The Birth of Tiny Porch
Tiny Porch was founded by Derrek Wright and Sally Allgood. The date was March 17th, 2020 the world had been rocked by a global pandemic and everything was shut down. The Celtic Rock band I played in, The Salty Frogs, the brainchild of Brownwen Beecher (The Fiddle Preacher) was scheduled to play a St. Patricks day show at a local bar, Gracies, but the gig was cancelled due to the pandemic and the world was locked down. What the hell was going on? How long will this last? Nobody knew, the nightmare was just beginning. Faced with the disappointment of our gig being cancelled we did the only logical thing we knew how to do, we set up the band on our Tiny Porch and threw a party. We announced it to our friends on social media, arranged to live stream the event and let loose with our Celtic Rock for all the neighborhood to experience. We weren’t really sure what to expect as we were in totally blindsided from this new pandemic. What happened next? Well, the neighborhood showed up, we set up chairs in the driveway and a full blown party broke out, people were dancing in the streets!. To our delight, we streamed the show live on Facebook, inserted a Venmo link for any potential supporters and I’ll be damned if we didn’t make as much money from the live stream as we were guaranteed at our show. Tiny Porch was born!
In the wake of a successful show and a supportive neighborhood, We decided to start holding rehearsals for my band LionFish -(Derrek Wright - vocals, guitar | Georgi Petrov- vocals and guitar | Anthony Perry (vocals, drums) | Mike Crandall - bass) Bear Carrillo (vocals, percussion), on that same Tiny Porch. It was the perfect setup, drums and guitar on the porch, bass, guitar and percussion directly below us in the courtyard. It was magical. As the pandemic dragged on month after month we continued. It was our sanctuary. It was all we had. When we weren’t playing music on the Tiny Porch, we were all quarantined in our respective houses, watching the global nightmare unfold on television. More deaths, more disinformation, more uncertainty, how long would this last? Eventually we became the defacto house band with special guests and/or individual performers. We were graced to jam with the likes of Trace Wiren, Susan Bush, Eric Sopanen, Steve Auerbach, Ricardo Romero, Terence Hansen, Gina Koziatek, Brooke Mackintosh, Rex Flynner, Phil Triolo and a number of people I have no idea who they were but they fit right in!
One amazing gift was that came our way was the appearance of our new best friend, musical partner and bad ass jazz, rock, classical, Bulgarian folk, slide guitarist and so much more, Georgi Petrov. Georgi and his wife Hilary relocated to Salt Lake in August of 2020 from New Orleans. All of Georgi’s gigs were cancelled due to Covid. His lovely, wacky wife, Hilary, an accomplished jazz and pop vocalist in her own right, accepted a job as a Speech Pathologist at a local Covid relief center. A mutual friend had asked if we would introduce Georgi and Hilary to the local music community. Lucky for us, we were holding a Tiny Porch show that weekend and we invited them to come. They were charming smart lovely people and after one night of drinking and playing music and we informed Georgi and Hilary that they were ours! To our delight, they concurred.
More amazing musicians started to show up as well, Trace Wiren, my long time rock ‘n roll sister of My Sister Jane fame started coming. Our neighbor and amazing singer songwriter Susan Bush wandered down from her home three doors away, Eric Sopanen, local Guitar Czar, Timi Cruz a local musician and troubadour graced our porch stage. Steve Auerbach, Founder of the Salt Lake Music Academy (SLAM) rocked us with his keyboards, Rex Flynner a local bluegrass legend and conveniently a near by neighbor added his mandolin, guitar and fiddle to the mix. Pretty soon we had a percussion section and we even had a theremin player show up one time. It was pure musical joy. Local guitar god Terence Hansen even showed up a time or two to join in (one night we were blessed to watch Terence and Georgi shred to Al Dimeola’s “Mediterranean Sundance” it was amazing, right in our driveway with a roaring fire.
As time passed, we started to generate a Buzz, people were reaching out to us, “when is the next Tiny Porch?” Neighbors would mention it as they passed by strolling their babies and walking their dogs, it had become a way to deal with the lockdown and an event the whole neighborhood and close knit community looked forward to.
My partner in crime and hostess extrordanaire, Sally Allgood, would usually cook a pot of something awesome, chili, enchiladas, ribs, Salmon and assorted snacks of various kinds. That morphed into a pot luck, many “Porch Dwellers” would show up with their amazing culinary offerings to contribute to the Tiny Porch feast. One night a gal who was new to town was walking by and she was a flute player. She stopped and asked, “What is this”, Tiny Porch we responded, it’s a concert and a jam. She had her flute with her and tore it up. This lead to a teaching gig at SLAM, “Welcome to Salt Lake!”
The lesson we learned from all of this is the power of community. If we could characterize Tiny Porch in one word it would be just that, “community”. Salt Lake has always had a strong community, we’ve all been through a few different ERAs and we are so grateful to be a part of this 2022 and beyond version. Tiny Porch will continue with its performances from our Tiny Porch on Bueno. But we would also like to expand our community and build on a good thing. We’ll be sponsoring events like our 2nd Year anniversary show at the Alliance Theatre on March 20th, 2022 - from 4:00-:10:00, don’t miss this its going to be our first public event and features five amazing acts: Trace Wiren, Susan Bush, The Vitals, The Swinging Lights and LionFish. Stay tuned here on our Web site as well as our socials. Til then, we’ll be right here on the Tiny Porch! Sally and Derrek!
