Best Local Pop Band

This is the nightmare: Madame de Boredom and her band are on stage again. Off in the shadows stands a juggler from Hollywood. Suddenly out of nowhere he leaps onstage. The juggler goes for the jugular! Madame de Boredom runs out. The reality is that there is no Madame de Boredom when the juggler is onstage. In truth the juggler is Mr. Entertainment. And Mr. Entertainment is Steve Toth, former BellSouth operator, onetime prop for Boise and Moss, erstwhile juggler for the One-Eyed Kings, bassist in the now-defunct band Lee County Oswald, frontman for the dissolved Faberge Dildo, and leader of the short-lived Bob White Orchestra. In 1996, before the "tiny" concept was hatched, Mr. Entertainment embarked on the Living Room tour, in which he played rock originals and covers in living rooms throughout the South to teensy audiences ranging from one to a dozen people. Tragedy struck in 1999, when another venture, Mr. Entertainment and the Pookie Smackers, ended after producing a homemade CD, 1926 Funstown Street. The Pookie Smackers refused to tour, thus snatching fame and fortune from Mr. Entertainment's grasp. But out of those ashes the Tiny Show (previously Mr. Entertainment and the Tiny Show) was born. Among its first steps was Mr. Entertainment playing toy pianos and Fisher-Price xylophones on Thursday nights at Churchill's. But my how the Tiny Show did grow, into an ensemble including a saxophone, trombone, drums, steel guitar, and a bass fashioned from an inverted metal washtub sprouting an oar. The repertoire can range from Johnny Cash tunes to Who songs to Toth originals such as "Tour de Hotown" "Pete the Gay Republican," and "Plastic Dog Doodie Salesman."