Thur Dec 23, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Wed Dec 22, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Tue Dec 21, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Mon Dec 20, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Sun Dec 19, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Sat Dec 18, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Fri Dec 17, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Thu Dec 16, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Wed Dec 15, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Tue Dec 14, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Mon Dec 13, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Sun Dec 12, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Sat Dec 11, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Fri Dec 10, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Thu Dec 9, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Wed Dec 8, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Tue Dec 7, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Mon Dec 6, 2004 Soho Theatre, London UK
Fri Nov 19, 2004 40 Watt Club Athens GA US
Thu Nov 18, 2004 Village Tavern Mount Pleasant SC US
Tue Nov 16, 2004 Jack Rabbit's Jacksonville FL US
Sun Nov 14, 2004 The Atlantic Gainesville FL US
Sat Nov 13, 2004 The Social Orlando FL US
Fri Nov 12, 2004 The Beta Bar Tallahassee FL US
Wed Nov 10, 2004 WorkPlay Theatre Birmingham AL US
Sun Nov 07, 2004 House of Blues - The Parish New Orleans LA US
Sat Nov 06, 2004 Walter's on Washington Houston TX US
Fri Nov 05, 2004 The Parish Austin TX US
Thu Nov 04, 2004 Sons Of Hermann Hall Dallas TX US
Wed Nov 03, 2004 Opolis Coffee Norman OK US
pictures
Mon Nov 01, 2004 Mad Art Gallery Saint Louis MO US
Sat Oct 30, 2004 Lee's Liquor Lounge Minneapolis MN US
Fri Oct 29, 2004 Orpheum Theatre - Madison Madison WI US
Thu Oct 28, 2004 HotHouse Chicago IL US
Wed Oct 27, 2004 Canal Street Tavern Dayton OH US
Tue Oct 26, 2004 Little Brother's Columbus OH US
Mon Oct 25, 2004 The Magic Bag Ferndale MI US
Thu Oct 21, 2004 Grog Shop Cleveland Heights OH US
Tue Oct 19, 2004 WAMC Performing Arts Studio - Linda Norris Auditorium Albany NY US
Mon Oct 18, 2004 Eastman Theatre Rochester NY US
Sat Oct 16, 2004 North Star Philadelphia PA US
Fri Oct 15, 2004 IOTA Club & Cafe Arlington VA US
Sun Oct 10, 2004 B.B. King Blues Club & Grill New York NY US
Sun Sep 12 2004 Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre UK
Sat Sep 11 2004 Cardiff Barfly UK
Fri Sep 10, 2004 Liverpool Barfly UK
Thur Sep 9 2004 York Fibbers UK
Wed Sep 8 2004 Manchester Star & Garter UK
Tue Sep 7 2004 Leeds The Wardrobe UK
Mon Sep 6 2004 Chester Telfords Warehouse UK
Sun Sep 5 2004 Brighton Komedia UK
Sat Sep 4 2004 Islington Academy, London UK
Fri Sep 3 2004 Aldershot Arts Centre UK
Thur Sep 2 2004 Norwich Arts Centre UK
review from here
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
By Lee Allen
The thrifty fruits of car boot sales and charity shops were pulled together for a unique concert where mum and dad Trachtenburg accompanied by their teeny daughter Rachel unravelled their hotch-potch slideshow collection to songs on eggs and McD's.
Let’s face it if you want mainstream pop acts you don’t go to Norwich Arts Centre and this night was no exception.
First up is Kid Carpet. Striding through the auditorium and climbing up onto the stage is hardly the most rock and roll of entrances and this is compounded with his opening admission that he is stuffed with curry so he has to go a bit careful.
But just 30 seconds in and it’s quite clear that Kid Carpet doesn’t do careful.
On stage Kid is a blur as he punches buttons on his keyboards and samplers, looking very much like a Fisher Price Chemical Brothers.
Musically he lies somewhere between Bis and the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars but with impeccable comedy timing.
Kid describes his music as shit-hop, electwroniga or kiddy disco punk depending on his mood and uses his songs to express his troubles with his day to day dealings with life.
Half-way through the set Kid brings out his secret weapon: kids' instruments and toys.
All converted to be played through a PA, Kid is a joy to watch as he rocks out to a cover of Jump by Van Halen while playing a flashing toy guitar.
You really have to do a double take to make sure the person on stage really is playing a cheap version of the old Simon Says machine.
I hope a major label picks up on Kid and sends his art into the mainstream because it’s rare to see someone play with such passion and that many toys!
How do you follow that? Well, I will tell you: you bring out the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
The Trachtenburgs are a family from New York who live for thrift stores (that’s charity shops to you and me).
They buy clothes, instruments and everything they need from these shops. A modern day Wombles if you will.
More importantly they buy old collections of slides and then like any normal family they write songs based on their slide finds.
So as Mommy (Tina) Trachtenburg works the slide projector, daddy Jason plays guitar and keyboards and 11-year-old daughter Rachel plays drums.
For the next hour we are transported into their innocent world of mini-rock operas about McDonalds, a yearly meeting from 1976, songs about eggs and, of course, my favourite, Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959.
After their backstage rider requests of fruit and sweets are given to the crowd we have a quick question and answer session in which we learn they make their own clothes and that Rachel would pretty much to do every job in the world (and she probably will) and then it's off to bed.
Equally creepy and charming, the Trachtenburgs have to been seen to be believed - and if you were wondering they sound like the Polyphonic Spree covering the soundtrack to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Kid Carpet played at the Norwich Arts Centre on Thursday 2 September 2004.
Wed Sep 1 2004 Birmingham Bar Academy UK
Tue Aug 31 2004 Bristol Polish Club UK
review here
Whatever happened to live performance?
by Catharina Davison
I’m not talking about the ridiculous, ball-defying silver lycra as sported by The Darkness – because, let’s face it, outrageous costumes are there to mask a multitude of sins.
Nor am I talking about the jumping-like-fleas-on-speed, grey-cell defying wonder that is thrash, which the unfortunately sweaty singers (and yes, they are always unfortunately sweaty) so often believe is a performance of virility and anarchism, and which so often becomes instead a performance in how to stay reassuringly single.
I am talking about Kid Carpet and the fantastically retro, deliciously self-conscious band he supports: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
To have Kid Carpet as your support is to do something akin to professional suicide. The man, and his fruity little collection of Fisher Price guitars and plastic toys that have been so carefully plucked from various car-boot sales and charity shops, is a genius.
Musically, his tunes growl, purr and leap with punchy, sampled beats, pounding baselines and ground-breakingly fat breaks – my particular favourite, and the current record of the week on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Music radio show, being the Nelson Street Space Invaders, with his frighteningly cool take on Van Halen’s Jump coming in a close second.
But it was his enthusiastic, jiving and honest simplicity of singing that stole the show.
So used are we in electronica-sodden Bristol to seeing a couple of skinny, terrified waifs cowering behind their computer screens at live shows, that Carpet’s performance left several, including one budding reporter, flabbergasted.
In him was the dynamism, the unquestionable talent and the sheer enjoyment of both music and performance that made for a fantastic live gig.
And so to the Trachtenburghs. As this was a night with seriously thespian overtones, enter the painfully self-effacing yet side-splittingly funny Jason (on keyboards and guitar), his stroppy, bored daughter Rachel (on drums), and his portly, no-nonsense wife Tina (as slide commander) all dressed in polka-dot jackets, silver trousers (think The Darkness, but in a good way) and enormous glasses.
The trio were again phenomenal. The music was perhaps a little rough around the edges – even their ‘mild hit’ tune Eggs, was a touch hit-and-miss - but this was not all this quirky New York family were essentially about.
Jason the über-geek explains in his characteristic drawl that the family, much like old Carpet, like nothing better than to root around jumble sales collecting slides from old, fat and dead Americans.
From these slides come the lyrics of their songs. And oh what lyrics! Random yet calculated, witty yet understated, heart-warmingly simple yet politically sardonic, the family let it fly with lines such as ‘polyeeesterrr, cowrduoroy…and EGGS! Move, shoot, communicate…Vietnam, Watergate…and EGGS!’
And so, a love of all things car-boot related drew these two musical forces together in front of a greatly appreciative Bristolian crowd for unfortunately only one night. Both performances had a childlike innocence to them which belied their greater political statements. These are musicians that make you wanna…(queue synth) JUMP!
Kid Carpet and The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players played at the Polish Club in Clifton on August 31.
Sun Aug 22, 2004 King Tut's Wah Wah Hut Glasgow UK
Fri Aug 20 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Thu Aug 192004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Wed Aug 18 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Mon Aug 16 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Sun Aug 15 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Sat Aug 14 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Fri Aug 13 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Thu Aug 12 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Wed Aug 11 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Tue Aug 10 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Mon Aug 9 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Sun Aug 8 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Sat Aug 7 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Fri Aug 6 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Thu Aug 5 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Wed Aug 4 2004 Pod Deco, Edinburgh UK
Thu Jul 29, 2004 Makor New York NY US
Thu Jul 22, 2004 Southpaw Brooklyn NY US
Thu Jul 15, 2004 Knitting Factory New York NY US
Sat Jul 10 Buffalo Bar London UK
Fri Jul 9 2004 Institute of Contemporary Arts London UK
Thur Jul8 2004 Water Rats, London UK
Sun Jun 27, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Sun Jun 27, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Sat Jun 26, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Sat Jun 26, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Fri Jun 25, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Fri Jun 25, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Thu Jun 24, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Thu Jun 24, 2004 Utah Arts Festival Salt Lake City UT US
Sat Jun 19, 2004 Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Ridgefield CT US
RIDGEFIELD - Trickle down economics may not have worked during the Reagan years, but during the Internet boom, which happened on Bill Clinton's watch, things were good. And they got better the closer you got to technology centers.
There was a new class of young, rich folks everywhere from Boston, to Seattle, and Southern California. They worked long hours for big bucks and that presented a problem: someone had to walk their dogs.
That's where Jason Trachtenburg and his wife, Tina Pina, came in. Jason would walk dogs by day and write songs at night. During downtime, the young couple would take their young daughter Rachel to estate sales.
Tina Pina was intrigued by the old slides she kept finding.--photo1L--
She had an idea - bring her husband's music together with these found images and get their musically inclined daughter involved. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players was born. Today, CNN calls them "The coolest Seattle trio since Nirvana."
They'll play at "Family Day" tomorrow at the newly renovated and recently reopened Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. The show and admission to the museum will be free. Amy Grabowski, public relations manager at the Aldrich, said the museum is expecting 1,000 people.
"I definitely think that people should get there closer to 1 p.m. (if they want to see the show)," Grabowski said.
A Trachtenburg Family show is like few others. Although Jason sings lead and alternates between piano and guitar, the real star of the show is his 10-year-old daughter. She handles her percussion and backup vocal duties like a pro, so much so that she's often compared to indie rock goddess Meg White, of White Stripes fame.
Unlike White, Rachel's mom still picks out her clothes. That's one of Tina Pina's duties. In addition to running the projector at the live shows the mother creates all the outfits for the band.
In late April, the Trachtenburg Family played the Middle East nightclub in Cambridge, Mass. Before the show, Jason talked about the band, their drive, and the genius of his wife.
"I'm a true proponent of non-fiction... we are reinterpreting the truth as told through our artistic and musical stylings and slants. This is our interpretation of various aspects of American culture," said Trachtenburg.
That's a mouthful. The non-fiction he's talking about is the photos. And from these images, he threads a story that is an explanation. Sure, it's a fictional explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.
The first song he ever wrote for the family was "Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959." It's also the opening track on their debut record, "Vintage Slide Collections from Seattle, Vol. 1."
"It's about a couple who take a trip to Japan and we learn through these slides that the couple has strange obsessions with death, as they take pictures of themselves in graveyards, at hangings and, in the fourth verse, actual public executions," said Trachtenburg.
That's right, you watch a slideshow of someone else's vacation while two other people (who also don't know the vacationers) describe it to you.
Somehow the anonymity of the protagonists makes it fun.
Musically, it's geek rock: simple songs with quirky lyrics that aim for the funny bone, via your brain. Most people find the tunes either grating or genius. It's neither, but when Rachel's little voice comes in, it's tough not to smile.
The Trachtenburg Family has arrived at a time when Americans are more and more interested in the past of anonymous people. Found Magazine has achieved moderate success by publishing all kinds of found documents ranging from love letters and birthday cards to kids' homework and poetry on napkins. These objects offer a quick glimpse into someone's life, and while you may not know who they are, you soon realize it doesn't matter. Sometimes the interpretation is more fun than the reality.
One of the Trachtenburg Family's biggest find was a box of about 1,000 slides that were meticulously organized and labeled. They told the story of two friends, Jean and Cathy, and the pictures spanned three decades.
With the pictures and basic descriptions on the labels an intimacy developed. "There were reoccurring characters and you followed them through a detailed and chronicled 30-year existence," said Trachtenburg.
The family now has as many slides as it needs. That doesn't stop fans from making donations in many cities they play. Now based in New York, they sometimes have trouble getting Rachel into the rock clubs which are often 21-and-older venues.
But her father has no worries about the young drummer. "She's very cut out for this. She has amazing professionalism... up to and including everything she does. She's got such a strong sense of what's right and wrong, much more than I do," Trachtenburg said.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is at 258 Main Street in Ridgefield. For more information, please call (203) 438-4519 or visit www.aldrichart.org
Sat Jun 19, 2004 South Street Seaport / Summer on Seaport New York NY US
Sat May 29, 2004 Troubadour Los Angeles CA US
Sat May 08, 2004 Tonic New York NY US
Sat Apr 24, 2004 Woolly Mammoth Theatre Washington DC US
Fri Apr 23, 2004 Knitting Factory New York NY US
Knitting Factory
74 Leonard Street
New York City, New York 10013 Get Directions
$10
The Trachtenburg Family Lower East Side Review hosted by Rachel Trachtenburg
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Robb Benson, Andrew Katz, Quinn Walker, Langhorne Slim, Reverend Jen, Anna Copacabana, Lach, Touching You, Milton Katz
Wed Apr 21, 2004 Iron Horse Music Hall Northampton MA US
Thu Apr 15, 2004 The Patio Indianapolis IN US
Tue Apr 13, 2004 Marcus Center - Todd Wehr Theater Milwaukee WI US
Sat Apr 10, 2004 Highdive / High Dive Champaign IL US
Fri Apr 09, 2004 Schuba's Tavern Chicago IL US
Thu Apr 08, 2004 Canal Street Tavern Dayton OH US
Sat Apr 03, 2004 Southpaw Brooklyn NY US
Sat Mar 27, 2004 Makor New York NY US
