks of the Minneapolis music scene, which includes Soul Asylum and The Jayhawks. But the lead singer/songwriter for Tim Mahoney and the Meenies has heard some disturbing news.

“I talked to someone who said the show wasn’t very good,” Mahoney explained. But he’s not speaking of his performance; it’s that of his idol Sheryl Crow’s recent concert.

“I’m really into female singers,” he said. Mahoney counts folk-singer Shawn Colvin as his favorite artist along with influences from R&B singer Sam Cooke and the unassuming popper Crow.

But perhaps the biggest female influence for the 25-year-old Minneapolisite was his mother, a musician for 25 years playing piano and singing.

“I played drums for a lot of years. Then piano and guitar,” Mahoney said. “But I didn’t start the live thing until about four years ago.”

The “live thing” meant performing and touring with his former band the Blue Meanies. The Blue Meanies enjoyed success playing the college circuit, but Mahoney chose to leave in favor of a more “mature” direction.

The road to maturity has led him to Now, his second release since leaving the Blue Meanies.

“Fans are taken aback when they hear the new stuff,” he said. “It’s different.”

Mahoney credits much of the new sound to the aging process. He said it “sounds like somebody got older.”

“It’s more refined,” he said of the 11-track disc. “Better singing, better lyrics. I think it’s doing the writing more — where you come from, where you’re at. Factors that make you think differently.”

Writing, for the meantime, has come to all but a standstill. Not one to practice writing as a discipline, Mahoney waits for those inspirational moments to put pen to paper. Right now, the well is a tad dry.

“My writing hasn’t been heavy,” he said. “I have a little bit of a writer block thing.”

Block or not, Mahoney knows his songs will always be a part of the pop genre, despite any changes the future may hold.

“It’s always going to change,” he said of the sound of his music. “But I’m always going to be writing pop-rock. There is room within that to change.”

All that matters at present, though, is Now.

Mahoney and the Meenies usher in spring at People’s Bar and Grill tonight at 9 p.m. Cover is $4, ID required.