Tiny Pineapple

The Intro

It has been almost six years since it went off the wire, but I still hear fairly regularly from former listeners lamenting the demise of Radio Free Tiny Pineapple. (Hey, Paul!) But, while it was an awful lot of fun while it lasted, quite honestly, the end came at a pretty good time.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been going through a real music-appreciation dry spell. Most of my favorite artists have released lackluster album after lackluster album and I’ve found blessed little new music to get excited about. In fact, I can only think of one album from the past five years that I can still listen to today with the same enthusiasm as I did when it was released.

So, when my friend Scott walked into my office a few months ago and said, “I’ve been listening to some music that I think you’d like,” I was more than a little skeptical…and not just because Scott has a bewildering fondness for obscure Scandinavian black metal bands.

He told me to go to DebraFotheringham.com and as soon as the home page loaded, music started playing. “Autoplay” web sites are a pet peeve of mine, and I was going to say something to that effect, but I got a little distracted halfway through the first sentence of my mini-rant. “Man, I hate it when they automatically…um…uh…well, I don’t think sites should…uh….who did you say this was? This is…um…wow…I really kinda like this.”

And I really kinda liked the next song, too. And by the third song I was really kinda buying the CD from the CD Baby web site and, let me tell you, it is really kinda brilliant.

What’s more…she’s a local. (She grew up just a few miles north of here in American Fork, Utah.) And, let me tell you, she is fantastic live. The girls and I were going to catch her at a Christmas House Concert back in December, but a round of the stomach flu squelched those plans. But I was finally able to hear her live at Muse Music last Friday night and I was absolutely blown away.

Note to savvy record company executives: Sign her. Now.

Note to everyone else: Buy her CD. Now. Either on CD Baby or iTunes.

Or, better yet…

The Concert

What are your plans for this Saturday night? Well, cancel them. Debra Fotheringham will be performing live (with a full band) at the Tahitian Noni Auditorium down in Riverwoods at 7:30pm.

Here are the exact details:

Bring your friends. (Well, find some!) Bring your spouse. (It’s the perfect way to make up for that lousy last-minute Valentine’s Day gift you bought at the supermarket on your way home from work.) Bring your kids. (I am. My girls are big fans.)

Tickets are only $5 at the door, but if you order them in advance (and pick them up at the door) it’s “Buy 1 Get 1 Free.” (Just go to her site and click on the “Store” link.) For Pete’s sake, at $2.50 a seat, you could bring your entire dorm!

The Contest

At Friday’s show I was able to get Ms. Fotheringham to autograph four copies of her CD for me. She looked a little startled when I asked her to sign four. I think she thought I was a stalker. Either that, or she thought I was trying to impress her:

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t want you to sign a CD. Because, unlike the other guys in line who only want you to sign a CD, I need you to sign FOUR of them. That’s right, FOUR! Because one just isn’t enough for a man like me. I’m the kinda guy who needs FOUR.”

But what I was really doing…besides stalking and/or trying to impress her…was getting some prizes for a little contest.

So, here’s the deal:

1. Leave a comment on this or any other entry on Tiny Pineapple between now and the end of the month.

2. On Friday, February 29th, I will randomly pick four comments left during the month of February and send each of the four commenters one of the FOUR autographed CDs.

3. Did I mention there are FOUR of them?

It’s that simple. Your comment doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. Just say “hi,” or introduce yourself, or tell us how you discovered Tiny Pineapple, or tell us your favorite nurse book title, or ask me when I’m finally going to get around to writing Chapter 6 of Her Majesty’s Gardener. (Answer: next week.)

Whatever, just go for it…

Update: Here’s an article from the Daily Herald about Ms. Fotheringham and the show.

Today is Pioneer Day, the day on which we celebrate the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. Children throughout the state lay in their beds last night, eyes wide open, trying to stay awake in hopes of seeing Brigham Young flying through the sky in his covered wagon, bearing pioneer gifts for all the good boys and girls of Utah. But eventually their drowsy, uncaffeinated eyes began to droop and they finally drifted off with visions of horehound candy dancing in their heads.

Young Kayden probably awoke to find a pair of suspenders hanging from his bedpost, while little McKelsey found the bonnet of her dreams tucked under her pillow. Then they rushed downstairs to discover the pioneer boots they left on the mantle filled with hardtack biscuits and salt pork.

Later this morning, after a hearty breakfast of cracked-wheat cereal and dried milk, the children will change into their pioneer costumes, grab their bikes, trikes, and red wagons, and head to the church where they will recreate the great migration west by parading around on the sidewalk of the church for two and a half hours until they are almost delirious from heat stroke. Then they will gaze across the blazing hot asphalt of the church parking in much the same way that Brigham Young gazed across the arid, inhospitable Great Basin and they will declare, “It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on.”

The children will then break into four groups. One group will divide the parking lot into a precise grid with “streets” wide enough for four bikes and a wagon to turn around. Another group will build an elaborate irrigation infrastructure capable of moving 100 cubic feet of water to any block of the parking lot within seconds. And, in the middle of the parking lot, the third group will start construction on a huge granite structure that won’t be finished in their lifetimes.

By 2:00pm the parking lot will have blossomed as a rose…at which point the fourth group, attracted by low real estate prices and a high quality of life, will move in, take over the parking lot, and, with all the cultural sensitivity of a door-to-door zipper salesman in Amish country, will open 36 coffee shops throughout the parking lot where they will hang out and complain about the liquor laws.

In the evening, extended families will gather together for the traditional Jello buffet, showcasing all of nature’s bounty in suspended animation. (Aunt Delsa will most likely receive the “Best in Show” award at this year’s Jello “Mold-Off” for her multi-tiered replica of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, constructed with alternating layers of lime Jello and baloney.) Funeral potatoes will flow like a chunky, cheesy river, and there will be a hundred “salads,” none of which will feature lettuce (or any other leafy green, for that matter) in any form.

Kids will bob for tater tots in vats of pink fry sauce while the men stand around the back yard, arms crossed, discussing this year’s vintage (rootage?) of root beers. Some will argue that A&W’s 2007 production has been disappointing, with a cloying vanillin sweetness and a weak finish, but just about everyone will agree that the 2006 Hires, with its heavy sassafras notes, has only gotten better after spending a year in the food storage closet under the stairs.

The day usually ends with the traditional Bonfire of the Zucchini, in which all of the neighborhood’s excess produce is piled into the middle of the street and set ablaze. However, wildfire concerns have prompted a bonfire ban this year, so most families will be spending the evening indoors, baking dozens upon dozens of loaves of zucchini bread that they will leave on each other’s doorsteps in the dark of night.

As the children are tucked into bed, their parents will tell them harrowing stories of the hardships their pioneer ancestors endured so they could grow up to be snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabouts with no sense of history. And they will explain to their children that they, too, are pioneers, blazing a trail for the generations of snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabouts with no sense of history that will follow.

Yes, we are all pioneers in our own snotty, ungrateful, over-privileged, upper-middle-class layabout with no sense of history sort of way. And this is our day.

Just a quick note for those of you who are local. New York Doll is playing this week at the University 4 theaters. If you didn’t get a chance to see it the first time around, now’s your chance. And you’ll only pay $1.50 for the privilege. (50¢ on Tuesdays.)

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Doll was described by one critic as possibly “the only documentary that will appeal to punks and Mormons alike.” But surely it deserves a wider audience than that.

And, whatever you do, be sure to stay until the end of the closing credits for David Johansen singing an acoustic version of “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” Truly one of the most surreal film moments of 2005.

See the trailer…