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Family makes music from photo slides of stranger&squo;s lives
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(U-WIRE) AMES, Iowa – There’s the Partridge family.
There’s the Brady Bunch. There’s Donny and Marie
Osmond. And then there’s the Trachtenburg Family Slide Show
Players, the next family band phenomenon.
They don’t have a psychedelic bus painted in red, blue,
yellow and white squares, but they do have a pink and blue 1983 GMC
Suburban. They carry with them hundreds of slides of people they
have never met. To say the least, the Trachtenburg’s 2003
autumn tour isn’t your average family vacation.
“Every day on tour is an adventure,” says Jason
Trachtenburg, head of the Trachtenburg family and their band. The
band includes Jason on keyboards and vocals, his wife Tina, who
runs the vintage slide projector, and their 9-year-old daughter
Rachel, on drums and vocals.
“We are a conceptual art-rock, pop-rock band,” Jason
says. “Our music is extremely artistic, thought-provoking and
humorous left-wing stuff.”
The Players known nationally for their very unique musical
performances. Their live shows combine live music and a vintage
slide show. Jason says some of the music is inspired by the slides,
and other times the music is written first and then slides are
applied to match the lyrics. “My wife and I buy the slides at
the estate sales of deceased strangers,” he says.
“One hand shakes the other,” Jason says. “It
keeps the mechanisms rolling.”
Earlier this year, the Players performed on the Conan
O’Brien Show, a highlight of their career to this point.
Jason says it was nerve-racking preparing to go on stage.
“It was life or death. We had to deliver the goods,”
Jason says.
Jason says since their performance on television, the band has
become better.
“I feel that we could perform anywhere now,” Jason
says. “It’s not going to get much bigger or better than
that.”
Jason says his goal for his family band is to continue their
development as artists.
“I hope that we will continue to raise the common
denominator of being an artist,” Jason says. “I also
hope that we will continue to co-exist as a family and an
entertainment machine.”
Jason doesn’t hold back on what he thinks of his family
band and the quality of music they play.
“We’ll be playing some of best music you’ve
ever heard,” Jason says. He describes the typical fan at one
of his shows as a very intellectual and intelligent person. He says
he can often see his personal “nerd-chic” style in
them.
“We have a level of professionalism that is so
bizarre,” Jason says. “It’s going to be more than
your average dude rock show.”
Megan Clemens
Iowa State Daily (Iowa State U.)
