The trachtenburg family slideshow players

You’ve probably never even heard of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. For the uninitiated, they are a trio from Seattle, with Jason Trachtenburg (Dad) playing the guitar and keyboard, Tina Pina Trachtenburg (Mom) on the vintage carousel slide projector, and Rachel Trachtenburg, their ten-year-old daughter, playing the drums. However, the fact that they are an actual family band isn’t the strangest part. The Trachtenburg family gets their fame from being the pioneers in a genre of music they invented in which they sing all their songs about series of old slides they buy at garage sales – as Jason Trachtenburg puts it, “Vaudeville Slide Show Indie Pop-Rock.”

The results are as weird as one might expect. After two opening acts the Trachtenburg Family walked onto the stage wearing homemade costumes complete with shiny silver pants and opened up with “The Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Players Theme Song,” which they sing to introduce themselves before every show. After a brief description of their act for any new audience members, they bounded right into what Jason noted was the first song the band ever wrote, “Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959” (a video of which can be seen on their website, www.slideshowplayers.com). The slideshow itself is a collection of Japanese landscapes with a few random shots of puppies and public executions thrown in to add to the surreal humor of hearing a family of three singing about them. They blasted through some more songs, including “Military Open Mic Night” and “Christian Terror,” both about a set of slides featuring Agent Orange, American war protestors, and U.S. troops fighting overseas.

The Trachtenburgs also made sure not to let the fact that they are a professional touring band get in the way of the sort of family atmosphere one would expect at any other slide show. While certainly not nearly as boring as watching your family’s vacation photos from Disney Land in the ‘80s, the Trachtenburgs play without setlists, and in between just about every song was a short family discussion amongst themselves in which they decided which song to play next. Having a ten-year-old on stage also added to the strangeness of the show; it’s not often one goes to a concert in which the band’s drummer spends five minutes staring at the bottom of their feet and frequently zones out in between songs.

After closing with a song written from a slide show made to address the corporate heads of McDonalds’ advertising department, the band bowed out until their next stop on their current 27-state tour, titled: The 27 States of Vintage Fabric Tour ‘04 and onto the next state where they will continue to, as poppa Trachtenburg has said on several cable TV interviews, “change the face of entertainment forever.”