It's rare enough for a fun band to have one great gimmick.
But a forgotten gem of an act in the 2000s, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, had TWO incredible gimmicks:
* They played songs about and with slide shows
* And they were a family trio - mom, dad & young daughter
Who They Were
They scoured estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores - collecting old photographic slides (vacation snapshots, corporate slides, anonymous family-photos). Those slides would be projected during shows, while the family performed songs inspired by the images.
The band was all Trachtenburgs: Jason (the dad) on guitar/piano and vocals; Tina (mother) handling the slide projector and backup vocals; and their daughter Rachel on drums (and backup vocals).
She stuck it out in the band from about age 6 to age 16.
That's about as long as you could expect a teenager to stay in a band with his or her parents.
First Time I Saw Them
I had never heard of them til I saw them on Late Night With Conan O'Brien in 2003.
This was enough to hook me in:
Their NYC Scene
I've always just been a frequent visitor to New York City, I've never lived there; my longest stint was three weeks.
Never have I felt more envious of New Yorkers than during the 2000s.
The music scene was phernomenal.
Artists like Trachtenburgs and my favorite, Nellie McKay and their peers built their careers from thrift-store finds, small clubs, late-night gigs - nothing polished or corporate.
Cross-pollination of art, music, performance: Bands didn't just play songs - they projected slides, told stories, mixed humor and satire, involved theatricality. It felt more like underground art-shows than conventional concerts.
Clubs like Tonic, The Mercury Lounge or Rififi was a completely underrated era for underground, indie art and music.
Listen For Yourself
The band may have fizzled or just had its brief moment years ago.
But I still think you'd appreciate their music.
Here's two of my favorites to let you hear how it works to pull ideas from thrift-store and garage sale slideshows: and "Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959".
Enjoy.
