Tropical tunes from all genres brought to you by the man with the year-round tan ~ Pineappleman
From 2013 to 2018, Pineapple Express was a show hosted by the Pineapple Man (Andreas) that featured tropical Island songs from Hawaii, the Caribbean and South America from many genres and decades. Plus a healthy dose of irreverent comedy. (A selection of shows can be heard here)
KCR Programmer Adam O. Thomas offered this tribute to Andreas on his show RadioMixTape.
It is always hard when someone truly, PERMANENTLY leaves. And whether by accident or on purpose it is always sad when you realize you will never hear that voice again.
Recently, a member of the KCR family left us. On February 10th, 2019, Andreas Pittinger, better known as Pineapple Man, was found dead. He had struggled with personal demons for as long as I knew him, but in spite of that, he found his voice and created one of the station’s most beloved and original radio programs. His Pineapple Express was a strange fruit, filled with a tropical mix of Polynesian ballads and record bin discoveries. Sampling old Hawaiian tourist and historical records, he served up a refreshing cocktail of music and comedy and for the 1 hour he sat behind the mike he took us on a first class holiday away to a land of warm, gentle breezes and long golden sunsets.
But really, his alter ego, Pineapple Man was more than just a voice. As the show grew, he began to write sketches and perform elaborate radio plays, where his persona would call a variety of other characters, often his uninterested talent agent or the head of Delmonte corp. Each call would involve either a misunderstanding, a professional compromise or a straight out rejection with the confused Pineapple Man left holding the phone and the beep beep beep of a dropped call.
These sketches were labours of love as he played all of the characters, recorded multiple tracks, added sounds and finally performed his Pineapple Man part live on air, interacting to the prepared tracks. I was lucky to have had the chance to help him start making these sketches and eventually just to listen as Andreas went on to make them on his own. But I can’t help but feel now like these sketches, as with so much great art, were a means of reflecting his own view of himself. The struggling artist, rejected and misunderstood, underappreciated, always headed for failure. He created characters and scenes that reflected moments in his life, hidden behind awkward conversations and people not listening. They were weird little moments that made me laugh, and even more importantly for any radio show…made me tune in. Every week.
And that is one of the hardest parts when someone REALLY, FOREVER leaves. It’s the never sharing those wonderful weird moments with them again. And so that’s why I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s RadioMixtape show to Andreas and Pineapple Man. To share some of these sounds with you dear radio listeners. So we can listen to them together one last time and hope Andreas has found loving comfort in the warm gentle breezes and long golden sunsets on the Big Island in the sky.
Aloha Pineapple Man, stay tropical.