Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Gigography

January 2012

2012-01-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday January 14 2012Pendulum Swings at Brooklyn Tea Party, 175 Stockholm #303 FREE..10pm!!!!
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December 2011

2011-10-04T11:19:00.001-07:00

Saturday 31 December 2011 The Pendulum Swings NYE Bash Sidewalk NYC

20:00 The Old & Lonelies

22:00 Albert Goold

23:00 The Pendulum Swings NYE Bash

23:59 Crazy & the Brains
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Tues Dec 20 Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick
GLuuuu (aka Kray) http://gluuuu.tumblr.com/ and tbd

Tuesday, it's Vaudeville Night with the Trachtenburg Family!
It's a free show so don't miss it!

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Residency at
Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick

L Train to Morgan Ave
FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
9pm
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Tues Dec 13 Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick

Toby Goodshank http://www.myspace.com/tobygoodshank
Preston Spurlock http://www.myspace.com/prestonspurlock
Childproof http://childproof.bandcamp.com/

Tuesday, it's Vaudeville Night with the Trachtenburg Family!
It's a free show so don't miss it!

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Residency at
Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick

L Train to Morgan Ave
FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
9pm
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Tues Dec 6 Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick

Tuesday, it's Vaudeville Night with the Trachtenburg Family!
It's a free show so don't miss it!

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Residency at
Pine Box Rock Shop -- 12 Grattan St. Bushwick

L Train to Morgan Ave
FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
9pm

Tues Dec 6
Carla Rhodes http://www.carlarhodes.net/
Ivan Youngblood http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2006/10/t-shirt-hell-homophobic-promo-video_25.html

November 2011

2011-10-04T11:18:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, 29 November 2011 Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Variety Show Pine Box Rock Shop Brooklyn, NY Come see the fabulous Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players & their many many talented friends!

**!!!!!!!!! IT'S FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!**

does not get any better than this. thats all you need to know.
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20 November · 15:30 - 18:30 SUPERCUTE!'s Ice Cream Social Variety Show #3!!! The KraineTheater 85 E. 4TH ST.

Welcome to SUPERCUTE!'s Ice Cream Social, an all-ages-monthly-variety-show!

Featured this November:

The Micks (http://www.facebook.com/themicksnyc?sk=wall)

The Indecent (http://www.facebook.com/theindecent?sk=wall)

SUPERCUTE! ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Supercute-Band/142081925847437?ref=ts )

and many many more, yesyesyes.!!!!

Tickets $10. (discount ticket price password will be announced later in the month..)

YAY.!
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Symphony Space Just Kidding series~Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Category:Charities When:Saturday, November 19, 2011 11:00
Where:Symphony Space 2537 Broadway New York, NY 10025
(212) 864-5400 How:Official Website
Tickets Cost:$11.00 - $20.00 Submitted by: Peggy G. See all of Peggy G.'s events » What/Why:(Thalia): Known for their quirky, low-fi acoustic songs and unusually engaging slide show performances, this family trio from NYC is sure to create an indie-vaudeville-conceptu al-art-rock-slideshow experience like none other in family entertainment.

Sat, Nov 19 at 11 am
Leonard Nimoy Thalia
ADULTS $20, Members $17 KIDS $13, Members $11 Get the deepest discounts when you subscribe Click the blue subscription button to get started.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are an indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band beloved in the downtown NYC music scene. Get ready for a treat as they bring their odd, funny, and enormously creative show uptown for the kids to enjoy along with you.

The band's members are the Trachtenburg family father, Jason Trachtenburg, who plays guitar and piano and sings; the mother, Tina Piña, who runs the slide projector and is a backup singer; and the daughter, Rachel, who plays the drums and sings. Their trademark is the slideshow itself: slides collected from estate sales, garage sales, and thrift stores, shown alongside the performance as the subject of their songs, and meant to "turn the lives of annonymous strangers into pop-rock musical exposes based on the contents of the slide collections." Get ready for a wild ride.

"The Trachtenburgs are a family you simply must meet. Jason (the father) is the songwriter, Tina (the mother) is the slideshow projector, Rachel (their daughter) is the drummer, and collectively they form The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players ... Jason, Tina, and Rachel are absolutely worth an hour of your time; let them cleanse your theatre-going palate and make you feel genuinely at home." -nytheatre.com

October 2011

2011-10-04T11:09:00.001-07:00

Monday 31st October 2011 The Pendulm Swings (with FULL horns!)at The Delancey (168 Delancey) 11pm
Downstairs Presented by The Super Coda w/ Loop /Brad Henkel/Girls and God/Cracked Vessel/Dream Zoo/Yva Las Vegass/Pendulum Swings
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Tue 11th Oct Back to the Future presents

The Receeders + Supercute + Shuga @ Barfly Camden London

Doors - 7:30 PM
/
Tickets - £5

Historic UK debut for Supercute!- taking time out from recording there debut record with Kate Nash- The Receeders are the punk side project of Kate Nash, along with Jon Jackson & Brett Alaimo make a comeback after a long hiatus.

Jean & Kappy will be there to document this historic event, but urge everyone else to be present at this show!

Age: +14
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Friday, 7 October The Pendulum Swings @ Sidewalk Cafe New York. The Sidewalk Cafe is located at 94 Avenue A at 6th St, northeast corner. All shows are free (two-drink minimum). For more info call club at 212-473-7373.

19:00
Tom FitzPatrick

20:00
Lindsay Ellyn

21:00
Mike Brun

22:00
Ryan Redebaugh

23:00
The Pendulum Swings

23:59
Albert Goold Band

September 2011

2011-08-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 27th @ Ames Hotel in Boston TFSP & Supercute!

TUE 9.27.11
WOODWARD AT AMES
1 COURT ST.
BOSTON
800.697.1791
6PM/ALL AGES/FREE

interview from here

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are a band. Also--a family. Also also--their songs are all inspired by actual slides scavenged from yard-sales. So, they automatically win the prize for “Most Informative Band Name Ever.” We asked Tina Trachtenburg some questions in advance of the trio’s Ames Sessions show outdoors at Woodward tonight.

What was the genesis of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players? When did it first occur to you that you could all work as one group?
Rachel was 6 years old at the time--she is now 17--and Jason had been playing music for a while. We were living in Seattle at the time, and he had gone to see this band, Quasi, and thought they were the most amazing band with a female drummer (Janet Weiss, now of Wild Flag fame).

He came home and said, “I think we should teach Rachel drums.”

Right before that I had come across slides at a garage sale and Jason was writing songs to the slides and we were playing some shows together. I thought that sounded kind of ridiculous but he convinced me we would play shows as a family and she wouldn’t have to stay home with the babysitter, and that’s how it started.

How does being a family inform what you do as a band? Is it something you even consciously think about?
It affects everything, because we are a family and we are a band, and Rachel and Jason each have their own bands so there are three bands in one family.

When people go on family vacation and they feel like it’s so stressful, think combining playing shows and going on family vacation!

It’s not like a rock band where you just jump on a bus. As a mother I’ve worked to make it so that it’s a normal thing, to make sure we have meals and sleep and all of the things most rock bands don’t have to worry about. It’s hard for people to understand because they don’t have that kind of experience, but trying to live a normal life alongside doing this is very intense yet also fun.

I was surprised when I found out that the “slideshow” component of your name is actually quite literal. What do the slides you present while performing add to the music?
One of the things about the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is that it’s not just our band name, it’s actually our real name and what we do.

We are a literal band. We aren’t ironic.

The slides are a fun part of the show, but the music is first and hopefully people enjoy the music and the slides are just an added effect.

Whether it’s justified or not, when people hear “family act” they tend to think about music aimed more towards children, or at least music that’s not “edgy” (whatever that nebulous term means). Do you think this is true for your band? Is it even an issue for you?
People are going to think what they want to think, but when it comes to art, it would be nice if people didn’t think that way. You have to come to our show and listen to the lyrics. Sometimes what ends up happening is people come to the show and are expecting to see a happy family playing songs together, and it’s not that we aren’t happy, but we’re just a normal family who makes art together.

It’s important and it has important subject matter and deep social commentary in the lyrics.

If people come and they don’t get it, sometimes they have fun anyway, but the true intellectuals really get it and it means a lot more to them.

Your song “Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959″ at first seems like a whimsical musical account of a vacation abroad, as inspired by a series of photographs. But, in that same song, there’s a very dark line about “public execution” being degrading, which throws the whole thing into a different light. Is that kind of juxtaposition something you set out to do with your music? Or does it just spring out of whatever inspires you?
When we first go through the collections of slides we find, we never know what we are going to see.

Because art brings out life, there are going to be different kinds of things that come out.

We will get a collection of slides and think, “Okay this is just a family doing their thing,” but then we actually feel as though we get to know the people in the slides. We don’t try to use our lyrics to make a statement, but there are things in the slides that are there for us to interpret. It’s not us making up anything; it’s just how we see the slides and the collection. For that song, I remember going through a box of slides and running across that one.

And I don’t know if it was a public execution really, but that was what Jason thought it was, and so we put that in the lyrics.

Do you have anything special planned for the Ames Sesssions show at the Woodward this Tuesday, September 27th?
We have some new songs and of course, my daughter’s band Supercute! is playing so that’s really exciting too. We always enjoy Boston and have a good time, and we can’t wait to perform the new songs.

THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
AMES SESSIONS

TUE 9.27.11
WOODWARD AT AMES
1 COURT ST.
BOSTON
800.697.1791
6PM/ALL AGES/FREE
MORGANSHOTELGROUP.COM
TRACHTENBURG.HOMESTEAD.COM

review from here

Amidst the sounds of car engines rushing around downtown Boston and the distant chants of the anti-WallStreet kids echoing from Boston Common for the Occupy Boston meeting … below the sky scrapers and city lights … and right next to the beautiful candle-lit deck of the Woodward restaurant at the Ames Hotel … Julia and Rachel of Super Cute elegantly strum their pink ukuleles.
Photos by Miles Quinn

Their voices blend in angelic harmonies, and their poppy indie folk music is like a little ray of lovely in the middle of the chaos of the financial district.

And what can I say? Everything about them is SUPER CUTE.

Meanwhile, my photographer Miles and I chat with Matt, an accordian player from NYC who’s about to perform with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, who’s “in like six bands” and if he were dressed any sharper he’d cut my head off.

“They describe themselves as an indie pop vaudeville conceptual art band… or something,” he explains to me about the headlining band as I worriedly watch Miles eat a huge plate of oysters that we probably do not have enough money for.

“You guys can head bob if you want,” Rachel says to us softly, smiling sweetly. They proceed with a set of tunes with lyrics about “the many loves of our lives,” turtles, a Stones cover, and…

THEY ARE SO FREAKING CUTE.

“You think that you are so hardcore, but we can make better s’mores,” is one line that I question, because I make a damn good s’more- though they probably look a lot cuter eating them.

My favorite part is Julia’s dreamy solo number, and as she sings “Reality’s a part of your imagination,” and I look up at the buildings all around us and the expensive table cloths and $11 gnocchi in front of me, I wish I could imagine the financial district and all money problems away … unfortunately some parts of reality cannot be altered.

On that note, Miles comes running up to me right smack in the middle of the super cute pretty-ness and is freaking out because his camera ran out of battery. He runs back from 7 Eleven ten minutes later and drops the fourth battery into the big bush next to our linened table. We spend the majority of the rest of the set fishing for it with the French lady at the table next to us who claims she can find anything.

By the time Miles runs back to 7 Eleven and then back to the Ames, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are ready to start.

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players All Over This World by TimeOutNewYork

They set up a projector showing old slide collections of scenic images of foreign landscapes and ordinary people living their daily lives outside of the limelight, reminding me of a Wordsworth poem or something. Then Jason, the father of Rachel from Super Cute, introduces the family-band + Matt the accordion player. Jason composes the original songs and writes the lyrics, and his wife Tina is the artist behind the projections, while Rachel swaps her ukulele for a purple sparkly drum set. The whole act is more a piece of art than just an experimental rock concert.

All in all, the show is a nice little musical relaxer in between deadline day at the Dig and

“I THINK WE CAN AGREE WE NEED SOME SERIOUS FUCKING CHANGE!!!!”

… which is the first thing I hear upon arrival at the Occupy Boston meeting in Boston Common ten minutes later.

MUSEBOX PRESENTS AMES SESSIONS

KIM BOEKBINDER
TUES 10.4.11
6PM/ALL AGES/FREE
WOODWARD @ THE AMES HOTEL
1 COURT ST.
BOSTON
617.979.8100
@AMESBOSTON
AMESHOTEL.COM

more pictures here

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Tuesday September 27 Instore @ Newbury Comics Boston 1pm

Boston - Faneuil Hall Marketplace
North Market Building
Boston, MA 02109
(617) 248-9992
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Thu, September 22, 2011

Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 8:30 pm

$10.00

Alia Shawkat

Supercute!

Alia Shawkat

Alia Shawkat is making her singing debut in New York as a jazz vocalist. As an actress, Shawkat gained critical acclaim for her role as ‘Maeby Funke’ on Fox’s Emmy award winning “ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.” Shawkat was named one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch in 2009 and her most recent film credits include CEDAR RAPIDS, WHIP IT, AMREEKA, and THE RUNAWAYS. This year, Shawkat wrapped production on two highly anticipated projects: The To-Do List, opposite Aubrey Plaza; and He Loves Me, with Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. Alia can next be seen in THE ORANGES opposite Hugh Laurie and Leighton Meester. In recent years, Shawkat has also pursued her love of art and began drawing and painting (www.mutantalia.com). Shawkat currently spends her time in both New York and Los Angeles.
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Monday, September 19th

Scenic Presents

Talk Like a Pirate Day
featuring Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players / Supercute! / New Beard

Monday, Sep 19, 2011 7:15 PM EDT (7:00 PM Doors)
Public Assembly, Brooklyn, NY
18 years and over $10.00

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Sunday, September 18 · 3:30pm - 6:30pm SUPERCUTE!'s Ice Cream Social Variety Show Yeah! 94 Saint Marks Pl New York, NY

Welcome to SUPERCUTE!'s Ice Cream Social, an all-ages-monthly-variety-show!

Featured this September:

Albert Goold! (amazing innovative angsty nerd pop)
http://soundcloud.com/albertgoold/shutdown

Darn Dog! (you know em', you love em')
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Darn-Dog/54614513921

Our favorite teen comedian, Emmet Teran!

Marcela Barry! (new singer-songwriter yay)

AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

hooray!

$10
secret code "cookies and cream" gets you 5 dollars off! oh yeah!
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Sun 04 Sep, 2011

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Bandana Splits

Where : Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, NJ, 07030, United States

Time: 08:00 pm

Price : $10.00

August 2011

2011-08-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2011 Pianos $8.00

SANTAH
11PM

BANDANA SPLITS

TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS

TURNER CODY

Address

Pianos is located at 158 Ludlow at Stanton.

By Train

or to 2nd Ave/Houston St. Exit at Allen St end of the station and walk two blocks east on Houston to Ludlow, then one block south to Stanton.

or to Delancey/Essex. Exit at Delancey/Essex and walk two blocks north on Essex to Stanton, then one block west to Ludlow.

By Bus

or to Essex/Houston. Exit onto Essex and walk one block south on Essex to Stanton, then one block west to Ludlow.

to Allen/Houston. Exit onto Allen and walk south to Stanton, then east two blocks to Ludlow.
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Sunday, August 21 · 4:00pm - 8:00pm Waggytail Birthday BBQ Feat: SUPERCUTE!
Waggy Birthday BBQ! Dogs Welcome! Vegetarian friendly!
Live music, raffle, games, prizes, drink specials! This is not an event you will want to miss.
Free dog food vouchers for all that attend!

In the unfortunate case that you are unable to attend but would still like to send a birthday gift along to Waggytail, but we are also in need of other things for our little pups.

Here are some donation suggestions:
*paypal donation through our site www.waggytailrescue.org
* Gift cards to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (both have great all-natural dog treats and food and WF even has doggie harnesses)
* Online gift certificates to Amazon.com, ebay.com, PetSmart.com, Wag.com, FetchDog.com, . (Please send the online certificates to waggytailrescue@gmail.com)
* MetroCards for dog transport
* Postage stamps
* Harnesses for dogs 5-15 lbs

Please send all item donation items to:
Waggytail Rescue
60 East 9th Street, #214
New York, NY 10003

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08.16.2011 the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players – Scary Mansion – Franz Nicolay – Preston Spurlock

Tuesday

8.16 -$7-(FB)
.the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
.Scary Mansion
.Franz Nicolay
.Preston Spurlock

DEATH BY AUDIO

49 s 2nd st btw kent & wythe

doors at 8, show at 9

L to Bedford

-or-

JMZ to Marcy

-or-

G to Broadway

July 2011

2011-07-08T11:12:00.001-07:00

Jul 28, 2011

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players aren’t your typical family band that performs songs based on slides of strangers they’ve found in garage sales and beyond. They are also one of the few bands lucky enough to say they’ve performed on Late Night TV (Late Night with Conan O’ Brien) and have had a documentary made about them out in which they’re heralded by Time Out New York, Pitchfork and more.

Okay, so they’re probably the only family band that can say they’ve done all of these things, but that’s exactly why you should check them out tonight at Bar Matchless. After a few years hiatus, the Players are back and gearing up to promote their just-released new album, Lost and Found.

Bands The Well Informed and Turner Cody are also on the bill, all part of a new series called “Campari Soda Presents” so hopefully that means there will be some Campari drink specials as well. Tonight’s also Ladies Night at Matchless, aka $4 well drinks until 2am for the Ladies.. $6 pint of Bud and a shot all night for everyone !

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
with The Well Informed and Turner Cody
8PM. $10.
Bar Matchless
557 Manhattan Avenue (at Driggs)
[Greenpoint]

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PLESE COME OUT!!! SUPERCUTE! WILL B PLAYING ♥ A GATHERING TO COMMEMORATE THE 1 YR ANNIVERSARY OF THE SLAUGHTER OF OUR ENTIRE POPULATION (300+) OF RESIDENT CANADA GEESE. & 1,600+ KILLED IN NY STATE. INTENDED GOAL OF USDA: ONE MILLION GEESE ON THE EAST COAST.

FRIDAY, JULY 8:PROSPECT PARK6PM – 8PM!!!!! 5th street or 3rd st entrance.PICNIC HOUSE/ 95 PPW. ♥ !!!!

June 2011

2011-06-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 28th at The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players @ Bowery Electric

327 Bowery
New York, NY 10003
(212) 228-0228

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Roughstars, Light Spells Time:

7:30pm
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Tuesday 21 June 2011 The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players @ Bowery Electric

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Gerry Visco, Magic Bryan, Love Handles, The People CS Larsen Feat. Mister Reed
Tue, 21 June, 19:30 – Wed, 22 June, 00:00

Good news and bad news. The bad news: that thing you were planning on doing tonight has been canceled, for reasons we're not really at liberty to go into. The good news: we have a back-up plan. Tonight New York Press will be throwing a party at the Bowery Electric, featuring performances by Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Gerry Visco, Magic Bryan, Love Handles and The People Vs. Larsen featuring Mister Read. Doors open at 7:30, and tickets are $8. See you there.

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Wednesday 14 June 2011 The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Incredible Event!

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Caravan of Thieves Albert Goold, Fara G., Andrew and Andrew, Rob Shapiro

7:30pm

Location

Bowery Electric

27 Bowery (at 2nd Street)
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The Trachtenburg Variety Show @ The PIT! EVERY Wed. in JUNE!

Wednesday, June 8 at 11:00pm - June 29 at 1:00am

The Peoples Improv Theater

123 E. 24th St.

New York, NY

EVERY WEDNESDAY 11pm-1am FREE!

Trachtenburg's Variety Show Featuring the Jazz Nerd - Psycho Swing Band "The Pendulum Swings", Mock$tar - Killy Dwyer and More!

Jason Trachtenburg's "The Pendulum Swings" and Killy Dwyer present the most off-the-wall variety show in NYC! This saucy side-show showcases weekly special guests from the alternative above and underground NYsCene!

June 15th Line Up!!
Adrienne Lapalucci (Last Comic Standing)
Bill Chambers (World's Greatest Grandson)
Doctor Princess Lady Scoutington (Hollywood Fringe, MTV)
Gregory Levine (CNBC)
Eden and John's East River String Band (NYC based duo who cover delta and country blues.)

May 2011

2011-05-24T11:19:00.002-07:00

Wed May 25th Trachtenburg's Variety Show Featuring the Jazz Nerd - Psycho Swing Band "The Pendulum Swings", Mock$tar - Killy Dwyer and More!

Jason Trachtenburg's "The Pendulum Swings" and Killy Dwyer present the most off-the-wall variety show in NYC! This saucy side-show showcases weekly special guests from the alternative above and underground NYsCene!

Wed May 25th Line-Up Includes:
The Bitter Poet
Umberto MacDougal
Skinny Bitch Jesus Meeting
Sara G'Yall
Jon Savoy
Joe Yoga
Taylor Clark
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The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at Pianos Wednesday, May 11 · 8:30pm - 10:00pm

Location

PIANOS

158 Ludlow Street at Stanton

New York, NY

More Info

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, the world's foremost indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop traveling family slideshow band, are continuing to move the medium of entertainment forward, returning to the stage for their first show of 2011, in anticipation of their forthcoming album "Lost and Found" (Tummy Touch Records) and featuring Jason Trachtenburg's The Pendulum Swings horn section.

Since the year 2000, the Trachtenburg's have been perfecting the art of turning found vintage slide collections into original pop-rock musical and visual exposes based on the lives and societal examinations of anonymous strangers, and some well known corporations. This new art form can be multiply categorized into the realms of rock music, comedy, theatre, cabaret, vaudeville and performance art.The Trachtenburgs have toured the world with new annual versions of their rock slideshow presentations. Their uniqueness has allowed for performances at university classes, corporate conventions, the lecture circuit and weddings.

$8 cover

April 2011

2011-05-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

March 2011

2011-05-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Tummy Touch Records Private Label Showcase @ NY's Rockwood
Tummy Touch Records and The Musebox co-hosted a private label showcase on March 28th at Manhattan's Rockwood Music Hall

pictures from here

February 2011

2011-01-08T03:29:00.000-08:00

Jason Trachtenburg & The Pendulum Swings

The Pendulum Swings!, Feb. 11th, 8PM

http://www.pendulumswings.com/

The Pendulum Swings "A Warped Sinatra...Highly Recommended."
-Time Out New York

"The Greatest Thing Ever."
-Pitchfork Media

********** 10 Stars (N.M.E.), are set to larger than life arrangements by New York's coolest, hottest, and mostly well-mannered jazz/lounge orchestra - The Pendulum Swings !

New York's Newest Indie-Lounge Jazz Swing Big Band are swinging out the new standards and lounging around the originals. Instant classic jazz/pop composed by acclaimed vocalist Jason Trachtenburg (Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

The Pendulum Swings are....
Jason Trachtenburg - Vocals
Harlan Muir - Accordian
Gabriel Holl - Drums
James Telfer - Upright Bass
Chris Bullock - Tenor Sax
Gregory Hammontree - Trumpet
Welf Dorr - Alto Sax
Mike Irwin - Trumpet
Eric Ambrose - Trombone
Mark Morgan - Trumpet
Joey Johnson - Tenor Sax
Alec Cumming - Bass
Thomas White - Upright Bass

•Mon Feb 21 Rockwood Music Hall - (Stage 1) 11pm - 196 Allen St. Lower East Side, N.Y.C

January 2011

2011-01-01T05:52:00.004-08:00

Jason Trachtenburg & The Pendulum Swings

•Mon Jan 31 Trash Bar 11pm - 256 Grand St. Williamsburg, Brooklyn

December 2010

2011-01-01T05:52:00.003-08:00

November 2010

2011-01-01T05:52:00.001-08:00

October 2010

2010-10-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

24 Oct 2010 14:00 Supercute! South St Seaport NYC, nyny
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Tuesday, October 19th 09:30PM -10:10PM Supercute! Googie's Lounge

September 2010

2010-08-07T07:08:00.000-07:00

Supercute tour Europe with Kate Nash

12 Sep 2010 20:30 Rockerfeller Oslo, NORWAY
13 Sep 2010 20:30 Tyrol Stockholm,, SWEDEN
14 Sep 2010 20:30 Pumpehuset Copenhagen, GERMANY
16 Sep 2010 21:00 Capitol Hannover, GERMANY
17 Sep 2010 20:00 Hugenottenhalle Neu-Isenburg Neu-Isenburg, GERMANY
18 Sep 2010 20:00 Tonhalle Munich, GERMANY
20 Sep 2010 20:00 E-Werk Cologne, Germany
21 Sep 2010 20:00 Theaterhaus Stuttgart, GERMANY
22 Sep 2010 20:00 Den Atelier Luxembourg City, LUXEMBOURG
24 Sep 2010 21:00 Kaufleuten Zurich, SWITZERLAND
25 Sep 2010 20:00 Tunnel Milan, IT, ITALY
26 Sep 2010 20:00 Ninkasi Kao Lyon, FRANCE
28 Sep 2010 20:00 Bikini Toulouse, FRANCE
29 Sep 2010 20:00 Theatre Barbey Bordeaux, FRANCE

SHOWTIME! September 12th @ COCO 66 w/:
TAYISHA BUSAY (myspace.com/tayishabusay)
BAD BRILLIANCE (myspace.com/badbrilliance)
THE PENDULUM SWINGS (new band from The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players) (pendulumswings.com)
--video flyer by Tessa Greenberg--
9pm - $5 - 66 Greenpoint Ave. BK, NY

August 2010

2010-08-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

21 Aug 2010 22:00 Supercute! Brooklyn Lyceum brooklyn, ny ny
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18 Aug 2010 21:30 Supercute! Jeff Garlin's COMBO PLATTER UCB Theater New York, NY NY w/Supercute!, Amy Schumer, and Jessi Klein $5.00
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Saturday, August 14, 10PM Belleville Lounge (330-332 5th Avenue, corner of 5th Avenue and 5th Street).

*** Debut Show! ***

A night of comedy, music, and other assorted exhibitions of entertainment!

Saturday, August 14, 10PM:

Host Josh Guarino welcomes...

JASON TRACHTENBURG (Wonderful singer-songwriter, patriarch of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

SHENG WANG (Joketeller extraordinaire, loves Shark Week)

JENNI LARK & JON WESTOVER (Music that melts your mother's motherboard)

MICHAEL CHE (Has a very convincing argument on the socio-economic implications of cupcakes)

CAREY DENISE (Dishes out laughter all over the country)

AZHAR KHAN (Will break your funny bone in half)

and more!

FREE!

It all happens on Saturday, August 14, at Belleville Lounge (330-332 5th Avenue, corner of 5th Avenue and 5th Street). Seriously this show is going to be insanely good, so get there early as seating is limited.

Please RSVP on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117435838305820&ref=mf[/img

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Mon, August 9, 2010 Knitting Factory Brooklyn .357 Lover's Diorama of Friends Corn Mo and his band .357 Lover bring a cast of interesting characters to Knitting Factory tonight (Sweet Soubrette - Sweet Songs on the Uke, Amazing Amy - Contortionist from America's Got Talent, Carla Rhodes - America's Ventriloquist Girlfriend, and Harlen Muir - Accordion songman with Jason Trachtenburg) Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
$8.00
. A video flyer is below

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Friday August 7 2010 Supercute! 9 pm sharp at sidewalk cafe (ave a and 6th st)
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July 2010

2010-08-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

June 2010

2010-05-07T07:38:00.000-07:00

209 Show & Giant Cannibal Girl Birthday Party Sunday night, June 27th 2010

at Otto’s Shrunken Head on 14th St. in Manhattan. Performing that night: Angel Yau! The Moon is a Disco Ball! Jason Trachtenburg! Michele Carlo! Plus former Carson Daly show and former Television members and special surprise guests! giantcannibalgirl.com

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May 2010

2010-03-11T10:58:00.000-08:00

SUPERCUTE! shows

11 May 2010 20:00 El Rey Theatre w/ Kate Nash Los Angeles, California
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8 May 2010 20:00 Bottom of the Hill w/ Kate Nash

review here

If you’ve listened to the new Kate Nash album, My Best Friend is You, you wouldn’t have been surprised by what you heard last night at Bottom of the Hill. Unfortunately it seemed most of the audience hadn’t. Kate Nash played mostly new songs and while I was looking forward to dancing around with the crowd to those songs, I guess nobody else was. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Earlier in the day Kate Nash played an in-store at Amoeba followed by a CD signing. I was surprised to hear somebody in the audience say they didn’t know she had a new album out and that they were looking forward to hearing some old songs. Hmm…. Well she didn’t play any. What she did do was play some of the key tracks of her new album, and songs like “I Just Love You More” sounded even stronger live then on the album, which just made me excited for that night.

Cut to Bottom of the Hill. Opening the sold out show was Supercute! a band that can only be described by using their own moniker: they were super cute! The band consists of three young girls around 15-years-old, one of which being Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. They played in matching outfits with “recycled” candy wrapper headbands (for sale at the merch table, made by the girls) and sang cute songs about hula hooping, not fighting for boys, and a candy city along with covers by Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. For the Hula Hoop Song the girls even brought out hula hoops to use while singing. I took a bit of video just because it was too good to not share.

Following Supercute!, Kate Nash comes on stage dressed all in black with a leather jacket and heavy black eye makeup. I only mention her outfit because it was a big visual cue to what we were about to hear musically. She started the set at her keyboard (featuring a banner in front stating “A Cunt is a Useful Thing”) by playing some of her more dance friendly numbers. Around “Kiss That Grrrl” Kate switched to guitar and the show began to take a different turn, playing some of her more aggressive songs off the new album. She introduced “I’ve Got A Secret” with the preface that “this is a song about homophobia” to which the crowd booed (the correct response, she told us).

For “Foundations” Kate returned to the keyboard and was joined on stage by Supercute! doing backup dancing. After Kate commented “I never want to play that song again without them” I got the feeling she may no longer enjoy playing some of her older songs which would explain the setlist. Returning to the guitar for some more of her riot grrrl inspired tracks from the new album including “Mansion Song” the poem inspired song commenting on the degrading nature of female groupies. Yes this was a show harking back to early 90s feminist Riot Grrrl shows, and I enjoyed it. She concluded the show without an official walk off stage encore but with the punky b-side from her first album “Model Behavior”, a song featuring the lyrics “you don’t have to suck dick to suck seed [succeed]” which having heard it last time she played San Francisco in 2008 should have been an indication to where she was heading to musically. It was a good thing I enjoyed it then and now.

another review

In spite of my scathing opinion of Kate Nash’s sophomore album, I was pulled like fish to a chip to the El Rey Theatre where the 22 year old Brit delivered a redeeming performance that made me remember why I liked her in the first place. Hold your horses for a second though because it’s important for you to know about the opening act before I can recap the highlights of Kate Nash’s portion of the show. She would want it that way, based on her overt attachments to the trio of 15/13 year old girls, called SUPERCUTE!, who emerged dressed in the height of kitsch. For a moment, it was difficult to remind myself that I was not, in fact, at a junior high talent show. But the girls that Kate Nash declared as “the next Supremes” will win you over with their banter and general sweetness. You’d have to be a monster to deride them. And I’m not quite at monster status just yet.

The girls from SUPERCUTE! were introduced by Kate Nash herself (still in the process of getting ready as illustrated by her très casual, oversized Nirvana t-shirt). After singing tracks that included “Candy City,” “Pigeons,” “Not to Write About Boys,” and a Pink Floyd cover, SUPERCUTE! exited, but not before a little earnest self-promotion (five-dollar CDs and accessories designed by the band members).

After about thirty more minutes, Nash finally made her entrance, opening the show with the same song that opens the My Best Friend Is You album, “Paris.” During the autobiographical song, Nash, with her precision bangs and heavily applied dark blue eye shadow, sat before a piano that read: “A Cunt is a Useful Thing.” Eh, I guess. If you’re using it to get money. Or piss. Fine, it is useful. Then, instead of saving her current hit single for later, Nash jumped into “Do-Wah-Doo” to keep the audience’s energy at its pinnacle.

Just when you thought Kate wasn’t going to acknowledge the existence of her previous album, Made of Bricks, she happily sang “Mouthwash,” one of the strongest singles Nash has released during her brief career. But the deference to her debut was short-lived as she sauntered to the left side of the stage, picked up a guitar, and sang another new track from My Best Friend Is You, “Kiss That Grrrl.” After, she explained that, while in Toronto she sprained her ankle and, while in Chicago, a person crowd-surfed onstage, but that she didn’t want to remember either of those places as being the wildest city on tour. And so, she encouraged the audience to give in to being as demented as L.A. residents are perceived and to “act on your impulses. Except violent impulses…because violence is bad.” Nash has always valued succintness over profundity.

The audience took her comments to heart as they jumped onstage and danced about while she screamed the lyrics to “Take Me To A Higher Plane.” This would continue throughout the night, and, even when the threat of security loomed, Nash would dismiss the fun-killing twats to the corner. The only exception was at the end, when a woman wearing a trash hair accessory, no doubt furnished from the SUPERCUTE! merchandise offerings, was taken off the stage,

The set list was somewhat dissatisfying as the show continued and especially when Nash opted to include “Mansion Song,” one of the least enjoyable songs on My Best Friend Is You, and “I Just Love You More” in the repertoire when far better selections, like “Pickpocket” and “Early Christmas Present,” could have replaced the riffraff. Nash, however, was able to make the most out of each song during her limited time onstage. “Foundations” was another excuse to bring out SUPERCUTE! and “I’ve Got A Secret” provided the platform for Nash’s strong feelings against homophobia. She stated that being surrounded constantly by other musicians (a direct reference to Ryan Jarman) and living in London sometimes allows her to forget how many dickheads there are in the world.

The show’s pace slowed down after Nash’s second to last song, “Model Behaviour.” To conclude the set before one final encore, Nash sang the semi-hidden track on “I Hate Seagulls,” “My Best Friend Is You.” The lights stayed dim until she returned to the stage in an outfit that matched those of SUPERCUTE!, joining her yet again to perform “Brand New Key.” Nash said the usual pleasantries that all musicians say at the end of a show and then proclaimed, “And if you don’t know this song, go home.” Agreed. Everyone should respect the ephemeral pop brilliance of Melanie. Or at least know the song from Boogie Nights.
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7 May 2010 20:00 Neumos w/ Kate Nash Seattle, Washington
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5 May 2010 20:00 First Avenue w/ Kate Nash Minneapolis, Minnesota
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3 May 2010 20:00 The Lincoln w/ Kate Nash Chicago, Illinois
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1 May 2010 20:00 The Music Hall of Williamsburg w/ Kate Nash Willamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
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April 2010

2010-03-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

SUPERCUTE! shows

29 Apr 2010 20:00 Bowery Ballroom w/ Kate Nash NYC, New York

review here

Kate Nash, who I hardly recognize in these pictures, played a show at Bowery Ballroom last night (4/29). It was her first of two NYC shows on her current tour in support of a new album. The next one is Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg (it's sold out). Having recently injured her leg or ankle, Kate was walking on crutches, couldn't stand much and had to rest her knee on a stool for balance.

"Playing with a punk band, The Receeders, in her off time has served Nash well, imbuing her latest material with a compelling, believable and, dare I say, informed anger and sass, as evidenced by hyper takes on "Take Me to a Higher Plane," and "I've Got a Secret," and the fearless, stream-of-consciousness mania that encompasses the best parts of "Don't You Want to Share the Guilt?" and "Mansion Song." These are no PMS tantrums; no, these are the panicked thoughts of a successful young girl finding her inner riot grrl and licking her red-stained lips in bemused satisfaction. While Q Magazine warned readers to "look away now," I wholeheartedly disagree - with lines like "Take a piece of raw vegetable and hold it to your breast and say you stood for nothing/You were just a hole that lacked passion. /Another undignified product of society/That girl should have been a mansion," it's time to start paying attention. Nash isn't talking about knitting or shoe-shopping or a game of croquet before supper. No flower-picking, strolling, picnicking parklife here, darling." [Sentimentalist Magazine]
I believe the new UK folk scene has a serious admiration for the NYC alt-folk scene of the early 2000's. Staying consistent with that, Trachtenburg Family Slideshow spin-off group Supercute! opened the show, and were, to quote Eric, "cute".

another review here

Sassy Kate Nash shows New York she can still stand on her own two feet
April 29, 2010, at the Bowery Ballroom
By Maureen Fleming
Published: May 3rd, 2010 | 6:40pm

Kate Nash entered the stage of the Bowery Ballroom on crutches, thanks to an apparent ankle injury. “I’m kind of bummed about my ankle,” she told the audience,“but fuck it.” The sweet-voiced Brit was her usual blend of sugar and spice and sat down for her first three songs of the evening at a keyboard covered with a banner that read, “A cunt is a useful thing.” Nash then ditched the crutches, propped up her foot, and promptly broke into a triple stack of crowd pleasers that included her new song, “Do Wah Doo,” an upbeat, Motown-inspired throwback with the lyrical bite one would expect from Nash.

The singer’s short set list was comprised almost entirely of songs from her new album, My Best Friend is You, which was just released on Geffen Records on April 20. Decked in a black leather jacket plus dramatic eyeshadow and a new haircut, Nash seemed to be dressing the part for her new, edgier sound. There was “Mansion Song,” a part performance art/part slam poetry number about sex and drugs, which Nash delivered passionately from her feet, despite the injury. That was followed by, “I Just Love You More,” a song where Nash screams, “I love you, I love you,” over and over again.

“This is a quiet song, so I’m going to politely ask you shut up,” Nash told the audience before sitting down for ballad, “I Hate Seagulls.” The song moved couples to hold hands and cuddle with poetic lines like, “And I can’t find the words to make it sound unique / But honestly you make me strong.” But it was the few songs Nash sang off her first album (2007’s Made of Bricks) like “Mouthwash” and “Foundations” that had the crowd singing along at the sold-out show.

Tween-bop band Supercute! opened the show on a fun note, fronted by the confident Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. The tiny trio dressed in shiny outfits and plastic hair-bows, the perfect visual cues for songs like “Not to Write About Boys,” about having a crush on the same boy; the “Hula Hoop Song,” during which they did hula hoop; and “Candy City,” where the girls won points for tossing out Pop Rocks to the audience.
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28 Apr 2010 20:00 Great Scott w/ Kate Nash Boston, Massachusetts

review from here

This is the introduction to this song,” 22-year-old British singer/pianist Kate Nash said midway through her 85-minute, sold-out set at Great Scott Wednesday.

Then she belched into the microphone.

The crowd cheered.

Nash is in the United States playing small-club “warm-up” shows before a bigger tour to follow in support of her new album, “My Best Friend Is You.” She’s the type of artist who does what she wants when she wants. She wants to have fun on stage, and her audience will, too.

Nash’s show was bursting with exuberance and cut with a punky, spunky attitude - despite a sprained ankle (an injury that occurred Monday night after a Toronto concert) that had Nash sitting for quite a few numbers.

She joked about her bandaged and shoeless foot before opening with “Paris,” a bouncy, but biting number. “A size eight,” she said, “and ugly at that.” Again, the crowd ate it up.

By the time the song was over, Nash had spilled her vodka-and-cola, and requested another, which was quickly delivered.

Nash, who broke onto the scene with 2007’s chart-topper “Foundations,” is obsessed, chatty and cheerfully profane. She crams a lot of musical and lyrical ideas into her songs. She’s equally enamored of gorgeous pop hooks, bitter vocal rants and noisy guitar squalls. Think Blondie, PJ Harvey and Bikini Kill.

In “Mouthwash” and “I’ve Got a Secret,” Nash and her band drove the catchy melodies hard, pulled back and revved up again. The infectious “Kiss That Grrrl” had a Phil Spector girl group beat and feel-good vibe. But in the lyrics, Nash dissed both a boyfriend and the girl trying to seduce him.

The centerpiece was “Mansion Song,” which started as a diatribe over minimal backing. Nash tore into rock star groupie culture while the song built to a rip-roaring climax.

On the closer, “Model Behaviour,” she returned to the theme of degradation and sexual power, yelping and raving as guitarist Brett Alaimo turned up the noise.

New York acoustic bubblegum trio Supercute! - three girls ages 13-16 handpicked by Nash for the tour after she saw them play a club - opened. They were both insouciant and, in Nash’s own words, “clever.” Led by Rachel Trachtenburg, they sang of teen rivalry, pigeons and Hula Hoops - which they brought along. They also covered - and made sense of - Led Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” and Pink Floyd’s “Pigs (Three Different Ones).”

KATE NASH, with SUPERCUTE!

At Great Scott, Wednesday night.

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26 Apr 2010 20:00 The Mod Club Theatre w/ Kate Nash

review from here

On her first album Made Of Bricks, Kate Nash was the cute British newcomer who sang about needing a boy’s kiss when not singing about foundations and mouthwash.

But can the slightly quirky Nash, 22, now be simultaneously cute and shocking?

Judging by her sold-out show Monday night at The Mod Club in support of her new album My Best Friend Is You, it’s a bit of yes and no.

Opening a North American jaunt behind the record, Nash has put aside the sweet, sugary piano pop found on the strong selling debut for a meaner, at times potty-mouthed, guitar-driven sophomore record.

Heck, even before she started her roughly 80-minute set, a rather odd statement was displayed below her keyboard stating the usefulness of a crudely described female body part.

Fortunately Nash and her four-piece band led by drummer Elliott Andrews were in good humor for most of the show, with Nash getting under the skin of a few in the crowd by asking for quiet during I Hate Seagulls, a song which initially didn’t quite hit the mark.

What the singer – wearing a black and white striped dress whose bottom was attached to her sleeves – often hit gold with was a ‘60s styled soul-meets-rock flavoring on the new songs, especially the lead single Do-Wah-Doo as well as Kiss That Grrrl. Meanwhile R n B Side, a b-side off My Best Friend Is You, was a tune Nash described as what Destiny’s Child would be had she been in the group. Here she swayed to the song while uttering the cheeky lyric, “Why did you have to be such a wanker?”

Nash, who thanked the audience often when not trying to make out what people were shouting at her, also delved into her first album with instant crowd-pleasing pop ditties like Foundations, Mouthwash and the chipper Beatles-tinged Merry Happy. Most of the crowd drowned out Nash’s vocals on these songs but other new numbers which definitely held their own included the rowdy rockabilly romp entitled Take Me To A Higher Plane, Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt? and I’ve Got A Secret.

The somewhat hit-and-miss feel of the new album might have been best exemplified by the show opener Paris which hit the ground running, something which couldn’t be said about Mansion Song near the homestretch. Here Nash did a stream-of-conscious rant behind a growing wall of sound. A decent try but perhaps left to the likes of Patti Smith or PJ Harvey.

One thing which nobody could argue with Nash about was her affection for super cute openers, er, Supercute! The quirky, humorous New York teenage trio – featuring June Lei, Julia Cumming and Rachel Trachtenburg (The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players) – resembled the grandkids of Tiny Tim playing some songs on ukuleles. The group managed to surprise a few with rather nifty covers of Pink Floyd’s Pigs and Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin.

Three and a half stars out of five

another review

My Best Friend Is You
Kate Nash, Brett Alaimo and Supercute! at The Mod Club in Toronto
Frank YangWhenever I see reviews of Kate Nash’s just-released sophomore effort My Best Friend Is You that put forward the tracks that represent her well-documented discovery of Riot Grrl as the standouts and bemoan the number of pure pop numbers on the record, I have to wonder if the writers of said pieces actually like Kate Nash. Because as commendable as it is that she’s seeking to branch out beyond her precocious piano girl image and explore her interest in louder, rawer sounds, the inescapable fact is is that she’s not very good at it.

In its finest moments, Best Friend finds Nash taking what made Made Of Bricks such a delight – the fast-talking sass and hooky piano-led melodies – and honing them further, exhibiting the growth you’d expect over three years without sounding too grown-up. Tracks like “Paris”, “Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt” and lead single “Do Wah Do” are immediate and indelibly catchy sugar bombs that hold up over repeat listens, and the like thankfully outnumber those where Nash attempts to get her punk on. While “Mansion Song” actually works better than you’d expect, segueing from profanity-laced spoken word intro into a clattering, stomping sing-along, other stylistic forays like “I Just Love You More” find Nash tries to sound angry and guttural but instead comes across as on the verge of laughing hysterically – probably not the desired effect – and the lo-fi “I’ve Got A Secret” just wobbles aimlessly. But missteps aside – Bricks had its share as well – Best Friend is a largely enjoyable listen that gives Nash fans what they want… and sometimes you have to take the crunchy with the smooth.

That said, the balance of the two wasn’t what many would have liked on Monday night at the Mod Club in Toronto. It marked the kickoff of her North American tour and in rounding up support acts, she didn’t have to look too far. Rachel Trachtenburg opened for Nash before – The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players opened up for her on a number of her 2008 dates – but this time, she was fronting her new band Supercute!, which teamed the 16-year old with 13- and 14-year old accomplices in shiny outfits and giant hair bows, playing Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd covers alongside self-penned songs about candy, hula-hooping and boys. It was short, sweet and strange. Considering that there would have been an hour wait between the end of Supercute!’s set and the start of Nash’s, the unbilled set by Nash guitarist Brett Alaimo was a welcome one. Playing mostly solo, except for one song where he was accompanied by the rest of Nash’s band, he was part Libertines, part Billy Bragg and part spoken-word poet/stand-up comic. Certainly a more enjoyable way to pass the time than constantly checking my mail (especially since I wasn’t getting much mail).

At this point it’s worth noting that this show was a) all-ages and b) sold-out, which is generally a recipe for a) feeling old and b) losing a few degrees of hearing from the squealing that inevitably occurs when the headlining act comes on stage. And so it was that the crowd went mad when Kate Nash finally followed her band onstage and seated herself at the keyboard with the empowering message, “A c*nt is a useful thing” emblazoned across a sheet draped off it (the message itself wasn’t censored, just my transcription). Grinning ear to ear at the enthusiasm of the crowd, she kicked off with Best Friend’s “Paris”, which proved as excellent a set opener as it is an album opener, and straight into “Do Wah Do” and then Bricks’ “Mouthwash”, all sounding great and setting the tone for what was looking like a terrific show. She then surprised by moving over to guitar for the next song and remaining there for the next few numbers, all scrappy pop selections from the new record and all also sounding quite good.

The second half of the show was decidedly less triumphant, with the more questionable bits of her repertoire making appearances and Nash seemingly determined to redefine herself as guitar-wielding rocker chick right then and there. While some fans indulged her, even attempting to pogo or mosh a bit, most waited patiently for her to get back to doing what she did best. They were repaid with the likes of “Foundations” and “Very Merry”, but the show failed to end on a high note. Both main set closers “Mansion Song” and “I Just Love You More” came across more awkward live than on record – and as stated, the latter was pretty awkward to begin with – and the encore selection was b-side “Model Behaviour”, which gave Nash leave to do more shrieking and sent many heading for an early exit.

Poor finish aside, the night still went in the win column though only barely. This was my first time seeing Nash live and it was great to finally hear some of those songs done live – though more than three selections from Bricks would have been nice – and Nash’s rapport with her very devout fanbase was charming and fun to watch. But if she’s going to continue to try and be the second coming of Bikini Kill, she’s really going to have to work on her screaming.

The Toronto Sun, Spin, Exclaim, Chart and Panic Manual also have reviews of the show while The Daily Mail and Nylon have interviews with Nash.

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25 Apr 2010 14:00 Maxwell’s JACK SKULLER’S CD RELEASE PARTY!!!!

review from here

Maxwell's in Hoboken looked more like a day care center than a rock club on Sunday afternoon, and the term "all ages show" took on a whole new meaning. Toddlers and tweens (and their parents) took over the premises, bopping to the fresh-faced rockabilly sounds of Jack Skuller.

Skuller, 14, has helped spearhead a new tween underground in the greater New York area. You can already find the good-looking eighth-grader from Weehawken High School all over YouTube, in his own video for "Love is a Drum" (his just-released debut single on the well-regarded Hoboken indie Bar/None Records) and in a cameo with the tween girl trio Supercute, who opened Sunday's show. He's also shared the stage at the Cake Shop in Manhattan with Park Slope's Care Bears on Fire and Nat and Alex Wolff, formerly the stars of Nickelodeon TV's "Naked Brothers Band."

And not one of them is old enough to drive.

Skuller, who will also perform at the Hoboken Arts and Music Festival on Sunday, got his start performing with his father, musician Eddie Skuller, at the popular "Loser's Lounge" cabaret series at Joe's Pub in Manhattan, where he belted out tunes in tributes to artists like Michael Jackson and David Bowie. But when "Love is a Drum" won a local radio station's talent contest, the Skuller family decided to record a few of Jack's songs, recruiting veteran New Jersey producer Daniel Rey, whose credits include the seminal punk bands the Ramones and Misfits.

Here's the thing with Jack Skuller, though: He's not just a cute little kid trying to sing pop songs. He understands rock 'n' roll. His clean, muscular chordings on electric guitar delivery a clarity and freshness that's missing from much of today's indie scene. Backed by the concise precision drumming of Hoboken session man Pete Martinez, Skuller rocked through his set with panache and the command of an old pro.

Growing up in a household packed with classic vinyl albums provided an education you'd never get in music school. Jack opened his set with a cover of '50s blues legend Little Walter, performed several of his originals -- including "Love is a Drum" and a new tune called "Second Hand Smoke" -- and then brought Sophie, the lead singer of Care Bears on Fire, onstage for a raucous cover of Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You." It stopped just short of being sexy, but it definitely had chemistry.

Supercute -- three adorable girls between the ages 13 and 16, in short skirts with oversized ribbons in their hair -- opened the show with a set that included ukulele, guitar, hula hoops and synthesizer. Lead singer Rachel Trachtenburg is no stranger to show business; she's toured internationally with her parents as the lead singer of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

The third act on the bill, the Indecent, features 15-year old triplets -- Emily, Maddy and Bo Brout -- along with drummer Nicholas Burrows. Based in New York City, the band's grunge-inspired rock takes a much darker and heavier approach than Skuller, Supercute or the Care Bears; but in all fairness, you can't really classify any of these young talents as teen-pop.

Tweencore, anyone?

Jack Skuller

Where: Hoboken Arts and Music Festival, Washington Street between Observer Highway and Seventh Street, Hoboken

When: Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Skuller performs at 1 p.m.)

How much: Free. Call (201) 420-2207 or visit hobokennj.org

March 2010

2010-02-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

Friday March 19 2010 Corn Mo with The Pendulum Swings@ Bushwick studios NYC 9pm
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Thursday 4 March 2010 21:30 Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre NYC, New York

Cost: $5

Todd Barry and Kurt Braunohler.
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What It Feels Like for a Girl with Supercute!

92YTribeca

200 Hudson St (between Watts and Desbrosses Sts)
Tribeca | Map

212-601-1000

Subway: A, C, E, 1 to Canal St | Directions

http://www.92ytribeca.org

Prices

Tickets: $12

Description
The writers Sean Fennessey, Emily Gould, Marisa Meltzer and Elizabeth Spiridakis gather to discuss girlhood and music; the groovy local band featuring a trio of teens—Rachel Trachtenburg, Julia Cumming and June Lei—performs.

Mar 3 7pm

February 2010

2010-02-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

26/02/2010 22:00 Rachel Trachtenburg host's the Lloyd Floyd Show!!!!!!
308 Bowery bet. Bleecker & 2nd, NYC, New York
Cost: $10
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Saturday, February 20 2010 Two Supercute Shows

First, catch us at The Living Room (154 Ludlow St) with Board of Education, for a fun, kid-friendly show!12 noon ($12 adults, $7 kids, $25 families)

Then, see us at Sidewalk Café (94 Avenue A) at 12 midnight (7:00pm Julie Hill/ 7:30pm Annie Crane/ 8:00pm Jordan Levinson/ 8:30pm Angela Carlucci/ 9:00pm Emily Einhorn/ 9:30pm Elizabeth Devlin/ 10:00pm Erin Regan/ 11:00pm Debe Dalton/ 12:00am SUPERCUTE!), FREEEEEE!!! (Listed below)
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2/7/10- The Winter Antifolk Fest at Sidewalk Cafe Schedule:
Monday, February 15 - Fest Kickoff at the Open Stage! Sign-up at 7:30!

Tuesday, February 16
7:00 Adam Finchler
7:30 Michael Winkler
8:00 Ramblings of a Gentleman Scumbag (feat. John Murdoch)
8:30 Larkin Grimm
9:00 Master Lee
10:00 Brian Speaker Presents *The Mars Chronicles*
11:00 Jeffrey Lewis (solo)
12:00 The Everybody Knows

Wednesday, February 17
7:00 Thomas Patrick Maguire
7:30 Secret Salamander
8:00 J.J. Hayes
8:30 Joe Crow Ryan
9:00 Justin Remer of the Elastic No-No Band
9:30 The Telethons
10:00 Casey Holford
11:00 Phoebe Kreutz
12:00 Kung Fu Crime Wave

Thursday, February 18
7:00 Blurple (feat. Phoebe Blue)
7:30 Charles Mansfield
8:00 MILF City (feat. Lance Romance)
8:30 Barry Bliss
9:00 Emily Moment
9:30 Bernard King Presents
10:30 The Pendulum Swings (feat. Jason Trachtenburg)
11:30 Smoke (feat. Jo Schornikow of The Shivers)

Friday, February 19
7:30 Peter Dizozza
8:00 Steve Espinola/Lookalikes USA Reunion Hour
9:00 Fenton Lawless
9:30 Joe Bendik
10:00 Lenny Molotov
11:00 The Sprinkle Genies
12:00 The Humans

Saturday, February 20
7:00 Julie Hill
7:30 Annie Crane
8:00 Jordan Levinson
8:30 Angela Carlucci
9:00 Emily Einhorn
9:30 Elizabeth Devlin
10:00 Erin Regan
11:00 Debe Dalton
12:00 Supercute

Sunday, February 21
I Heart U Night (Antifolkers Covering Their Peers)
7:00 I Heart U
7:30 Sammy Shuster
8:30 Ray Brown
9:00 I Heart U
9:30 Trevor Jude Smith
10:00 David Greenberg
10:30 I Heart U

Monday, February 22
The Monday Night Open Stage with Ben Krieger! Sign-up 7:30

Tuesday, February 23
7:30 Lady Blanche
8:00 Jon Berger
8:30 A Brief View Of The Hudson
9:00 Amos Torres
9:30 Dan Costello
10:00 Patsy Grace
11:00 Churchill Downs (feat. Mike & Dina Rechner)

Wednesday, February 24
8:30 Domino
9:00 Nan Turner
9:30 Major Matt Mason USA
10:00 Dufus
11:00 The Lisps
12:00 Ching Chong Song

Thursday, February 25
7:00 Beau Alessi
7:30 Albert Goold
8:00 Hank & Pigeon (feat. Morgan Herringer & Alex P)
8:30 Aaron Invisible
9:00 Roger Manning
9:30 Liv Carrow
10:00 Brook Pridemore
11:00 Huggabroomstik
12:00 Crabs on Banjo

Friday, February 26
7:00 Charles Latham
7:30 The Fools
8:00 The Debutante Hour
8:30 Myron the Magnificent (feat. Herb Scher)
9:00 Crazy And The Brains
9:30 Don McCloskey
10:30 Lach
11:30 Toby Goodshank
12:30 The Wowz
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Sunday, February 14th at Pete's Candy Store 709 Lorimer St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Jason Trachtenburg, Jae, McCarthy Trenching
--------------------------------------------------------------------Saturday February 13th at Vaudeville Park (26 Bushwick Ave. Brooklyn, NY). SUPERCUTE on at 9pm, but of course you can't miss BIGGER PRINCESS, PHOEBE KREUTZ AND REBECCA SCHIFFMAN, so make sure you arrive when doors open, at 7pm.
Tickets are sliding scale($7 to $25), and all $$ benefits SHOWPAPER ( a free publications that list only all ages shows in NYC).

January 2010

2009-11-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

30/01/2010 23:30 atJoe’s Pub (Jason Trachtenburg does comedy with God’s Pottery), NYC,
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26 Jan 2010 21:00 The Pendulum Swings (Jason Trachtenburg) w/.357 Lover (Corn Mo) Brooklyn
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Sunday Jan 24, 2010 The Pendulum Swings featuring Jason Trachtenburg in Brooklyn Pete's Candy Store 709 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Revolution Church with Jay Bakker 4
Open Mic 5-8
The Pendulum Swings featuring Jason Trachtenburg 8:30
"Original new (!) standards interpreted by NYC's most unique male vocalist. Highly recommended." Time Out NY Nov 2009.
Elizabeth Devlin 9
Elizabeth Devlin invokes influences from scratchy phonographs, combining bitter sweet, haunting vocals with poignant lyrics and angelic, cacophonous melodies. Papa Devlin fancied himself a gypsy and traveled the coast peddling his one-man-band street performance; Momma was a writer, who tended many children and hand sewed puppets to sell on the DC streets. Pulling these things to her, Elizabeth's performance art began as lyrical, melodic, acapella poetry but soon blossomed into an electroacoustic sound when she began to play the Autoharp.
Lady Blanche 10
Lady Blanche is a pop punk princess rooted in a slight country drawl who sings Flight of the Conchords-esque compositions, not so ladylike confessionals, and stream of consciousness rambles. Her live performances are often ruckus affairs including much laughter, an occasional tear, and more often that not a really bad 90's cover song.

I'm Turning Into 11
I'm turning into is a Brooklyn based experimental pop band. The band seeks to combine a great range of sound and technique with universal melodies to create appealing and innovative songs. Their can-do attitude translates into a fun and unique live performance.

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Thu, January 21, 2010 7:00 PM (Doors: 6:30 PM) $10.00
All Ages

Knitting Factory Brooklyn Presents
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Supercute, Julia Weldon
Knitting Factory Brooklyn NY

Modern ‘Family’! The Trachtenburgs now live in Brooklyn
By Sabrina Jaszi
for The Brooklyn Paper

Modern family: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players will bring their quirky show to the Knitting Factory on Jan. 21.

Rachel Trachtenburg is the youngest member of the group, but the linchpin.

Call it kitsch for the new decade or our world through cat-eye glasses, but the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are now, officially, Bushwick-based.

Some 20 years ago, Jason and Tina Trachtenburg locked eyes across a Greenwich Village open-mic. Four years later, two became three, and six years after that, the trio became a band, with the littlest Trachtenburg, Rachel, on drums.

Their act — a thrift store-dressed show and tell of found vintage slides and Burt Bacharach-inflected musical narration — travelled the world before settling on Manhattan’s Lower East Side five years ago.

But last year, the band achieved its greatest success, moving to Bushwick. A few months later, the Knitting Factory did the same thing — and on Jan. 21, the two former Manhattan institutions will join forces again.

And the now–16-year-old Rachel’s teengirl pop trio, Supercute!, is slated to open that night.

“When I perform with my parents, my dad does all the songwriting and I keep the drums pretty simple,” said Rachel. “He loves Frank Sinatra and the Bee Gees, that kind of stuff. In my group, we do ukulele covers of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and write our own bubblegum indie stuff.”

The Slideshow Players’ set will include two new songs from a forthcoming album. New slides were bestowed upon the Trachtenburgs by an audience member who also housed and fed them one night during their most recent tour.

And that’s not unusual. Wherever they go, the family inspires warm, fuzzy feelings.

“I’ve seen them a few times and you always feel as if you’re in someone’s basement looking at pictures from their trip around the world,” said Chris Diaz, talent buyer for the Knitting Factory. “It’s great family fun.”

Maybe that’s because, for the Trachtenburgs, the sunny, nomadic Partridge Family is more than just a musical influence. The Players have created their own — albeit quirky and crafty — version of the archetypal show-biz family.

Father, guitarist and piano player Jason shuns e-mail and cellphones, occupying himself with a macrobiotic diet and his other band, The Pendulum Swings.

“It’s a swing band and Jason is the horned, Sinatraesque frontman,” said matriarch Tina, who is in charge of buying up Goodwill items and then reworking them into costumes.

Rachel is the most creative of the bunch.

“I like to play the ukulele while hula-hooping. I think I invented that,” she said.

Because mother, father and daughter are as kooky as a sitcom characters, it’s logical that they’ve made a pilot episode for a TV Show.

The kids program, to be called “Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World,” is set in the family kitchen and its first plotline was inspired by real events. When a mouse finds its way into Jason’s spirulina, it turns green. The family fears that, hopped up on supplements, it will live forever. Since all three are vegetarians, they don’t want to kill it. Famed drag king Murray Hill plays the band’s manager.

Colorful, alternative fun ensues.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Supercute! at the Knitting Factory [361 Metropolitan Ave. at Havemeyer Street in Williamsburg, (347) 529-6696)]. Jan. 21 at 10 pm. Tickets are $10.

©2010 Community Newspaper Group

another article from here

By Meredith Deliso

The family that plays together stays together.

That, at least, seems to be the case with the Trachtenburgs.

Even as they juggle more and more creative projects, the trio keeps at their shtick, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, as they’ve been doing for the past 10 years ago.

Between dad Jason’s own swing band, The Pendulum Swings, daughter Rachel’s girl band, Supercute!, and mom Tina’s steering of their children’s program, “Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World,” the three still find time to do slideshow shows. And on January 21, they do just that at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, with mom on the projector, dad on the keys and vocals, and their daughter on the drums as the family performs conceptual art-rock pop with a message.

“We’re informational artists,” says Jason. “We feel it’s our duty and responsibility to give information as we see it.”

That includes extolling the health benefits of vegetarianism (Jason and Tina are going strong 20 years, 16-year-old Rachel has been one most her life), individuality (“We can’t just turn into a culture of conformity,” says Jason), and politics (Rachel made the news last year as vocal opponent against third terms for city politicians).

The family makes a similar statement as they move into children’s programming. Next month, the second episode of “Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World” will be shown in Brooklyn February 14, details TBA (the first episode is available here).

“We really want to influence and expand television entertainment,” says Jason. “I think we can raise expectations with what we’re doing with the show. It has real purpose, real ideas about art and life.”

The show, says Tina, is like “’H.R. Pufnstuf’ meets the ‘Partridge Family.’ But it’s real as opposed to a fantasy.”

It presents a day in the life of Rachel in their Bushwick apartment, with original music by Rachel and Jason and guest appearances from friends like Andrew W.K, Murray Hill and Kevin Allison. Then there’s Supercute!, Rachel’s trio which she fronts with a ukulele, (they are also on the Knitting Factory bill), and dad’s band, The Pendulum Swings, which gives him an outlet for music that doesn’t quite jive with the Slideshow Players’ aesthetic.

“The Slideshow goes in so many different directions, I will never grow tired of it. (But) ultimately, Rachel’s getting older and focusing on her band. It was essential that I started up a new project,” says Jason, whose new project is an indie swing band. Though no retro throwback here – “We’re trying to live in the culture of the time,” says Jason. And, unlike the Slideshow Players, “the emphasis is music, not so much politics or entertainment or art.”

While the Pendulums don’t make the Knitting Factory bill, don’t rule it out in the future.

“Lately we’ve been doing shows together, all of us,” says Jason. “Slideshow, Supercute and Pendulum Swings.”

Yep, they’re keeping it all in the family.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are at Knitting Factory (361 Metropolitan Ave.) January 21 at 7 p.m. With Supercute! and Julia Weldon. Tickets are $10. For more information, call 347-529-6696.
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Tuesday 12 January 2010 Kissy Kamikaze at Knitting Factory Brooklyn (Brooklyn)
with Jason Trachtenburg, Magic Brian, Miss Saturn, and Roger Hailes
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Sunday January 9 2010 Supercute @ Let Them Eat Cake @ The Cake Shop 152 Ludlow Street $5.00

review from here
The Kids Are All Right (and Flaunting Their Hooks, Taste and Cred)

Published: January 10, 2010
On Thursday night Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers made his New York debut as a solo act at the Beacon Theater for around 2,000 shrieking young girls (and a couple of boys) and their chaperones. On Saturday afternoon, in the basement of Cake Shop on the Lower East Side, the all-girl Brooklyn kid-punk outfit Care Bears on Fire hosted a showcase of teen bands for an audience of a couple hundred: plaid-wearing peers, small children, parents scarfing down sandwiches and salads.

Not as different as they sound, really.

Scale isn’t much of a measure of talent or maturity, of course, or even of intentions. Exclude the size of the room, and the two shows looked alike: teenage performers eager to flaunt their bona fides and their taste, exactly the things that probably set them apart from their classmates, but not, it turns out, from one another.

These are also the things that have separated Nick Jonas from his brothers Kevin and Joe over the four-plus years in which the Jonas Brothers have been marching toward pop supremacy. Even as success took them beyond the world of Disney, the Jonas Brothers never felt sophisticated; of the three Nick came closest, with his sharp, forward fashion choices and name dropping of influences like Elvis Costello.

The primary aim of his solo debut, “Who I Am” (Hollywood), which is to be released next month under the name Nick Jonas & the Administration, appears to be re-education. A couple of songs revisit Jonas Brothers bop, but Mr. Jonas, 17, is more interested in reclaiming 1970s rock, a relatively unfashionable choice that will force fans to accept him on different terms.

“Who I Am” is reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s first post-’N Sync solo album, “Justified”: eager to toy with new influences, far from perfect. Mr. Jonas’s plays for credibility are naked. Three of his four touring band members did stints with Prince’s New Power Generation. The song “State of Emergency” is a virtual rewrite of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” “Olive & an Arrow,” a blues-rock number, recalls John Mayer.

At Thursday’s show he attracted a discerning, self-selecting subset of Jonas Brothers fans, drawn to his shy charm, perhaps, over Joe’s puckish flamboyance and Kevin’s, um, positive attitude? They were older too: many seemed to be in the upper reaches of teenagedom, taking style cues from “Gossip Girl,” and only a few wore hand-scrawled T-shirts of the kind ubiquitous at Jonas Brothers concerts. A handful were sipping Bud Lights by the lobby bar before the show.

They were rabid for Mr. Jonas, who seemed completely comfortable without his brothers, fitting in easily with his startlingly good band. It helped that he was in top form, far more convincing than on his album, but it didn’t matter: almost everything he did met with adulation. (Though his New Year’s resolutions — “As a country we’re in a place of fear, and we need to put that behind us” — provoked confused murmurs, and his cover of Mr. Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours,” was appreciated more by the adults in the crowd.)

Charmed though it may seem, the path that Mr. Jonas has chosen is not the easy one. He’s savvy enough, though, to know he needs to shift gears. Soon he won’t be a teenager anymore — a conundrum also faced by his friend Taylor Swift, who turned 20 last month, effectively aging out of her old material — and the slate gets wiped clean.

By and large the bands that played at Cake Shop on Saturday afternoon as part of the Let Them Eat Cake showcase have chosen to skip right past the potential crisis of growing out of their sound by making music most adults would be proud of.

Mr. Jonas might find he has much in common with Ethan Levenson, 15, who opened his Cake Shop set with a cover of Girls’ “Lust for Life,” one of last year’s hipster anthems, obscuring the profanity slightly, but not completely. Mr. Levenson, who wore a loose gray cardigan and whose songs were filled with mopey inner-life-centric lyrics, might not want to talk to Mr. Jonas, though they probably have similar record collections.

Mr. Levenson was the only boy on the bill, save for two members of Blame the Patient, the third band on the lineup, effective miners of late-’80s and early-’90s indie rock with a ferocious lead guitarist, Hunter Lombard, and a kinetic lead singer, Sofie Kapur.

Last year Blame the Patient recorded an as-yet-unreleased album produced by Kevin March, drummer of the well-regarded post-hardcore band Shudder to Think. On the Let Them Eat Cake circuit such high-profile — in the indie rock world at least — hand holders are the norm. On its recent album “Get Over It!” (S-Curve), Care Bears on Fire worked with Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Jill Cunniff, late of Luscious Jackson, among others.

At 16, Rachel Trachtenburg of Supercute!, who opened the showcase with a set of tidy, clever bubblegum pop, is already a veteran thanks to her years with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. One song played by Supercute!, “Not to Write About Boys,” was incisive and cynical about inter-band relations: two group members fall for the same guy, then realize it’s tearing the group apart, and sacrifice the guy for the sake of friendship. For kids, it’s dark stuff.

And polished too: Supercute! has pop instincts as finely honed as Mr. Jonas’s. The same goes for Care Bears on Fire, who straddle the mainstream and D.I.Y. worlds, proving that they’re not that far apart. The group was signed to S-Curve by Steve Greenberg, who, as president of Columbia Records, signed the Jonas Brothers to their first major-label deal. Over the summer Care Bears on Fire toured with Nat & Alex Wolff, of the Nickelodeon series “The Naked Brothers Band,” and in November, Care Bears on Fire appeared on another Nickelodeon show, “True Jackson, VP,” in which the group subbed in for a gig blown off by Justin Bieber: not exactly the punk rock episode of “Quincy, M.E.,” but something.

More immediately the group recalls the Runaways, who were a teen punk band when that was still a dangerous idea. The members of Care Bears on Fire — Izzy, Sophie and Jena — are younger, and not nearly as salacious as the Runaways, but they have a similar verve. Their music is accomplished, tackling kid subjects in a mature way, with furiously energetic playing, especially on the part of the drummer, Izzy, who on Saturday was sporting a torn Patti Smith T-shirt.

The songs were cheerily scornful, thanks to Sophie, the guitarist and lead singer. And the band’s cover of Tears for Fears’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” was smart, comprehending that its lyrics were always far brattier than its arrangement. At the end of the show the punk pioneer Handsome Dick Manitoba went backstage and gave all the girls hugs.

plus video

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Tue., January 5, 8:00pm Knitting Factory Price: $5 Kissy Kamikaze + Jason Trachtenburg + Magic Brian + Miss Saturn + Roger Hailes

361 Metropolitan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
347-529-6696
ting Factory Brooklyn

361 Metropolitan Ave (at Havemeyer St)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

347-529-6696

Subway: L to Lorimer St, G to Metropolitan Ave | Directions

Prices

Tickets: $5

Description
Jason Trachtenburg, the adult musician in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, is underrated as a songwriter, and tonight’s solo gig is a good place to hear him sans slides and kid. Check out the Volume (timeoutnewyork.com/thevolume) to view an exclusive holiday performance from Trachtenburg.
When

Tue 7pm

Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/events/music/319615/kissy-kamikaze-jason-trachtenburg-magic-brian-miss-saturn-roger-hailes#ixzz0bSm8bvDQ

review from here

Though he will be playing a show with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players on January 21 at the Knitting Factory, Jason Trachtenburg took to the same stage solo on Tuesday night as part of .357 Lover's circus of a residency. There's always a lot of humor in his set (it's up for debate if this humor is intentional or not), and when he is solo, there's also a sort of simplistic beauty to his songs. Check out photos from the show after the jump.

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Sunday, January 3rd, 8pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Emily Manzo performing Katherine Young's Underworld (Dancing) for Tuba and Wurlitzer and piece for TBT
Clara Latham's Selected Songs

We are joined by tuba virtuoso Dan Peck, and play at 8pm, followed by Baby Copperhead and Jason from the Trachtenburg family slideshow- should be a wonderful evening!

December 2009

2009-11-30T10:34:00.001-08:00

Magic Brian and Corn Mo's New Year's Eve Bash
When:Thu 12/31 (8PM)
Where: Parkside Lounge
Address: 317 E. Houston St. New York, NY Map
Cost: $25/$50/$75

Magic Brian and Corn Mo host a New Year's Eve party at Parkside Lounge

Open bar from 8-2

Food at 9

Show at 10

Special guests: Jason Trachtenburg and Albert Cadabra

Three ticket prices:

$25 for the show and Champagne at midnight

$50 for the show, beer/wine/well, Champagne at midnight

$75 for the show, full open bar, food, Champagne

For reservations email: parksidefun@gmail.com

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21 Dec 2009 19:30 Cameo Gallery! Brooklyn, New York, New York Supercute show with Pendulum Swings (Jason's new band) are playing at Cameo. Starts at 7:30 SUPERCUTE on at 8 sharp! 5 bucks!!

Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Bands: Supercute!
Show time: 8 PM
Venue: Cameo Gallery
Food: SEA
Drink: Zablozki’s
Miscellaneous: Hugs

Rachel Trachtenberg, daughter and drummer of The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players strikes out on her own with her band Supercute!. Think about all the normal things a teen girl thinks about and add some vocals, a uke and some keyboards, and there you have it. Joining them are The Pendulum Swings, The Mini Pearls, and Boom Chick. Just as much fun as any show, SEA is one BIG Thai restaurant. Big enough to have a pool surrounded by tables as a giant Buddha stands above it. Luckily, the food is really great. Offering traditional Pad Thai ($7) to more involved dishes like the Mummy Fish ($14). On N6th, a street full of bars and restaurants, Zablozki’s is the local bar of the bunch, with a pool table and a friendly atmosphere and 12 beers on tap. What looks like some dark basement with tables and some couches, Hugs will end up being a dance party with an awkward blend of music genres that you will grow to love quickly.

Posted by Short and Sweet NYC

Sat., December 19, 8:00pm, Sat., December 19, 10:30pm
Price: $25-$50 SNOWBIZ
Murray Hill . . . on ice! Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand St.
New York, NY
212-598-0400

Schmaltzy comic Murray Hill gets imaginative this holiday season for his annual pageant, A Murray Little Christmas. The show becomes a road trip gone awry when Murray loads his performer friends into a Winnebago headed for his beloved homeland, the Catskills—without checking the fuel gauge. When they run of out gas, they have to celebrate Christmas right there in the Borscht Belt's surrounding woods. The gang takes advantage of the situation by doing The Nutcracker on ice—"with tights and everything," says Hill. Those scantily clad folks include burlesquer Dirty Martini, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Bridget Everett, and Moisty the Snowman.

Also on the same day

Saturday December 19 at 8pm Lach Plays Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street, NYC

This Antifest includes performances by: Antifolk pioneers Roger Manning, John S. Hall (King Missile) and Mike Rimbaud
to more recent standouts Jeffrey Lewis and Jason Trachtenberg (of the Trachtenberg Family Sideshow Players). Plus special guests ;-)
Admission is $15 in advance/ $20 at the door and goes to the benefit of the Artist Worker Action League

17 Dec 2009 19:00 Joe’s Pub( Losers Lounge: Tribute to Jackson 5!!) NYC, New York Supercute show

13 Dec 2009 19:00 Rachel’s Sweet 16 Party/Variety Show @ House of Yes!!! Brooklyn, New York

What happens when the youngest member of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players turns 16? The "action-packed, hole in one, roller-skating, hula-hooping, siren-singing, cross-dressing, fluid-swapping, elf-ing, belly-aching, eye candy show of the year" with Rev Jen, Care Bears on Fire, Andrew Katz, Corn Mo, Reggie Watts, Lloyd Floyd, Mike Amato, Rob Shapiro, Ching Chong Song, Cameron Hull, host Rosie Rebel and more.

Review from here
Rachel Trachtenburg, of the band Supercute! and the The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, celebrated her sixteenth birthday this past Sunday at the House of Yes in Brooklyn.

If you can imagine an eccentric, old time variety radio show come to life on stage, that's basically what the party was like, tuned up a few notches. There were musicians, comics, burlesque, court jesters, animals, a photo booth from Dave Matthews Walter, and so much more. Photos taken that evening in the photo booth are online here. Infamous New York City Art Stars Reverend Jen, Mike Amato, Murray Hill, Daniella Day, Jessica Delfino and others were in attendance; many performed on stage in Rachel's honor. Videographers from MTV were also flitting about, (wha??) shooting video for what could be a new reality series about Rachel and the band Supercute. Kids these days, they get famous so quick.

Wish I had a birthday party like that.

A few more photos from the evening snapped by NYC The Blog are below. Video of the evening, including performance by Supercute, will be forthcoming.

Jason Trachtenburg (on floor) and band

L-R: Julia Cumming, Rachel Trachtenburg

L-R: ??, Mike Amato, ??

View more photos from the event at Flickr.
Posted by Paolo Mastrangelo at 12/16/2009 Share
Rachel Trachtenburg's Sweet Sixteen Party

November 2009

2009-11-16T10:42:00.001-08:00

23 Nov 2009 Jason Trachtenburg Solo Sidewalk Cafe NYC

info from here

Just as I was heading out I got into an interesting conversation downstairs with Jason Trachtenberg. At last Monday's Open Mic Jason was playing some tricked-out piano parts and he mentioned something from the stage about how he felt he was channeling Peter Dizozza. I really enjoyed the Dizozza reference, especially since I figured there were only a few people around who would get it considering Peter hasn't been hanging out on the scene much lately. In any event, when I mentioned this to Jason we got into an interesting conversation about playing piano and about exactly how Jason got involved with and learned music as a kid.

Thinking about Peter Dizozza also got me nostalgic for the old "What the Fuck" game show segments that Lach used to do (which I mentioned to Lach last night). That used to be one of my favorite parts of the evening and I loved it when Peter would co-host at the piano. I took the trivia questions seriously and always tried hard to get to be one of the contestants. I think I only won a prize once though, which was a bag of drum tools and parts. Later on, when Peter wasn't around, Lach would ask me to co-host, but I was never as good as Peter and also I always kind of wished that I could still be trying to answer the questions

16 Nov 2009 20:00 Tell Your Friends! @ Lolita Lounge NYC, New York (Supercute)

October 2009

2009-08-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

30 October 2009 Joe's Pub NYC Supercute-played Tip Toe by Tiny Tim as encore
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27 Oct 2009 20:00 House Of Yes with Dufus and Huggabroomstick (Jason Trachtenburg’s The Pendulum Swings at 8pm) Brooklyn
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25 Oct 2009 14:00 Halloween Freakfest!! @Thompson Square Park NYC, Supercute!
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23 Oct 2009 21:00 Bushwick Shea Stadium Brooklyn, New York Supercute!
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21 Oct 2009 20:15 CMJ Whitesmith showcase @ The Living Room

CMJ Showcase and Party
We are proud to announce our first-ever CMJ Showcase, co-presented with the geniuses over at Indaba Music.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21ST
The Living Room
154 Ludlow St, New York NY
(212) 533 - 7235

Emilyn Brodsky (7pm, with Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls)
Sydney Wayser (8pm)
Pinky Swear (8:30pm, featuring Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)
Sara Benincasa (comedy, 9pm)
Elon James White (comedy, 9:15pm)
special surprise guest ! (comedy, 9:30pm)
Family of the Year (10pm)
Jason Trachtenburg (11pm, of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)
Alina Simone (11:45)

Multimedia: MediaVoxNYC

Hosted by Sara Benincasa and Emilyn Brodsky
7pm Show, 21+, one drink minimum, & no CMJ badge required

review from here

Supercute
Hometown: New York
Next local date: Sunday (Thompson Square Park, NYC)
Led by 15-year-old Rachel Trachtenburg of the famed Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and accompanied by her 13-year-old friends Julia Cumming and June Lei, these ukulele-playing young ladies really live up to their name. They could have also been called Supercharming Superfunny or Superpromisingfuture.
Sample lyric: “We were so happy that our rooms had been found, but the whole place wreaked of a burnt dead bird”
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10 October 2009 Sidealk Cafe New York Supercute! 11pm
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3 Oct 2009 14:00 Indianapolis Central Library Indianapolis, Indiana
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2 Oct 2009 19:00 Slideshow Sideshow at Indianapolis Central Library Indianapolis, Indiana

September 2009

2009-08-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 26, 2009 7 p.m. doors, $8-25 sliding scale
WHERE: Kidd Yellin Gallery 133 Imlay Street @ Verona Street, Brooklyn, New York.
F/G to Smith & 9th St

[[ MUSIC ]]
:: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
:::: Shilpa Ray --- of Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers, formerly of Beat the Devil
:::::: Kendrick Strauch --- of Harlem Shakes
:::::::: Rebecca Schiffman
:::::::::: Sarah and Michelle Cagianese
:::::::::::: Your Nature --- formerly Frankpollis

[[ ART ]]
:: Gibby Haynes ---- of Gibby Haynes and His Problem, Butthole Surfers
:::: Charlotte Kidd
:::::: Rebecca Schiffman

:: and special guests of music and art...

This benefit will immerse its audience in a multimedia blend of art, music and film--just as ShowPaper does. The event will reach out to an extended new audience of art enthusiasts while preserving the intimate feel of a typical ShowPaper underground event. Artwork by Kidd Yellin resident artists and special guest art curation will be on exhibit along with a projected, rotating "virtual gallery" of ShowPaper cover art--with works by artists (often with music ties) such as Raymond Pettibon, Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice), Ben Jones (PaperRad), Chris Johanson, Ed Templeton, Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO), Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt), and many other talents. Music videos will be screened between sets, including film from past ShowPaper concerts. The event will truly represent a colorful spectrum of subculture.

ShowPaper is known for raw, no-frills, and affordable underground shows (that support its bi-monthly publication) where art is valued above hype. ShowPaper is brought to life by the front-running tastemakers of the NYC music scene, who first introduced such artists as Vivian Girls, Matt and Kim, Dirty Projectors, Dan Deacon,and Vampire Weekend, and who are relied on by countless young people for their next taste of great and interesting music to be experienced up-close-and-personal. With a circulation of 10,000, ShowPaper is the only publication in the tri-state area to exclusively list all-ages shows, distributed and propagated by a small army of dedicated volunteers. A hub of creative-minded people, it is a community founded on inclusion, meant to inspire the next generation of tastemakers, artists, and musicians. ShowPaper's poster-sized cover art makes brilliant work by emerging artists accessible, and the offbeat and hilarious horoscopes, classic indie rock dating sidebar, "I Saw U," and, of course, music listings, make it a coveted item; ShowPaper is known to quite a few and loved by those who do.

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Monday 21 August 2009 Lolita Lounge New York 8pm
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Friday 9 September 2009 Lawton, MI Old Hat Brewery Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
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Thursday 8 September 2009 Milwaukee, WI Vnuk's Lounge Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
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Wednesday 7 September 2009 Newport, KY Historic Southgate House Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
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Saturday 3 September 2009 Indianapolis, IN Central Public Library Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
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Friday 2 September 2009Indianapolis, IN Central Public Library

August 2009

2009-07-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 30 August 2009 Youngstown, OH The Lemon Grove Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
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Sunday 23 August 2009 Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World CD Release Show and Fundraiser for Episode # 2-- All Star Lineup Cameo Brooklyn, New York
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FRIDAY AUGUST 14 2009 Venue: On the lawn of Automotive High School
Address: 50 Bedford Ave. @ North 13th St. (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

special show is happening in Williamsburg this Friday, August 14th. Rooftop Films is hosting a screening and special set on the Lawn of the Automotive High School in Williamsburg. Before their annual Home Movie program, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players will play a special set with their vintage slides. More details after the jump:

ROOFTOP FILMS AND VERIZON FIOS PRESENT HOME MOVIES
Short films and video about moments in time, capturing and imagining what it felt like to be there.
OPEN BAR AFTER PARTY FOLLOWING THE SCREENING FOR ALL IN ATTENDANCE

Venue: On the lawn of Automotive High School
Address: 50 Bedford Ave. @ North 13th St. (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
Directions: L to Bedford Ave. or G to Nassau Ave.
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held indoors at the same location
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
9:00PM: Film
10:30PM: Filmmaker Q & A
11:30PM-1:00AM: After-party: Open Bar at Matchless (557 Manhattan Ave.
@ Driggs) Courtesy of Radeberger Pilsner
Tickets: $9 at the door or online at
http://newyork.going.com/event-624864;Rooftop_Films_Home_Movies#
Presented in partnership with: Cinereach, New York magazine, City Council Member David Yassky & Automotive High School
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Sidewalk Cafe's 2009 Summer Antifolk Festival (Aug 7-16)

Celebrating 25 years of semi-annual Antifolk performances (a winter event mirrors the summer one), the festival is a showcase for a diverse cast of talented musicians and spoken-word performers, newcomers and veterans alike. New York City's Antifolk community has been a welcoming launching pad for well-known artists such as Beck, The Moldy Peaches, Jeffrey Lewis, Regina Spektor, Hamell on Trial, and Nellie McKay. The Sidewalk Café has been the scene's proud stomping ground since 1992.
Summer Antifolk Festival 2009 at Sidewalk Cafe

Friday, August 7
7:00 - Domino
7:30 - Amos Torres
8:00 - Max Miller
8:30 - The Telethons
9:00 - Elastic No-No Band & Preston Spurlock Film/Music Spectacular
10:30 - BJ Snowden
11:30 - The Young Dads
12:30 - The Venn Diagrams

Saturday, August 8
6:00 - My Light Sweet Fire
6:30 - Adam Finchler
7:30 - David Greenberg
8:00 - Julie Hill
8:30 - Aaron Invisible
9:30 - Eric Wolfson
10:00 - Brook Pridemore
10:30 - Jason & Rachel Trachtenburg
11:30 - Debe Dalton
12:30 - Crabs on Banjo

Sunday, August 9
6:00 - Dan Asselin Band
6:30 - Maggie Nutall
7:00 - Clinical Trials (feat. Somer)
7:30 - The Zombie Nationalists
8:00 - Max Vernon
8:30 - Annie Crane
9:00 - Destroy Nate Allen (Portland)
9:30 - The Weird Beards (Connecticut)
10:00 - Josh Fox
11:00 - Heroes of the Open End

Monday, August 10
The Monday Night Open Stage with Ben Krieger

Tuesday, August 11
7:00 - Liv Carrow
7:30 - Soce The Elemental Wizard
8:00 - Enid Ellen
8:30 - M. Lamar
9:00 - Herb Scher & The Librarians
9:30 - Brer Brian
10:00 - Huggabroomstik Residency Event w/ Kung Fu Crime Wave
11:30 - Joe Crow Ryan

Wednesday, August 12
7:00 - Elena Dana (UK)
7:30 - Ben Sadock
8:00 - Charles Mansfield
8:30 - The Fools
9:00 - Joe Bendik
9:30 - A Brief View Of The Hudson
10:00 - Dots Will Echo
11:00 - Power Hour! with Swamp Luck
12:00 - The Relatives

Thursday, August 13
7:00 - Jon Berger
7:30 - Bernard King Presents
9:00 - Rav Shmuel
9:30 - The Woog Riots (Germany/Italy)
10:00 - Peter Dizozza
10:30 - Dufus
11:30 - Prewar Yardsale
12:30 - Soft Black

Friday, August 14
8:00 - Nan Turner
7:30 - Elizabeth Devlin
8:00 - The Missing Leech (Spain)
8:30 - Awareness
9:00 - Susan Hwang
9:30 - Wilder Worldwide
10:00 - Power Hour! with Urban Barnyard
11:30 - The Wowz
12:30 - Major Matt Mason USA

Saturday, August 15
7:30 - Charles Latham (Philly)
8:00 - Carl Creighton
8:30 - Brian Speaker
9:00 - Lippe
9:30 - Emily Einhorn
10:00 - Erin Regan
10:30 - Jaymay
11:30 - Daniel Bernstein
12:30 - Crazy and the Brains

Sunday, August 16
5:30 - The Antifolk Scrabble Tournament
8:00 - Level II's Puppet Show Spectacular
9:00 - Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza
10:00 - Larkin Grimm
Talking Stick:
11:00 - Master Lee
12:00 - Mr. Patrick

from
Sidewalk Café; Fri 7–Aug 16

For a quarter century, artists working the margins of New York music have clustered under the Antifolk rubric, a broad scene that keeps a safe haven in the back of the East Village’s Sidewalk Café. As the leather-jacketed warriors parading St. Marks Place have given way to the gentler souls of Bedford Avenue, the Antifolk world has remained a persistent alternative: less a stylistic meeting ground than a free-for-all built from the democracy of the open mike. It is no coincidence that the luminaries sprung from this world—Beck, the Moldy Peaches, Nellie McKay, Regina Spektor—have all been stubborn aberrations, unattached to any larger cultural movement.

Randomly dropping by Sidewalk can be a risky endeavor: Not every performer is the world’s next Beck. A smart time to pop in is during the Antifolk Festival, which takes over the club for a week or so every August. This year’s lineup reflects the breadth inherent to this creative bloc. It includes some reigning stars: Jason Trachtenburg and his daughter, Rachel, of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, perform on Saturday 8, and Larkin Grimm, an astonishingly slanted folksinger, plays August 16. But the festival extends to a raft of oddballs and miscreants who are less heard and worth hearing. Elizabeth Devlin croons brassy dreams over Autoharp August 14, while Debe Dalton presents old-world banjo laments Saturday 8. Talking Stick pairs the singular performance artists Master Lee and Mr. Patrick August 16. There are also singing rabbis, outsider legends and local nuts—watch your back, Bowery Ballroom.—Jay Ruttenberg
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6 Aug 2009 The OH MY GOD GIRLS Hi Christina! Art Space Brooklyn, New York
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NELLIE McKAY Performance Featuring Rachel Trachtenburg and the OH MY GOD GIRLS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5th ,NYC
STARRING singer/song writer, stage and film actress, Nellie McKay and Featuring Rachel Trachtenburg with The Oh My God Girls
FUND RAISER for TONY AVELLA for MAYOR 2009

Where: No Malice Palace
197 East Third St. (Bet. Ave. A & B)
New York, NY 10009

When: 7:00PM - 9:00PM

Light refreshments provided and cash bar available

Please come meet Tony Avella and support him for Mayor 2009!
He's a wonderful candidate who stands up for the good people of NYC and stands up and speaks out for animal protection issues.

Suggested donation is $50 at the door.
Checks may be made payable to "Tony Avella 2009."
Between ave. A & B at 3rd street, 10009

July 2009

2009-05-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday 30 July Sky City, 1157 Broad St $7.00 THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS with special guest LADY BLANCHE

The Trachtenburgs have family message in act
By Steven Uhles| Staff Writer

For Jason Trachtenburg, performing as the father figure in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, the family band he plays in with his daughter, Rachel, and his wife, Tina, means more than merely finding an avenue for his quirky pop style. He sees the group as an instrument for change, challenge, education and artistic inspiration.

Special
Jason, his wife, Tina, and their daughter, Rachel, perform their unusual act as The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. They will be at Sky City tonight.
Click photo for optionsThe group began with Mr. Trachtenburg writing songs to accompany the slides and projector he and his wife picked up at a Seattle yard sale. Incorporating his daughter, first on harmonica and later on drums and ukulele, and his wife rocking the slide projector, he found that the slide shows engaged audiences.

Nearly nine years later, the Trachtenburg's are still at it, traversing the country in a well-packed car, bringing songs and slides to the masses.

During a recent telephone interview, held under possibly clandestine circumstances from a Chapel Hill, N.C. Montessori school ("I am a believer in progressive education. I knew I would find a friendly phone here"), Mr. Trachtenburg, spoke in rapid-fire phrases that circled around a point before diving at moments of crystal clarity. He explained that the Slideshow Players succeed because it transcends and accepts the realities of playing in a rock band.

"Here's the thing," he said. "One plus one plus one plus one always equals four. Guitar, bass, drums -- it's limited. For us, this works in three circular ways. It works as a family unit. It is a mother, father and daughter. It works as a unit looking at families, through these slide. Then there is this unit as a band, as that equation, because we are, still, after all, an indie rock band."

Mr. Trachtenburg said a goal of the act is to present alternate means of engagement that eschew television, a medium he clearly has strong opinions about.

"The bonding process has been manipulated and stripped away by television," he said. "I believe people should do anything besides having others control their reality. It puts us in a place where we can't challenge or grow. That's what the message here is. It's about doing."

Still, the family is also working on a television show featuring Rachel, entitled Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World. There's also a new solo record for Mr. Trachtenburg and Rachel has a new band of her own, the Oh My God Girls, which features teen girls busting out the poppy rock and an occasional hula hoop.

Redefining entertainment, Mr. Trachtenburg said, is only part of the Trachtenburg's goals. He said he hopes it can fund a sense of community.

"It's a three-fold trajectory toward success," he said. "One is financial. We would like to pay our bills, help people that need it and buy a building that we could set up as a community of friends. Part two is getting the word out as lifestyle advocates. The world is in peril and we all need to live healthier lifestyles and a kinder existence. Part three is taking entertainment as we know it to where it is headed. We all love the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but we can do things that have never been done before.

We can move the bar forward and higher."

Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626 or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com

IF YOU GO

WHAT: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, with Lady Blanche

WHEN: 10 tonight

WHERE: Sky City, 1157 Broad St.

COST: $7; skycityaugusta.com

SEE THEM: See the Trachtenburgs at work at www.slideshowplayers.com/.

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Wednesday 29 July Jacksonville, FL@Club TSI

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7/28=Athens, GA@40 Watt
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7/25=Chestertown, MD@Andy's
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7/22=Chapel Hill, NC@Local 506
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7/20=Vienna, VA@Jammin Java

Monday July 20, 2009 at 8:00pm
Jammin' Java

231 Maple Ave E
Vienna, Virginia 22180 Get Directions
Pianist/singer Jason Trachtenburg sings biting, satirical lyrics inspired by slides he digs up at estate sales. His wife, Tina, works the slide projector and his daughter, Rachel, performs on drums and sings backup

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7/18=Asheville, NC@The Grey Eagle

Grey Eagle presents:Trachtenburg Slideshow Players in Asheville
July 18 8PM doors open, Asheville NC, Grey Eagle Music Hall. The Trachtenburgs are a domestic trio (dad Jason, mom Tina Piña, 12-year-old daughter Rachel), who play quirky indie pop songs in the key of un-ironic good, clean fun with one major catch: All the songs carefully rhyming lyrics come from the vintage slide collections they've found at estate or garage sales that accompany their performances. Whats more, from their retro fashion sense to their disavowal of modern conveniences, the Trachtenburgs are a charming relic: a vintage throwback to simpler, more self-sufficient, family-oriented times just like their music. Tickets: $10 advance, $12 day of show. 828-232-5800 or http://greyeagle.musictoday.com
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Friday 17 July 2009 - The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players w/Lost in the Trees - The Milestone Club Charlotte North Carolina
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7/16 R.A. Fountain General Store, 6754 E. Wilson St., Fountain TFSP w/Lady Blanche 7.30 pm $8 for general seating, $10 for reserved seating.

from

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players to perform in Fountain

The Daily Reflector

Friday, July 10, 2009

The Manhattan-based Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players will headline a special Thursday-night show and concert at R.A. Fountain General Store.

The Trachtenburgs have been performing their quirky, anti-folk shows edged with political humor throughout the United States and Europe for eight years.

Jason Trachtenburg describes his family band as “an indie, vaudeville, conceptual art, pop-rock, family slide-show band.” And what he means by slide-show is that the band takes slides of strangers and interprets their lives through music.

Jason sings and plays the guitar and keyboards. His 16-year-old daughter Rachel plays the drums and sings. Mom Tina projects the vintage slides that the family has collected from junk shops and estate sales onto a large screen behind her husband and daughter as they perform.

“This is a big act for a little place like ours. Jason was interested in seeing our venue, and I promised to give them some boxes of slides I've accumulated, too,” R.A. Fountain owner Alex Albright said.

One of the Trachtenburg's most critically acclaimed performances is of a six-song cycle that chronicles a fictionalized meeting at McDonald's corporate headquarters.

“They're pretty hard-core vegetarians, so you can imagine that their take on Mickey D's wouldn't be one Ronald would appreciate,” Albright said. “They're very political, very satirical, definitely not a family bluegrass band. But they have a lot of fun with what they're doing, which is evident in all of their many YouTube videos.”

Opening for the Trachtenburgs is Lady Blanche, a Colorado native who recently abandoned her singer-songwriter life as Tracy Shapiro to take on the new persona. She describes her music as a “melange of punk-twanged Tenacious D-esque compositions, not so ladylike confessionals, and stream-of-consciousness rambles.”

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Lady Blanche are playing in Fountain as part of a Southern tour that also includes the Pour House in Raleigh and Local 506 in Chapel Hill.

If you Go!

What: Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Lady Blanche

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: R.A. Fountain General Store, 6754 E. Wilson St., Fountain

Cost: $8 for general seating, $10 for reserved seating.

Call: 749-3228

Visit: www.rafountain.com

Review from here

What goes along perfectly with watching family slides of people you don’t know and speculating on what their lives are like? You guessed it, a free onion. That’s right, when we arrived at R.A. Fountain on Thursday to watch The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players we were promptly given each a free onion. If that doesn’t sound a bit odd to you, then maybe the Trachetenburg Family Slideshow Players won’t either. The Trachtenburg family consists of a mother (Tina), father (Jason), and daughter (Rachael). The family acquires slides from yard sales and uses a slide projector to project these family slides (of people they don’t know) and make up songs about them, speculating on what the people might be like and how their lives might have been. Curious on how this plays out? Watch this video of when they performed on the Conan O’ Brian Show a few years back.

The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players performed “Look At Me” (the song seen in the above video) at R.A. Fountain on Thursday, however, there were a few more…um…revealing slides included however, that the audience was not expecting.

The group was entertaining and we had a lot of fun. The daughter has her own children’s television show and she performed a few solo songs on Ukulele while her mother animates felt figures on a felt board, creating a music video of sorts. This video shows an example of what one of these felt board songs are like.

Lady Blanche an acoustic folk singer, opened up for the group. The audience enjoyed her song about a friend that wishes for the universe to bring her the perfect man. The song lists all the qualities a perfect man should have. This was the longest song of her entire set. A lady that sat behind us bought a copy of Lady Blanche’s newest album, and I might be mistaken, but it looks like each album comes wrapped in a free pair of men’s briefs??

If you ever get an opportunity to see the Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Players I guarantee it will be a show you won’t soon forget. I will not guarantee however, that you will receive a free onion upon entering the venue. The occasional free onion is just one of those little things that make R. A. Fountain first-rate.
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Wednesday July, 15. The Pour House Raleigh, NC USA
Ticket Price: $8 advance /$10 at door
Doors: 8 pm
Show: 9 pm
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Sunday 12 July 2009 New York City, NY@Solar 1*11:30 AM
& New York City, NY@The Beach at Roosevelt Island*3 PM.Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World + The Beach Puppeteers

The Beach at Governors Island

Travel: 1 to South Ferry, then take the New York Water Taxi from the Battery Maritime Building, Slip 7 | Directions

Prices

Tickets: Free

Description
See above for Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World, which here takes part in this family tribute to the wonderful Maurice Sendak. When

Jul 12 3pm

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7/10=Providence, RI@Firehouse 13
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7/09=Montpelier, VT@Langdon Street Cafe
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7/08=Winooski, VT@Monkey Bar
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7/07=Allston, MA@Harper's Ferry review from here

If you happen to be at a neighborhood garage sale and notice a hipster family gleefully rummaging through boxes full of abandoned family vacations slides from years past, and if this family happens to be composed of a father with Woody Allen-esque glasses, a mother sporting a vintage suit dripping in epilates, and daughter in a turquoise jumper with neon pink tights (perhaps with a tiny Chihuahua tucked under one arm), you are witness to The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. And they are in the process of writing a song.

"This is not your grandfather's slideshow - oh, actually it is" quipped Jonathon Trachtenberg, as he introduced the troupe during their show at Harper's Ferry Tuesday night. In addition to Jonathon, The Players are composed of Jonathon's wife (and slide projector manager), Tina Piña, and 15-year-old ukulele-strumming daughter Rachel. Inspiration for the band's self-described "indie-vaudeville-conceptual-art-rock-slideshow" act emerged from Tina's discovery of a box of vintage slides at an estate sale when the family, now based in New York, was living in Seattle. The band's first hit, "Mountain Trip to Japan" segued into a life of song-writing, performing, traveling, and, you know, making cameos in Moby music-videos.

The audience at Tuesday's show absorbed the performance set up: haphazardly-placed mics, a keyboard, and various percussion instruments arranged on the floor for easy use - all in front of the large projector screen that displayed the slides. The music-making process is simple for this unique family: they visit garage sales, antique stores, anywhere they can rummage through and pick out enticing slides. They then let the slides inspire their rhyming verses; after the verses, they compose the music. The lyrics are simply a description of what appears to be happening in the slide, from McDonald's ad campaigns, trips to Japan, Easter-egg hunting, set to light ukulele, light percussion, keyboard, with folksy vocals reminiscent of The Moldy Peaches or Ingrid Michelson. The result is an amusingly interactive show - question and answer sessions are common, and there is a running dialogue between the family and the viewers. Not surprising, as eventually the Trachtenbergs hope to establish a familial-like following: "I would love something like what the Grateful Dead had...where we could all cook together, sew together, and make music together," said Tina Piña Trachtenberg.

The show is cute for the spectacle it makes itself out to be, but the entire time I couldn't help wondering if Rachel went to school, and how her parents could be comfortable starting the show at 11 pm when they have a tween daughter. Also, the Trachtenbergs went out of their way to convey themselves as members of an indie counterculture, professing vegetarianism, fear of "the digital invasion" of iPods and laptops, and advising the limiting "of cellular phones - they're dangerous," but then wrapped up the show by advertising their Twitter account. Take the kitschy songs at face value folks, laugh at what they are showing you, and then leave.

By Mary Delsener
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Thursday July 02, 2009 The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players & Tammy Faye Starlite & Corn Mo
6:30pm doors | 7pm show
$12 advance | $15 day of show
18+ or accompanied by legal guardian
This is a First-Come, Fully Seated event.
The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players
"We're an indie-vaudeville-conceptual-art-rock-slideshow band," says singer/songwriter Jason Trachtenburg. "We've got the market cornered! There's no band that can hold a candle to us in that department."

The Trachtenburgs are a domestic trio (dad Jason, mom Tina Piña, 15-year-old daughter Rachel), who play quirky indie pop songs in the key of unironic good, clean fun with one major catch: All the songs carefully rhyming lyrics come from the vintage slide collections they've found at estate or garage sales that accompany their performances.

What's more, including their retro fashion sense inspired by Mom Tina, the Trachtenburgs are a charming relic: a vintage throwback to a simpler, more self-sufficient, family-oriented time ... just like their music.

Tina Piña and Jason met at a Greenwich Village open-mic in 1989, and the pair later relocated to Seattle. They had a daughter, Rachel, and ran a dog-walking business while Jason worked Seattle's open-mic circuit. When his eccentric indie pop was failing to find an audience, Tina suggested he augment his act with slide imagery. On a subsequent dog-walking trip with Rachel, she found an old slide projector at a garage sale, and a box of slides from a random family's 1959 mountain trip to Japan.

The next morning, Tina awoke to find Jason had spent the entire night writing a song to accompany the slide presentation - appropriately titled "Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959." Six-year-old Rachel was recruited to play harmonica; (she later moved over to drum duties), Tina was appointed projector operator/backup singer, and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were born.
Tammy Faye Starlite
Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

La Pucelle

And I looked up. He said, Jesus is in your mouth. He said it, and I complied.

And at midnight a cry was heard: Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him! Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.

Oh, genuflect for Jesus Bend in bliss Each rug burn ( He teaches ) A Christ-cherry kiss

Oh come, loved ones, with Him reside Let us all be Christian brides ! With one mind we cannot falter Faith divine lies at the altar

Where we, His connubial congregation, tender holy vestal oblations; Seek we not in vain his approbation -

The gloriole: His vow of conjugation !

His band of gold, a bond of liberation - Hymeneals be sung with exaltation !

Oh chaste ones, let us unite and kneel His rod invites Our God is real

"Tammy Faye Starlite -- named for the television evangelist's wife, Tammy Faye Bakker -- is a nasty girl. In the course of the evening she will peel off her elbow gloves and strip to a chemise so skimpy it brings a blush to her own husband's cheeks. But by that time the faint of heart will have fled. Propriety seldom survives into the second verse of a Starlite song. Her lyrics begin with characters found in all country songs: simple men or women on a bad drunk, in a bad marriage or strung out on divorce or unrequited love. But family values soon turn to incest and the love of God gets downright carnal. Her band, the Angels of Mercy, lay down the sure rhythms and artful guitar fills that country fans love. But anyone who takes the genre too seriously is certain to be burned.

http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view...

Official Site: http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view...7

June 2009

2009-03-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 27 2009 The OH MY GOD GIRLS Tompkins Square Park 2-6pm & 7.30 pm Community Garden 6th St & Ave B Both free

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Friday June 19th & Saturday 20th, 2009 OJ ALL DAY 2009
Olive Juice Music Presents:
The 3rd Annual "OJ All Day"
Real Independent Music Festival
June 19th & 20th, 2009

at the

Broolyn Lyceum
227 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 857-4816

Confirmed acts so far include: Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Dufus, Schwervon!, Wooden Ghost, Sprinkle Genies, Urban Barnyard, Elastic No No Band, Toby Goodshank, Dave End, Kansas State Flower, The Purple Organ, Huggabroomstik, Barry Bliss and Susan Huang.
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Saturday June 13 National Pigeon Day
Noon - 4 pm
Pilgrim Hill in Central Park
New York, NY
(enter on northwest corner of 5th Avenue & E. 72nd Street)
Rachel Trachtenburg will be performing live on Uke
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Friday June 12 2009 Bloodwrestling Fest TONITE! Plus live music and activities. $10 suggested donation. Jessica Delfino performst at 8:30, along with Trachtenburgh Family Slideshow Players, Michelle Leona and MORE!
202 Rivington, no jerks allowed.

May 2009

2009-03-16T07:58:00.003-07:00

Thursday May 21 2009 Jason Trachtenburg + Rachel Trachtenburg

Sidewalk Café

94 Ave A (at 6th St)
East Village | Map

212-473-7373

Subway: F, V to Lower East Side–Second Ave; 6 to Astor Pl | Directions

Prices

Tickets: two-drink minimum

Description
Two of the three Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players—father Jason and daughter Rachel—swing through their old haunt to play solo sets. The show may be slideless, but the fam never fails to entertain. When

Thu 11pm
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Olive Juice's acoustic bbq (May 17) @ Goodbye Blue Monday (1087 Broadway in Brooklyn) USA

Olive Juice Music's third annual OJ All Day Festival will be held this June 19 & 20 in a new location at the Brooklyn Lyceum. You can buy advance tickets here.

Before then, they will be throwing a somewhat poorly timed kick off bbq party, a month before the actual festival. The shindig will take place on Sunday, May 17th from 4pm to 10pm in the back yard at Goodbye Blue Monday (1087 Broadway in Brooklyn - take the J to Kosciusko St Station)

The bbq will feature mini-acoustic sets from Jason and Rachel Trachtenburg, Schwervon!, Wooden Ghost, The Wowz, and Ching Chong Song.

Review here
extract

Rachel Trachtenburg played two songs, one about a black cat and one about a pigeon (if I remember correctly). Rachel played one song at the keyboard and on the other played ukelele and was accompanied by Chris Brodeur on air violin (Chris hummed along while miming the violin playing--it was a kind of charming effect, actually).

Rachel was followed by her dad Jason who played some of his recent hits...I seem to remember "I don't want to tempt.....time." That catchy sensation.
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Sunday 10 May 2009 20:00 Sudra Teatern Stockholm Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
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Saturday 9 May 2009 20:00 Sudra Teatern Stockholm Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
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Friday 8 May 2009 20:00 Garage Oslo Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
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Sunday 3 Hamburg, Germany Pudel Jason Trachtenburg w/Slobbersville
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Saturday 2 Hasselt, Belgium Jason Trachtenburg w/Slobbersville
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Saturday, May 2nd 8pm-12am Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)Best Book Party Ever!"
The Official Party for "Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen"
from Soft Skull Press
Saturday, May 2nd 8pm-12am
Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)
featuring performances by: Reverend Jen,
The Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players,
The Electric Mess, Brer Brian,
go-go elves and more!
free admission, free condoms

Let's face it: Most book parties suck. Bores in tweed jackets eat waxy cubes of cheese while listening to well-behaved writers drone on about their sexless, frustrated lives. Everyone goes home sober and alone at a reasonable hour.

Not at "Best Book Party Ever" the official shindig for Reverend Jen's memoir: "Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen!" It has taken the Rev. many years to get published – years she spent working crap jobs while simultaneously fantasizing about what her book party would be like. Now you, the attendee, get to reap the benefits of Reverend Jen's overactive imagination!

Along with musical performances from The Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players and the Electric Mess, there will be brief and depraved readings from Rev.'s book, elf-eared go-go dancers, a spanking booth, a giant model of the G-Spot for guests to explore, souvenirs ("I Survived the Best Book Party Ever" t-shirts anyone?), live vulva paintings from Lady C, Soul, R&B, and Garage dance tunes from DJ Charles Gaskins (from garagepunk.com), cheap-ass drink specials all night, a male wet t-shirt contest, performances by various art stars and so much more!

Get there early and stay late! A magical night to remember is in store for all

April 2009

2009-02-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

Thursday 30 Krems Jason Trachtenburg w/Slobbersville
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Tuesday 28 Munich, Germany Lothringer 13 Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Monday 27 Castrop-Rauxel, Germany Bahia de Cochinos Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Sunday 26 Wetzlar, Germany Cafe Vinyl Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz

Whilst in NYC Rachel took part in the Swap-a-Palooza full details here

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Saturday 25 Leipzig, Germany Scala Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Friday 24 Masdeberg, Germany Theatre Magdeberg Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Wednesday 22 Hamburg, Germany Hasenschaukel Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Tuesday 21st Rostock, Germany M.S. Stubmitz Jason Trachtenburg w/Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kreutz
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Thursday 16 April 2009 23:00 Sidewalk Cafe - Jason Trachtenburg performs songs from File Under Pop Male Vocal
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Tuesday 7th Brooklyn, NY Club Cameo Jason Trachtenburg w/ Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kruitz
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Thursday 9th, 8pm New York, NY the Studio @ Webster Hall Rachel Trachtenburg with Uni & Her Ukulele and Kiwi comedian Griffin Point.

The Woode

The Woode

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Tues. 7th Brooklyn, NY Club Cameo - 93 N. 6th St., Williamsburg - w/ Ching Chong Song & Phoebe Kruitz
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Friday April 03, 2009 8:00 PM EDT (8:00 PM Doors) at The Bell House Brooklyn NY USA Langhorne Slim with Rachel, Tina and Jason Trachtenburg will all be performing with Langhorne Slim at the BELL HOUSE in Brooklyn, but in solo sets and with felt boards instead of slides!, also featuring THE WOES & SAM LOWRY opening General Admission - $12.00

March 2009

2009-02-10T10:01:00.001-08:00

Saturday March 28 Cambridge Mass. @ Lily Pad - Special Family Show 3pm
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Friday 27 Mar 2009 20:00 Bennington College Bennington, VT.
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Thursday March 26 Somerville, Mass @ P.A.'s Lounge
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Wednesday March 25 Providence, RI @ Firehouse 13
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Monday 23 Mar 2009 20:00 Auction House New Jersey

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Sunday March 22 Philadelphia @ the Fire
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Saturday March 21 -- Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players -- The Boot

We are featuring The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players on Monday March 21st. I first heard about them a few years ago when my friend David Miller released the tribute album Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants. Jason Trachtenburg covered Dr. Worm (along with covers by Self, Frank Black, Steve Burns and This Radiant Boy). David also told me all about the Slideshow Players. They're s a family band, made up of Jason, Tina Piña and their daughter Rachel. They play songs set to slide shows. It's really fun.

The show is Monday March 21st and it's only $8.00. Tickets are on sale here and at http://www.auctionhouseevents.com. Our space is very limited, so we always suggest to buy tickets in advance.

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Friday 20 Mar 2009 20:00 Velvet Lounge Washington DC
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Thursday 19 Mar 2009 20:00 Coffee East Easton MD
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Wednesday 18 Mar 2009 20:00 Otto Bar Baltimore

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Friday 13 Mar 2009 20:00 Detriot Institute of the Arts Detriot 5200 Woodward Ave.313-833-7900

Friday Night Live!
MUSIC:

The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players
7 & 8:30 p.m.
This eccentric and entertaining pop-rock trio sets vintage slides to music with quirky lyrics that provide a hilarious accompaniment to views of American family life. In conjunction with American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell.

DROP-IN WORKSHOPS:

Kites
6–9 p.m
(12 and under must be with an adult)

Learn kite-flying safety tips as you create a simple example using paper, ribbon, string and markers.
Location: Loggia, Student Lunch Area

Drawing in the Galleries for Youth
6–9 p.m.
(Ages 6–14, children 12 and younger must be accompanied by an adult)
Artist/instructors help participants create pencil drawings to take home. No experience necessary; materials provided.
Location: See the This Week at the DIA handout at any Information Desk.

Drawing in the Galleries for Adults
6–9 p.m.
(Ages 15 & older)
Artist/instructors help participants create pencil drawings to take home. No experience necessary; materials provided.
Location: See the This Week at the DIA handout at any Information Desk.

GUIDED TOURS:
6 and 7:30 p.m.
Highlights of the museum tours offered at both times.

+ Friday, March 13, 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
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Wednesday March 11 2009 Shrink free New York USA
superb NYC stand-ups & sketch performers Jason Trachtenberg, The Bitter Poet, Dan Allen, Katina Corrao, E.J. Murphy, and Seth Madej at the free Shrink (8:00 pm),
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Saturday 7 Mar 2009 The Riff Pt. Jefferson Long Island

February 2009

2009-01-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

Friday 26 Feb 2009 North East Kingdom - Jason Trachtenburg with Brittain Ashford Bushwick Brooklyn NY USA
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Thursday 19th February 2009 Anti-Folk Fest Sidewalk Cafe New York USA

9pm Rachel Trachtenburg
9:30pm Jason Trachtenburg
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Tuesday, February 10 2009 Family Time with Jason Trachtenburg
Wacky (but strangely endearing) Jason Trachtenburg performs in Park Slope. $8.
8pm at Union Hall, 702 Union Street
(718) 638-4400
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MONDAY FEB 9th 2009 Street Meat
Uniquely fun Character Comedy Show
Hosted by Heather Fink and Rob Lathan
www.StreetMeatComedy.com
Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St
8pm
FREE
with these great character performers:
- Esther Ku (NBC's Last Comic Standing)
- Eliot Glazer (Urlesque, the Apiary)
- Brooke Van Poppelen and Joselyn Hughes (Chicago, UCB)
- Nick Ross (UCB Harold Team)
AND
- Jason Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players!
Cheap beers and great funtimes.
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Monday 2nd February 2009 Entertaining the Bartender with Jena Friedman Sound Fix Free

110 Bedford Ave (at North 11th St)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Map

718-388-8090

Subway: L to Bedford Ave

delightful comics Heather Fink (co-host of Street Meat), Jason Trachtenburg (Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players), Mike Drucker (SNL, The Onion), Rob Lathan (Conan O’Brien, The Colbert Report, MTV, VH1), David Cope, and singer/songwriter Aprille Goodman performing at a free weekly variety show in Brooklyn hosted by the razor-sharp Jena Friedman: Entertaining the Bartender (8:30 pm),

January 2009

2008-09-27T09:29:00.003-07:00

Wednesday 28 January 2009 Jason Trachtenburg with Duke Special Brooklyn, NY Union Hall
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Saturday 24 January 2009 Rachel Trachtenburg with Care Bears on Fire Brooklyn, NY The Bell House
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Take Back the City In Support of Yetta Kurland for City Council '09
Wednesday January 14 2009 New York, NY Touch Night Club

$40 - Actvist (Student / Low Income)
$100 - Community Organizer (Suggested Donation)
$250 - Watchdog (Includes Champagne Reception with Performers and Yetta )
$500 - Agent of Change (Includes Champagne Reception with Performers and Yetta and Priority seating)
$1000- Visionary (Includes Champagne Reception with Performers and Yetta and Priority seating and Autographed Photo and Yetta)
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Monday January 12 2009 Rachel Trachtenburg
Trivariety New York, NY Lucky Changs
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Saturday, January 10th, 2009 Jason Trachtenburg solo Bushwick. Morgan Avenue New York

from

Off to desolate, snowy Bushwick. Morgan Avenue. Reminded me of the scene from Buster Keaton's "The Frozen North." Looking for the show? Not the random art show on the first floor. The random free variety show in the fourth-floor loft. Good, better, worse. Jason Trachtenberg on an especially off night. Happy for an intermission, an out. Subway back to the frozen north of Manhattan.
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Wednesday January 7 2009 The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, NYC 10012 || 212.614.0505
betw. Bleecker & Houston, across from CBGB's
F or V to 2nd Ave / 6 to Bleecker St.

10:00PM - 1:00AM Sean T. Hanratty presents Theater of Fools w/Jason Trachtenburg, The New York Howl, The Fools and Sean T. Hanratty Live music, a multi-prize free raffle and drink specials. It's magical. Don't miss it! Sean T. Hanratty Presents: Theater of Fools is live music showcase. It's hosted by the incredible BPC Artist in Residence and only two-time Mr. Lower East Side, Moonshine Shorey, who will be at the bar giving out raffle prizes and serving up drink specials all night long.
It is a night of awesomeness not to be missed.

January will feature live music from:

Jason Trachtenburg - http://www.myspace.com/trachtenburg

New York Howl http://www.myspace.com/thenewyorkhowl

The Fools http://www.myspace.com/thefools_lostandfound

Sean T. Hanratty http://www.myspace.com/seanthanratty

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Thursday January 2 2009

WHAT: Rosie Rebel Goes Wild!
WHEN: Thursday 01.02 @8pm
WHERE: Europa Club (98 Meserole St. @Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint, Bklyn.)

PRICE: $5

http://www.europaclub.com

WHY:

It is probably the only chance to catch her before Columbia (yes, University) pulls her back into their jaws for another semester of learning about really important things. Featuring: Some of the Trachtenburg Family Players, Eric Kirchberger and Diane O'Debra, plus your host Rosie Rebel and more… Get some pierogis to soak up the last of Wednesday night’s boozefest and go!

December 2008

2008-09-27T09:29:00.001-07:00

Tuesday 23 December 2008 @9pm Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Bleecker & Houston Sts.)New York USA $3.00

Reverend Jen’s Very Special Holiday Spectacular

Are you trapped in the city this Holiday Season because of a crap retail job? Maybe you're estranged from your family? Or maybe no one loves you? Well it's time to turn that frown upside down because Reverend Jen's Open Mike Holiday Spectacular is here to save the day!!! From 9-10pm there will be an ArtStar Holiday Party—which is sure to suck less than your office holiday party! Bring your own ornament and help decorate The Official Art Star XXX-Mas Tree! At 10pm there will be an Anti-Slam open mike where everyone will get a ten no matter what, as well as some great featured acts (The Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players, Brer Brian and more).
It’ll still be the same wonderfully weird show you know and l-u-v, love. Six minutes to do whatever you want.
Editor’s note: And rumor has it that Carmen Mofongo may be on hand and giving away some of her world-famous homemade Coquito!
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Saturday, December 13th 2008 galapagos~kids! presents: Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade Holiday World Galapagos Art Space 16 Main Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

Two Shows, 12pm & 3pm, $30 family, $15 individual, $7 kids

Rachel and her friends are coming over to share their arts, crafts and new songs. This special Holiday edition will include a lesson in making recycled wrapping paper and much more all with the help of her Mom and Dad. Just in time for the holidays, Rachel will show you all of her favorite hobbies with a beautiful homemade set

Buy tickets here
(Please note: only a limited number of advanced family tickets available-- so get them now!)

THIS EVENT WAS CANCELLED
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Wednesday 3 December 2008 Nerve Centre, Derry, Derry, Northern Ireland
Duke Special with Cashier No. 9, Paul Pilot, The Lowly Knights, Jason Trachtenburg, Aussie comedian and Duke look-a-like Tim Minchin and Paul Currie, the voice of Potto in Sesame Street who’ll be compering the five hour, two-stage extravaganza.
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Tuesday 2 December 2008St George’s Market Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Duke Special with Jason Trachtenburg & Paul Pilot
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November 2008

2008-09-27T09:28:00.003-07:00

Wednesday 26 November 2008 Tea Factory Bushwick Brooklyn, NY 9pm
Jason Trachtenburg is premiering songs
from the forthcoming album called...
Jason Trachtenburg File Under: Pop, Male Vocal.
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Open Mic, Monday November 24, 2008 Sidewalk Cafe New York

from here

Jason Trachtenburg was back with "Everybody Loves the Clown."
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Saturday November 15, 2008 Benefit for Threads that Teach, sidewalk Cafe NYC

from
Jason Trachtenburg

Jason Trachtenburg came on stage with a scarf wrapped around his head, kind of like those bandages you see in old pictures after people left the dentist's office. Jason is very funny and usually spends a lot of time on stage setting up and joking around, which is really part of his act. Last night he said he was going to read some poems, which turned out to be a couple comedic bits, including one about trying to find his chapstick. The shows I've seen of Jason's lately have all featured this song "Everybody Loves the Clown." It's kind of a take off on "Make Them Laugh" from "Singing in the Rain." He'll usually perform it in English and then in some kind of awkwardly rendered translation in another language. After having heard this numerous times now I must say the whole thing is a bit surreal, which come to think of it, maybe is part of the point. Jason also played "All for the Sake of Art," and the ultra-catchy "I Don't Want to Tempt Time," plus a song he wrote with Julie LaMendola called "Giving Kisses." I like the idea of "giving kisses like it ain't nothing."
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+++Not a show+++
Wednesday Nov. 13th City Hall NYC

Join The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players on Wednesday Nov. 13th at City Hall to speak out against Michael Bloomberg's racist rezoning policies! Lets come together and put forth the effort to stop New York City from becoming a playground for the elite. 9:30 am folks! See you There!
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Monday November 10, 2008 Open Mic sidewalk Cafe New York

from
Jason Trachtenburg played All for the Sake of Art and his biggest charting single (as he explains it) Mountain Trip to Japan. I remember Mountain Trip from a performance by Jason at Joe's Pub sometime before I started coming to Sidewalk. I'd read about the Slideshow Players in various publications and decided to check them out at some sort of free gig at Joe's. Unfortunately Rachel was not playing that day (she was in Seattle "on business" Jason explained-she being about 9 years old at the time) but I really enjoyed seeing that song with the whole slide presentation.

October 2008

2008-09-27T09:28:00.001-07:00

Wednesday October 29 2008

LIVE ACTION TV SHOW + ANTI-SLAM
WHAT: It’s The Great Pumpkin, Reverend Jen!
WHEN: Wednesday 10.29 @10pm
WHERE: Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Houston & Bleecker Sts.)
PRICE: $5!
http://www.revjen.com
WHY:
It’s the show that’ll make you wish you still did acid and walked in the door peaking! In Episode Four of Rev. Jen’s Really Cool Neighborhood, the gang gets together to present a holiday classic you won't want to miss. It's Halloween in “The Neighborhood”—time to "bob for ass"—ask the Great Pumpkin for presents! But, will the holiday be ruined when Jen's new freeloader boyfriend, Pig Pen, comes to blows with Jen's BFF, Mr. Clean, (who lives in her closet) while Jen's foreign exchange student, Vlad (who is from the Carpathian Mountains) attempts to give Jen eternal life? Let's hope not!
Written by Reverend Jen, directed by Robert Prichard and starring almost every bona-fide art star around: Reverend Jen, Reverend Jen Junior, Faceboy, The Mangina, former Mr. L.E.S.’s Mike Amato and Moonshine, current Mr. L.E.S., Sven Wechsler, The O’Debra Twins, TPTwin Courtney Weber, Jason Thompson, Rachel Trachtenburg and more…
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Monday, October 27, 2008 Sidewalk Cafe NYC Open Mike

from

Jason Trachtenburg played...hmmm.. I think a song about how every day is somebody's birthday and then sang what he says is going to be his big hit, "I Don't Want to Tempt Time." Jason explained that since it's going to be a hit "I want to get used to playing it every night of the week for the rest of my life." I'll say one thing, it IS a damn catchy number.
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Saturday 25th October 2008 Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World - Galapagos Art Space

Date: October 25, 2008
Hours: 3pm
Ages: All Ages
Price: $7 children; $10 adults; $20 families

Address:
16 Main Street - 541- 788-0901
Brooklyn , NY 11201
www.galapagosartspace.com

Description: Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Players presents a new show, complete with audience sing alongs, puppets, interactive arts and crafts, environmental messages, and cooking segments with snack time.

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September 2008

2008-07-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

Tue 30th September 2008 9 p.m. // Zebulon [258 Wythe Ave, Williamsburg] // Free

Skeleton$ (apparently Skeletons and the Girl Faced Boys changed their name?), Arrington De Dionyso (of Old Time Relijun) and Jason Trachtenburg will fill the intimate Zebulon room with sound tonight. And rejoice: it's free!
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Saturday 27th September 2008 Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players with Pleassesuer & Anamanaguchi @ Knitting Factory New York USA $10
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Tuesday 23rd September 2008 Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Road, London 7.30pm

tickets £10.00 (buy via seetickets from here)
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Monday 22 September 2008 Decorum presents: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players + An Axe + more TBC Bristol Bar Oppo, 72 Park St. £4.00 adv £5.00 on the door

from

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players & An Axe - September 22nd @ Oppo Bar, Bristol!
Decorum Records Presents...
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - An Axe - Monday 22nd Septermber - Bar Oppo, Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5JX http://www.oppomusicbar.com/

Decorum presents a very special performance from the incredible Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
This is a last minute addition to their current UK tour. Playing at cafe and music bar Oppo (72 Park Street), this promises to be an extremely intimate show. To see the Trachtenburg family perform at a venue like this is incredibly rare, and almost unheard of outside the US. You will simply not get another chance to see the Trachtenburg family like this, so make sure you don't miss this one!

Tickets are £4 in adv, and will be available from Bristol Ticket Shop and Here Shop on Stokes Croft from Tuesday. Admission on the night will be £5

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
The Trachtenburgs are a domestic trio (dad Jason, mom Tina Piña, 15-year-old daughter Rachel), who play quirky indie pop songs in the key of unironic good, clean fun with one major catch: All the songs carefully rhyming lyrics come from the vintage slide collections theyve found at estate or garage sales that accompany their performances. Whats more, from their retro fashion sense to their disavowal of modern conveniences, the Trachtenburgs are a charming relic: a vintage throwback to simpler, more self-sufficient, family-oriented times just like their music.

Tina Piña and Jason met at a Greenwich Village open-mic in 1989, and the pair later relocated to Seattle. They had a daughter, Rachel, and ran a dog-walking business while Jason worked Seattles open-mic circuit. When his eccentric indie pop was failing to find an audience, Tina suggested he augment his act with slide imagery.

On a subsequent dog-walking trip with Rachel, she found an old slide projector at a garage sale, and a box of slides from a random familys 1959 mountain trip to Japan. One morning in 2000, Tina awoke to find Jason had spent the entire night writing a song to accompany the slide presentation (appropriately titled Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959). Six-year-old Rachel was recruited to play harmonica; (she later moved over to drum duties), Tina was appointed projector operator/backup singer, and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were born.

The remarkably favorable reaction to the family act was nearly unfathomable. The local press went wild; their coffee house shows boasted lines out the door.

In July 2002 the family relocated to New Yorks East Village and befriended artists like Regina Spektor and Nellie McKay. After being covered by The New Yorker, Spin, EW, the Village Voice, and others, Bar/None released their full-length debut, which showcased Jason singing about topics as varied as enjoying fondue in Switzerland to training employees to work at Wendys. Vintage Slide Collections From Seattle, Volume 1 (2003) was recorded in Seattle before the big move and features guest spots from the citys local stars.

Six months and a lot of DIY-campaigning later they were the first unsigned band to appear on Late Night with Conan OBrien.
'We're an indie-vaudeville-conceptual-art-rock-slideshow band, says singer/songwriter Jason Trachtenburg. We've got the market cornered. Theres no band that can hold a candle to us. In that department.'
www.myspace.com/slideshowplayers
www.slideshowplayers.com

The Trachtenburgs will be supported by An Axe.
An Axe are purveyors of brooding melancholia and dark shanty-pop. Tales of taxidermy and cruel tides from the bottom of the bottle are the order of the day for this Bristol foursome. Simultaneously celebrating and questioning the acheivements of man, An Axe weave dense tapestries with sparse arrangements.

Their songs are cinematic in scope but concise in practice, only too aware that a point laboured is a point lost. An Axe meld the historical with the personal, utilising horrorshow keys, ramshackle percussion and chiming guitars
www.myspace.com/anaxe
For more details on this show please see: www.myspace.com/decorumrecords

Be sure to dress sharp.
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Saturday 20th September Theatre Royal Bath UK

Direct from the USA
Presented by The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players
Saturday 20th September
Starring American Indie Rock Star Rachel Trachtenburg14 year old American indie rock star and TV host Rachel Tractenberg host this wacky new variety show direct from the USA. Featuring Syd Barrett covers, puppets and organic cookery against a animated felt background!

Rachel’s unique show has been referred to as “Martha Stewart for kids” and “a psychedlic Seasame Street”

Running Time 50 minutes
Ages 2 – Adult
Tickets: £7 / £5 discounts
Performance Times11.30am & 3pm
www.puppetcraft.co.uk

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Friday 19th – Saturday 20th September 2008 Theatre Royal Bath
Direct from the Soho Theatre
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players describe themselves as an “indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band”. Part stand-up comedy, part rock group, part art project, they’re unlike anything you’ve seen before.
Jason Trachtenburg makes music that tells the story of hundreds of vintage slides found in junk sales across the US and Europe. His wife Tina randomly selects the slides for each performance, making this unique show a spontaneous, madcap, weirdly chraming one-off, brought to Bath from the quirkier side of the U.S.A.
“They give a deeply warm feeling of a happy family, enjoying each other’s company … They are the White Stripes’ quirky cousins and a totally unique, Vaudevillian act that should be nurtured” - Stage“You will never see a show more weirdly wonderful” - MetroTickets: £11/£8 discounts
Buy Online from 21st July
Performance TimesEvenings: 8pm

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THU 18TH SEP, 2008 8.00pm £9.00 BRIGHTON OIB RECORDS @ THE HOPE
OIB Records Presents:

THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
"NYC's Tratchenburg Family return to play a super intimate festival warm-up. Expect their usual quirky blend of indie-vaudeville slide-projection-pop-songs"
www.myspace.com/slideshowplayers

+

THE BOBBY McGEES
"No-fi vaudeville pop-shanties"
www.myspace.com/thebobbymcgees

+

MARCUS HESSENBERG AND THE TULIPS
"Ukulele inspired lo-fi pop"
www.myspace.com/tulips
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Friday September 12 2008 Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
New York Tea Factory-Bushwick USA
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Thursday September 11 2008 Jason Trachtenburg - Zombieville # 8
Brooklyn Southpaw USA

Zombieville XII Featuring Jason Trachtenburg, The Extraordinaires, Miracles Of Modern Science and Shellshag @ Southpaw

Here is the 12th installment to this great showcase of music! This time Jason Trachtenburg from the Trachteburg Family Slide Show, The extraordinaitres, Miracles of Modern Science and Shellshag(house band) will be taking the stage. It is going to be a great show! ALSO get there on time and you will receive free cookies! Which is neat! Also Six point brew on tap will be two for one for all the people that don't get excited about free cookies!

@Southpaw
Location: 125 5th Ave (map)
Starts: 8 Pm
Cost: ?
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Saturday September 6 2008LES Howl! Festival, Tompkins Square Park, New York Free

1.00 p.m. Middle Collegiate Choir
1.30 p.m. Blonde Boy Wilson with On Davis
1.40 p.m. "Bang the Drum for the Brothers,"J. Fitzgerald creates a dazzling spectacle of rhythm and rhyme.
2.05 p.m. TIMBILA
2.25 p.m Baby Soda
2.45 p.m. Tin Pan
3.05 p.m Reverend Billy
3.25 p.m. Trachtenburg Family
4.05 p.m. Becky Wreck
4.20 p.m. Ari Up's Slits
5 p.m. THE COCKETTES and the Thrill Peddlers
6 p.m. The House of HOWL PRESENTS THE HOUSE OF BON VIVANT'S BALLHOUSE TRIBUTE

August 2008

2008-07-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday August 30 2008

WHAT: Anna Copacabanna Goes Back 2 School
WHEN: Saturday 08.30 @10pm
WHERE: Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Bleecker & Houston Sts.)
PRICE: $8
http://www.myspace.com/annacopacabanna
WHY:

Our fave Aussie blonde buttercup is back with an all-new show! Starring Anna and house band The MG 5, plus the legendary Anna Copacabanna Dancers, The Homosexuals, Rachel Trachtenberg’s Homemade World, Hula Hoop Harlot Melissa Anne and Lady Starlight. Plus, The Wheel Of Wonderment, Yacht Rock, Tumbling, The Revenge Of The Nerds, Corporal Punishment, prizes, drink specials and more!
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Wednesday, August 27th, 10 p.m Reverend Jen's Waggytail Rescue Benefit and
Open Mike Spectacular!
Featuring the Trachtenburg Slide Show Family, Rob Paravonian and more!
Wednesday, August 27th, 10 p.m.
Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)
take the 'F' to 2nd Ave. or the '6' to Bleecker
musicians, writers, dancers, performers, comedians and freaks welcome!
(Though this is a benefit for doggies, please leave yer doggie home!)
Five Dollars

Do you love animals, crazy open mikes and music? If so, then you don't want to miss Rev. Jen's Benefit for Waggytail Rescue (http://waggytailrescue.com/) a local dog rescue that's saved thousands of dogs (including Rev. Jen Junior's fiancé, Taco.)

There will be an Anti-Slam open mike where everyone will get a ten no matter what as well as some great featured acts (The Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players, Brer Brian, Rob Paravonian and more…) I will keep you posted as I add other performers.

It'll still be the same wonderfully weird show! Open Mike slots will be available (6 minutes to do whatever you want.)

For over 12-years, the Anti-Slam provided audiences with some of the best entertainment the city has to offer. Pros and amateurs alike shared the stage, and both were given equal respect and a place to try out new things. This special event is sure to bring out some of the great acts that have performed at the show in the past. Come early because it's gonna be mayhem!
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Sunday 20 August 2008

WHAT: Goodbye Rosie: Rosie Rebel’s Last Show
WHEN: Sunday 08.24 @7pm
WHERE: Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Bleecker & Houston Sts.)
PRICE: $6
http://www.myspace.com/rosierebel
WHY:
Last year she was a Mo’s Ho from Radical Vaudeville and now she’s off to Columbia…University. So make sure you catch what may well be her last show for quite awhile as she features some of her fave performers: Joey Gay, Furious Murl, Tina & Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Touching You and Steph Sabelli, plus some surprise dancers. And it’s just a short walk to Steph’s Underground Sundae Open Mike afterwards!
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Fortified Summer Anti-Folk Fest presents
Jason Trachtenburg performing songs from the new album,
"File Under: Pop, Male Vocal."
Fri 15th, 9pm Sharpe New York
Sidewalk Cafe

6:30
Screening of "Making Lovers & Dollars"
A film by Justin Remer
------
Brian Speaker-7:30pm
Ben Sadock-8:00pm
Linda Draper-8:30pm
Jason Trachtenburg-9:00pm
Erin Regan-9:30pm
Lach-10:00pm
The Bowmans-11:00pm
Brook Pridemore-Midnight
Isaac Gillespie-1am
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Saturday 2 August 2008 Rooftop Films @ The Yard presented by Sound Fix Not Available , Brooklyn, New York Cost : $9

July 2008

2008-06-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Jason Trachtenburg

Jason Trachtenburg is a New York City based professional male entertainer who flawlessly combines the elements of music, comedy, poetry, socio-political observations and health and fitness advice into an unparaleled half-hour of showmanship.Jason is best known for his recurring role as "the Dad" in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, the world's first and only indy-vaudville conceptial art-rock traveling family slideshow pop band. Come to the show and live and learn.

"The Trachtenburg's are the most original, uplifting, charming, peculiar and downright hilarious thing I have seen in a very long time" Time Out London

Sun 27 July 2008 SHARP The Shack, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, IE
CARLSBERG COMEDY CARNIVAL
JASON TRACHTENBURG/FREEZE
MC JOHN LYNN
THE COMEDY FACTORY
THE IVEAGH GARDENS, D2.
SUN 27-JUL-08 3:00PM SHARP
http://www.ticketmaster.ie/event/180040B3E4FF33D9

SAT 26-JUL-08 8PM SHARP The Shack, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, IE
CARLSBERG COMEDY CARNIVAL
JASON TRACHTENBURG
DAVID MCSAVAGE
THE SHACK
THE IVEAGH GARDENS, D2.
SAT 26-JUL-08 8PM SHARP €20.00
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/180040B3E114335E?artistid=966207&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=51

Today, Thursday 19th June, a collection of thirty five pop-art inspired illustrations of many of the international and Irish comedians performing at the Carlsberg Comedy Carnival were unveiled at an exhibition at No. 15 St. Stephen''s Green. The illustrations have been specially commissioned for the four-day Carlsberg Comedy Carnival, which is taking place from 24th to 27th July in the Iveagh Gardens, and set to be one of the most exciting events on the summer festival calendar.

The unique illustrations feature many Irish and international comedians set to a variety of colourful backgrounds. The illustrations can be seen in the press advertising from today, Thursday 19th June, onwards and will also be on display in Vicar Street from 20th June for comedy fans to see. To mark the first day of the Carlsberg Comedy Carnival, on Thursday 25th July, the illustrations will be moved to the stunning setting of the Iveagh Gardens and installed in the Comedy Factory as part of the venue''s bespoke pop-art inspired interior.

The Carlsberg Comedy Carnival will play host to over 65 International and Irish acts, playing 50 shows over one unique carnival weekend. These will be performed in four magnificent, fully-seated, purpose-built marquees, including the impressive and atmospheric Iveagh Theatre tent, the Comedy Factory, the intimate Shack and the stunning Magic Mirrors Palace, a Spiegeltent, which is being shipped in from Belgium.

Speaking about the illustrations, Stephen O''Kelly, Marketing Manager, Carlsberg said, "The comedian illustrations are very colourful and exciting pieces and we''re confident that comedy fans are really going to like them.

The display of the Collection in the Comedy Factory will attract a lot of interest and create a memorable experience for festival-goers, as they see their favourite comedians presented in a unique way."

Festival Director, Bren Berry, Aiken Promotions said "The comedians really like the pop-art inspired illustrations of themselves, and it’s really exciting for us to create artwork which reflects the unique colourful character of the Carlsberg Comedy Carnival. We''re looking forward to displaying them at Vicar Street before we move them on to the Comedy Factory at the Iveagh Gardens in July. The Collection highlights the diverse line up from all over the world performing in this wonderful secret garden, and will be an added attraction at the event."

Carlsberg Comedy Carnival will showcase a diverse range of well known, alternative and up-and-coming talent, including Des Bishop, Louis C.K., The Tommy & Hector Show, Lee Mack, Ardal O''Hanlon, The Stars of ''Whose Line is it Anyway'' with special guest Phill Jupitus, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, John Cooper Clarke, Jason Byrne, PJ Gallagher, Reggie Watts, David O''Doherty, Maeve Higgins, Reginald D. Hunter, Adam Hills, Apres Match, Phil Nichol, John Bishop, Danny Bhoy and many more. It will also feature a lively array of performance artists, musicians, good food and refreshments in a vibrant, carnivalesque surrounding.
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Monday July 14 2008 Club Europa 8-104 Meserole Avenue in Greenpoint. New York USA
8.00 pm free show

Rachel Trachtenburg's 4 song presentation with
ukuleles and illustrated felt boards by Tina Pina.
Jason Trachtenburg will perform 2 songs and tell a few jokes.
Show starts at 8pm.
Rachel will be on at 9:30.
Jason will be on at 8:10.
There will be many interesting acts and performers inbetween.
Free Show !!!
Club Europa 98-104 Meserole Ave in Greenpoint
G train to Greenpoint

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Thursday July 10 2008 Cafe 939 Boston

The Trachtenburgs are a domestic trio (dad Jason, mom Tina Pia, 12-year-old daughter Rachel), who play quirky indie pop songs in the key of unironic good, clean fun with one major catch: All the songs'™ carefully rhyming lyrics come from the vintage slide collections they've found at estate or garage sales that accompany their performances.
*STANDING ROOM ONLY*

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET
US $13.00

Internet Onsale Info
Onsale to General Public:
Tue, 07/01/08 10:00 AM EDT

CAFE 939 PRESENTS
THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY
SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
CAFE 939 AT BERKLEE
939 BOYLSTON ST. BOSTON
THU JUL 10 2008 8:00PM
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I Heart U July 9th Sidewalk Cafe New York

It’s a lot of fun covering heroes like Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley and Rush, but some of the nicest cover moments occur when a local artist pays homage to a peer. It happens a lot on Monday nights. Brook Pridemore is famous for doing this; he released an entire record of peer-to-peer coverage last year. On July 9, the Sidewalk presents I Heart U. It’s a night where everyone taking the stage picks a song or two by a peer they admire. Currently slated to play: Jason Trachtenberg, The Fools, Mike Baglivi, Benjamin Shepherd, The Telethons, Jaymay, Ben Krieger, Andrew Hoepfner, M. Lamar, Dan Costello, Carl Creighton, Debe Dalton, Brian Speaker, Isto, Major Matt Mason USA, Stephanie Nilles, Dan Fishback, Miwagemini, Vin, David Greenberg, and Daniel Bernstein.

June 2008

2008-05-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players June Tour
with Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World:

Sat., 28th Brooklyn, NY Market Hotel w/ Belaire, Vivian Girls
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Thurs., 26th Easton, Md. Coffee House
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Tues., 24th St. Louis Bluebird
featuring: Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (NY), Everthus the Deadbeats (IN), tba
Doors: 8:00 PM
Cover: $12.00 adv/$14.00 dos +$2 minor surcharge
all ages
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Sun., 22nd Minneapolis Turf Club

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Touching You
Dana Thomspon w. Nate Dugan and Mick Wirtz

9:00 | $7
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Sat., 21st Chicago Abbey Pub

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Bad Flirt
The Alarmists
Doors open at 8:00pm, show starts at 9:00pm

Tickets are $12.00 in advance

THIS IS AN 18 AND OVER EVENT
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Thurs., 19th Detroit Magic Stick MI
GENERAL ADMISSION
US $8.00

Internet Onsale Info
Onsale to General Public:
Wed, 05/28/08 10:00 AM EDT

TRACHTENBURG FAMILY
SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
ALL AGES
MAGIC STICK
4120 WOODWARD, DETROIT
THU JUN 19 2008 DRS 8PM

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/080040B786352BB2?artistid=1226396&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=32
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Wed., 18th Rochester Bug Jar

From
ALTERNATIVE: Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (6/18)
By Jen Graney on Jun. 11th, 2008
The Trachtenburgs are more traveling family circus than band. The trio stages shows that mix bright pop songs with found vintage slides and colorful gypsy-like outfits. Mama Tina Pina runs the projector (with the help of a lap dog or two, if I remember correctly from a show at the Dryden a few years back), daughter Rachel plays the drums (she's played in the band since she was 6; she's 14 now, and has her own television show), while dad Jason sings and plays guitars and keyboards. It's a visual and auditory delight punctuated by family banter, such as when (at the Dryden show) Jason wanted to play a song Rachel didn't; the father-daughter tension was palpable and endearing.

The show goes on Wednesday, June 18, 8 p.m., at the Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Ave. $10-$12. 454-2966.
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Saturday June 7 2008 Jason Trachtenburg performs songs from
Jason Trachtenburg File Under: Pop, Male Vocal.Sidewalk Cafe New York

Jason Trachtenburg performs songs from
Jason Trachtenburg "File Under: Pop, Male Vocal"
Live at the Sidewalk Cafe Sat June 7 at 9pm sharpe
Free Show-Moderately Enforced 2 Drink Min.
New York City East Village
6th St and Ave A
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Monday June 2 Bug Jar Rochester Jason Trachtenburg "All of this Time" tour
with Ching Chong Song

Located @ 219 Monroe Ave Rochester, NY

May 2008

2008-03-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Jason Trachtenburg "All of this Time" tour
with Ching Chong Song

Saturday 31 May 2008 Toronto-Tranzac
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Thursday 29 May 2008 Thunder Bay, Ontario.-Apollo Bar
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Jason Trachtenburg & Ching Chong Song
with opening guest, Riley.

Wednesday 28 May 2008 Winnipeg Royal Albert Arms
Cost : $8.00
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Tuesday 27 May 2008 Minneapolis 7th St. Entry

The Entry 8:00 PM / 18+

JASON TRACHTENBURG (OF THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SIDESHOW PLAYERS)
and CHING GHONG SONG

$7.00 advance / $7.00 door
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Monday 26 May 2008 Chicago The Dark Room
Weird Kids Night 3
featuring Jason Trachtenberg (of the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players + Ching Chong Song

WEIRD KIDS NIGHT 3
TEENSPLOITATION SUMMER BEACH PARTY
WITH JASON TRACHTENBERG
OF THE TRACHTENBERG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
CHING CHONG SONG

WITH HUMP DAY MOBILE UNIT DJ'S
DJ Dr. Drase
DJ Michael Flavor
DJ Arpad
DJ Magic Unicorn

Darkroom
2210 W. Chicago
Chicago, IL 60622

Doors open: 8:00 PM
Age restriction: 21+
Ticket Price: $10.00
Service Fee: $2.50

Hump Day Dance Party Presents: Weird Kids Night 3: Teensploitation Summer Beach Party at the Darkroom
We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Memorial Day and usher in the beginning of summer than by playing the best teen and weirdo beach party tunes we could find.
Expect to hear all sorts of blanket bingo jams from the 60s and beyond. Annette Funicello, Elvis, and tracks from campy B films like Wild Guitar! will all surely make an appearance for your watusi and frugging enjoyment.
This time around we’re joined by Jason Trachtenberg of the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow players and Ching Chong Song from Brooklyn.
The show takes place on Monday, May 26th at 8pm @ Darkroom
Darkroom is located at 2210 West Chicago between Damen and Western
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Sunday 25 May 2008 Cleveland Beachland Ballroom

8 PM (7:30 PM door)
Jason Trachtenburg
(of Trachtenburg Family Slideshow players) / Ching Chong Song / Aunt Eater & Tony Meda Project
$8.00
Tavern | All ages

Jason Trachtenberg, Ching Chong Song, Aunt Eater and Tony Meda Project.

Trachtenburg's musical career began in the late '80s in New York City, where he was part of the Lower East Side's anti-folk and performance-art scenes. In 1992, he moved to Austin, TX, where he worked with Daniel Johnston on music and video projects.He also formed the band the Pancakes With Cheese while in Austin.

He relocated yet again to the Pacific Northwest in 1993 to collaborate with Chris Ballew of Presidents of the United States of America. Ballew produced Trachtenburg's early recordings in Seattle, including 1993's Let the Fishes Do the Asking and 1996's Lefty's Black Bag, which was co-produced by Conrad Uno of Pop Llama.

In 1999, Trachtenburg released Your Favorite Song. His folky, lo-fi acoustic songs instantly gained him favorable attention from Seattle music fans and from the Orange Recording Company, who released his Revolutions Per Minute album in 2000. The quirky songs on the album finally garnered Trachtenburg the national attention he'd always deserved. Topics on the album ranged from cellular phones to nutrition to auto insurance and toothpaste. It was during this era that his live shows in Seattle with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players included his six-year-old daughter on drums, while his wife Tina served as projectionist of the band's slide show.

~ Stephen Cramer, All Music Guide
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Saturday 24 May 2008 Pittsburgh Garfield Artworks

from New York City featuring the frontman of the Family Slideshow Players
JASON TRACHTENBURG AND JULIE LAMENDOLA (http://www.myspace.com/trachtenburgandlamendola)
with Ching Chong Song (from Brooklyn) and Buddy Nutt
8 pm
[note: advance tickets available from the local opener, and from Eide's Entertainment, Dave's Music Mine, Paul's CDs, Caliban Books, Wicked Discs, and The Exchange Squirrel Hill.]
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Friday May 23 2008 North By North West Philadelphia
FRIDAY night, starting @ 10pm,
JASON TRACHTENBURG
performing live in concert! Come in early for dinner & take advantage of our specials starting at 5pm!
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Wednesday May 21 2008 Emo's Austin, TX Doors Open: 8pm Show Starts: 10pm
Emo's

603 Red River
Austin, Texas
30.2666, -97.737
Category
Performing/Visual Arts
Description
Pianist/singer Jason Trachtenburg sings biting, satirical lyrics inspired by slides he digs up at estate sales. His wife, Tina, works the slide projector and his daughter, Rachel, performs on drums and sings backup. Belaire is a synth-prog-pop band from Austin, TX.
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Sunday May 18 2008 12 Galaxies San Francisco $10 adv/$12 door 9pm 21+
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Friday May 16 2008 El Cid Los Angeles Opening for Sounds of Asteroth 21.30
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Kate Nash Tour Continues

Tuesday May 13 San Francisco The Fillmore 8.00 pm US $22.50

from nme.com (note spelling mistake)
The singer goes all out on the final night

Kate Nash concluded the first-ever NME Awards USA Tour in Los Angeles last night (May 14) by playing a marathon set for a packed house of adoring fans.

Wearing a brightly coloured floral-print dress, the singer got things jumping from her very first song, 'Pumpkin Soup', which she ended by slamming on her piano.

Looking far more self-assured than at her first LA gig at the Troubadour a few months ago, Nash got the crowd at the Henry Fonda Theatre dancing and singing along from the very beginning of her nearly two-hour set.

"Hi LA, thanks for coming out," Nash said. "This is the last night of our tour and I'm pretty sad really. But let's have a fucking good time."

Nash was backed by a four-piece, all-male band and played beneath a sign with her named spelled out in pink neon letters as her boyfriend Ryan Jarman from The Cribs and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols looked on.

"The next song is a quiet one so shut up, please," Nash said before playing the romantic ballad 'Nicest Thing', and the audience complied.

The evening also saw Nash and her band singing 'Happy Birthday' to a girl in the audience called Mariella, before playing her song of the same name.

Nash invited Rachel Trachtenberg, the 14-year-old drummer from opening band The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players, to beat on the skins for a couple of tracks.

Later, toward the end of her set, Nash stopped her hit song 'Foundations' dead in the middle to prevent bouncers from ejecting Trachtenberg from the side of the stage.

"I know it's not professional but she's in the band, she's not leaving," Nash said.

Before wrapping up with a four-song encore that included a cover of Diana Ross' 'Baby Love' and the rousing punk romp 'Model Behaviour', Nash thanked her band and crew, saying, "I'm getting a bit emotional now," as she pretended to wipe tears from her eyes.

Kate Nash played:

'Pumpkin Soup'
'Shit Song'
'Stitching Leggings'
'We Get On'
'Birds'
'Nicest Thing'
'Seagulls'
'Dickhead'
'Pick Pocket'
'Do Waa Do'
'Paris'
'Skeleton Song'
'Mariella'
'Mouthwash'
'Foundations'
'Baby Love'
'Don't You Want To Share The Guilt?'
'Model Behaviour'
'Merry Happy'

video of incident here

Rachel sings Pigeons

Another review fron here

Went to Kate Nash last night at the Henry Fonda - and it was quite lovely mostly, minus all the freaks of nature. I am one so I'm not hating, they are just awkward, but anyway... Here is the review I wrote.... (yes, I have a problem stopping writing. no, I do NOT use paragraphs)

Kate Nash is known as a singer songwriter so in touch with her inner awkward girl. That is one of her major appeals that has won her so much success here in America and in the UK. However, that brings out all the really awkward freaks or the 14 year old girls who never go to concerts and get really excited – which was fun, but I really felt that the crowd was quite annoying and had patches of people jumping around annoyingly. Overall, the show was fantastic – if you could ignore the crowd.

The opening band was a “concept band” called the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Player. They basically go out to garage sales and estate sales and the like and purchase dead people’s old slideshow albums. Then they write songs that sort of tell a story using the slides – which is definitely interesting and funny, but also it’s also weird to see dead people’s slides! But that is just the kind of band they are. They are also a family. They are comprised of an awkward dad with glasses, a quiet mom, and an awkward daughter with really long hair and an adorable smile. They are really fun and interactive, as the Dad said, “The fourth wall is down! And it ain’t going back up!” They were really awkward and adorable and quirky, which did get a bit irritating overall, but was quite endearing at the same time. The songs were simple and adorable, and they seemed really happy to be on tour with Kate Nash with the Trachtenberg father even exclaiming, “Kate is one of the greatest vocalists of our time and one of the most natural melody smith’s ever.” Kate actually joined the Family Slideshow Player onstage for a song, but she was introduced as Barbara – as if no one would know! They were a fun band, though not sure that I’d go see them again but their set went by quickly in a haze of awkward conversation and cute songs.

The last time I saw Kate (way back in January!) were at Amoeba Records and the Troubadour – both venues that are quite a lot smaller than the Henry Fonda. She stormed on stage with a bigger band than she brought last time, but all of the band were the same except the new guys – keeping Elliott on drums and Jay on guitar. She started with “Pumpkin Soup”, “Shit Song”, and “Stitching Leggings” – playing up the “kid pounding on the piano” act that she plays up during live shows. Then she played crowd favorite “We Get On”. Then she got up and picked up her acoustic and strummed through crowd favorites “Birds” and “The Nicest Thing”. She then picked up a little seagull that the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Player made for her and explained how she hated seagulls and launched into a newer song (on her electric guitar) called “I Hate Seagulls”. “I Hate Seagulls” is basically a testament to what Kate likes and what Kate hates, including “rude ignorant bastards”, but the song doesn’t fall flat because of the extreme personal nature of the song, because Kate picks out quirky things to focus on which is what makes her songs great. The last time I saw her she basically switched from acoustic guitar to piano and back about every 3 songs, but this gig she really picked up the acoustic and led the way with the guitar as opposed to the keyboard melodies that drive her album forward. She played another new song, “Pick Pocket” which had her on acoustic but was backed by the full band. “Pick Pocket” started out slow, as many of her songs do, but really picked up the tempo and got more intense until the close of the song. Next, Kate actually put down the guitar and picked up the mic for a song called “Do Wah Do” which is a play on that old fifties song that everyone knows the words and the title to, except for me, which was really adorable, but the song quality wasn’t the same as most of the songs on “Made of Bricks”. Nash then moved back to the keyboard for “Skeleton Song” and “Mariella”, which the crowd had been jonesing for during the entire show. I mentioned before the freaks that showed up to Nash’s final date on the NME Awards tour, and one of them who was supposedly actually called Mariella screamed out for Kate to play her Happy Birthday! Little did she know that Elliot loves birthdays so the whole band geared up and sang happy birthday to the so-called “Mariella” in the crowd. If that isn’t odd enough, an older woman bum rushed closer to the stage and ended up next to me dancing wildly, hands waving. She then proceeded to chug from her flask, which I didn’t disapprove of, and then yelled at me for writing down the set list on my phone! She tried to get me dancing by tickling me, and then was finally settled down by me screaming that this was my 3rd time seeing Kate Nash and that I didn’t really need to jump around. Oh, the freaks! Kate finished off her set by running through Mouthwash and “Foundations” – but “Foundations” was interrupted when a security guard tried to make the daughter (Rachel) of the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Player leave the photographers pit. Kate stopped the song and yelled at the guy saying, “Fuck that! Rachel’s not leaving! You can’t make her leave!” which was sweet and endearing, I mean the girl was 14 years old – totally harmless. She then restarted “Foundations” and it seemed the entire crowd was singing along. For the encore, which was one of the longest one’s that I’d witnessed in a while consisted of a cover of “Baby Love” – even though Kate didn’t know all of the lyrics, and a new song that I’d never heard before. Then she played her new song “Model Behaviour” with the chorus of “You don’t have to suck dick to succeed”. The song is pretty intense with Nash screaming and shouting into the microphone and twirling and jumping about – her floral dress twirling around. She ended with “Merry Happy” which literally 300 people had been screaming out for, which was lovely. Nash maintained her normal vocal gymnastics and ended the show looking like a kid fussing with her keyboard but it was quite endearing.

So after the gig, I met YET ANOTHER FREAK OF NATURE and he asked for an interview about Kate Nash and the gig, and I obliged (fame whore??) but I look like hideous and sound like a man. YUCK. but it's fuckin' hilarious!
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Sunday May 11 Portland Wonder Ballroom 8.00 pm US $17.00 WONDER BALLROOM IS NON SMOKING & WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE. CAFE WONDER OPEN FOR DINNER & COCKTAILS
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Friday May 9th Seattle Showbox At The Market
Showbox and 107.7 The End present
NME AWARDS TOUR 2008
KATE NASH
THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
$17.50 ADV / $20.00 DOS & at the door
Doors at 8pm - All Ages

Showbox at the Market - 1426 1st Avenue

review here

Kate Nash, the tart-tongued British pop star, and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, our very own prodigal sons (and daughter), kept things off-kilter all evening. However, while both acts enjoyed terms of endearment, they too often left the capacity crowd, to quote Nash's "Mouthwash" lyrics, "singing 'uh oh' on a Friday night."

At the very least, the Trachtenburgs, who moved to New York City, proved that the family that plays and projects slides together, stays together. Mom, pop and daughter (drummer Rachel, now 14) have been providing soundtracks to found (bought, actually) slide collections for eight years now.

Their shtick still seems more suited to Hokum Hall than to a rock club, but the family has added amusing new wrinkles. Rachel sang the precious "Pigeons" while playing ukulele, and for the appropriately childlike "Let's Go on Tour With Kate" the Trachtenburgs were backed not by slides, but by live felt-board, um, artistry.
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THURSDAY MAY 8 2008 Vancouver Richard's On Richards Cabaret 8.00 pm CA $20.00 No Minors! Must be 19 & older with valid government ID to attend.
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Wednesday 7 May (Not with Kate Nash) Sunset Tavern Seattle with special guests TBA - $10 advance / $12 day of show. Buy tickets HERE 21+ only, please
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Monday May 5 Boulder Fox Theatre
97.3 KBCO & THE COLORADO DAILY Present
KATE NASH with THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
Doors: 8:00 PM /Show: 8:30 PM
Ages: All Ages $18.00
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Saturday May 3 Minneapolis First Avenue Main Room 6:00 PM / 18+

89.3 THE CURRENT PRESENTS.. KATE NASH
"NME Awards Tour"
With THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS

$15.00 advance / $15.00 door

review & pic from here
First up was the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, the “world’s first indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band” hailing from Brooklyn, New York. The Slideshow Players really are the Trachtenburg family – dad Jason, who bears a striking resemblance to Rick Moranis circa Ghostbusters, mom Tina, and 14-year-old Rachel, a very talented drummer in her own right.

The shtick of the Trachtenburgs is to take slides that once belonged to dead people they didn’t know – “various deceased strangers” - and then write songs about them. The songs were funny, but would lose all meaning and enjoyment without the accompanying slideshow, run (sometimes not quite successfully) by Tina. The whole thing reminded me of Dr. Fünke’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band Solution from Arrested Development, which is to say that it’s cute on television but a little disturbing in reality

review from here

It was unofficial Cute Night on Saturday at First Avenue, as the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players opened for Kate Nash. A family act featuring a keyboard-pounding dad, a tambourine-slapping mom, and a 14-year-old daughter on drums? Cute. A 20-year-old British redhead in platform heels who coos lyrics about beautiful birds in front of a pink neon sign bearing her name? Cuter. An encore uniting the two acts for a rendition of the Supremes’ “Baby Love”? Cutest!

For more information about Kate Nash: myspace.com/katenashmusic. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: myspace.com/slideshowplayers. Upcoming shows at First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry: first-avenue.com.

You can make a good musical career out of being cute, but fortunately, neither of these acts will need to. Newcomer Nash is on her first U.S. tour, supporting her debut album Made of Bricks. She’s often compared to her Brit peer Lily Allen, with whom she shares an independent spirit, a wicked sense of humor, a pop sensibility, and dangerously low bangs…but whereas Allen revels in a party-girl persona, Nash proudly described herself storming out of a party to write lyrics like “you don’t have to suck dick to succeed,” the chorus of an unreleased rave-up she performed on Saturday. To me, Nash’s performance recalled the young Natalie Merchant: a coy, demure, and slightly prim songstress who comes uncorked as she belts her confessional lyrics.

Reviews of early shows in Nash’s American tour reported that Nash seemed occasionally unsure of what to do with herself onstage, but by this point in the tour she seems to have learned how to make that touch of awkwardness work in her favor. With her nervous smiles and game banter (in response to a shout of “Marry me!”, she asked, “Have you even met my dad?”), she reminded us that we were watching a live performance by an actual human being. Besides running through Made of Bricks, she performed a few appealing new songs that suggest its follow-up is unlikely to evidence a sophomore slump.

As for the Trachtenburgs, they may be the perfect opening act—for Nash or for anyone. Performing off-kilter pop songs that serve as soundtracks to displays of slides scavenged from estate sales and thrift shops, the Trachtenburgs had the crowd cheering and giggling. Paterfamilias Jason Trachtenburg is set to return to First Ave (well, the Entry) on the 27th for a show sans family, sans slides…but his daughter Rachel’s charming ukulele-driven song about pigeons (her mom handled the feltboard illustrations) suggested that she may be the Trachtenburg to watch.

Jay Gabler is the Daily Planet’s arts editor.
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Friday May 2 Chicago Vic Theatre 07:30 PM DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM US $20.00

review here
Whether rocking out or reflecting, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players' quirks were on display throughout its opening set. And though folk art songs such as "Beautiful Dandelion" initially intrigued, they quickly grew tedious.

another review here

To say that the warm-up act was bizarre is to totally and utterly miss the mark. The world’s only “indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band” has to be the one and only, because there just is not room for two bands of this kind in the universe. They are a family group, whose 14 year old daughter, Rachel, first joined them on stage at six, playing the harmonica. Their unique selling point is that their songs are written to describe slide-shows. They buy slides from estate sales or flea markets and proceed to project the slides on stage while they sing about them.

From our vantage point, they didn’t really seem to be holding the crowd too well. As a grumpy old person, I thought they were fascinating. And then they sang another song about a slide-show. And another. And they all sounded a bit similar. In 2006 Time Out New York described them as impossibly twee. Their reviewer was ultimately converted, but the poor Trachtenburg Family Slide-show Players* were thwarted in their attempts to win me over by the bathroom ceiling leaking on me towards the end of their set.

April 2008

2008-03-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

from nme.com

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players join North American tour

Kate Nash is set to be joined on the US NME Awards Tour by support band The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, NME.COM can announce.

The self-styled "indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band" will join Nash as the British touring fixture – which has given breaks to the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand in the past – heads to North America for the first time.

See Slideshowplayers.com for more information on the band.

The tour is taking place to celebrate the NME Awards moving across the Atlantic for the first time, with this year's ceremony to be held at Los Angeles' El Ray Theatre on April 23.

More information on the NME Awards 2008 can be found in NME.COM's dedicated US Awards section.

Kate Nash’s NME Awards Tour visits the following venues:

Wednesday April 30, 2008 07:00 PM Detroit St Andrew’s Hall US $17.00
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Monday, April 28 Toronto The Phoenix
Tickets: $17.50
Available at
TICKETMASTER: online @ ticketmaster.ca or by phone 416-870-8000
ROTATE THIS: By phone: 416-504-8447. 620 Queen St. West
THE HORSESHOE TAVERN: By phone: 416-598-4753 . 368 Queen St. W.
Doors open @ 8:00 pm ALL AGES

review here

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Wednesday 23 & Thursday 24 April New York City Webster Hall Doors 7pm $20.00

review & pics

The felt board from the Kate Nash Tour Theme!

The most successful Family Slideshow band in history did not disappoint tonight! They were quirky, funny, & brilliant and once again delivered a great set and left me definitely wanting more. They are 100% worth showing up early for and they have a bunch of cool merch that you should check out if you go see one of the shows as it's not available anywhere else!

couple more pics from here

Another (Wednesday) review here

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Monday, April 21 Boston Paradise Rock Club 08:00 PM $20.00

Saturday, April 19 Philadelphia Trocadero 08:00 PM $15.00
All tickets are general admission standing room only -- NO chairs !!

full review here

another review from here

Anyway, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players opened up for Ms. Nash.

I consider myself a fairly open-minded guy. But I have no idea what the hell is wrong with the Trachtenburg Family.

The band is made up of three non-related members playing the parts of a family. The drummer is a 14-year-old girl named Rachel. The "mother" operates a slideshow while "daddy" plays guitar and keyboard.

The band takes photo albums from the 1960s, '70s, and writes songs based on these pictures of random strangers. Then, while playing live, the slideshow matches up with the lyrics in the song.

And the lyrics are quite literal. If we see a picture of a fish, we're hearing a fish lyric.

I have no idea what the hell is wrong with the Trachtenburg Family.

I guess this is art, right? Like, if I ever wanted to look smart in front of someone, a future employer, a scientist, a foreign dignitary, I absolutely plan on casually mentioning I listen to the Trachtenburg Family.

And then I casually plan on accepting their kudos.

Here's "Look at Me" by The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and "Pigeons" by the girl-wonder drummer, Rachel T.

Friday, April 18 Towson Recher Theatre 08:00 PM $15.00

Thursday, April 17 Washington DC 9:30 Club 7:30PM

Wednesday, April 16, 9:00 PM EDT (8:00 PM Doors)$15.00 9:00 PM EDT Asheville The Orange Peel

Tuesday, April 15, 8pm $15.00 Atlanta Variety Playhouse Atlanta
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Saturday 5th April 2008 8:00PM
GLUBDUB anniversary party with art show and SPECIAL GUEST,
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players & Anna Copacabanna Asbury Lanes ASBURY PARK, NJ

"MR. ROGERS" GONE WILD
Trachtenburg Family show is a sight to see

The term "alternative" usually is a misnomer in rock 'n' roll, but that's not the case when it comes to the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

The theatrical, quirky, creative unit of singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist Jason Trachtenburg, his wife, Tina, and their 14-year-old daughter, drummer Rachel, is unlike most other rock acts, especially when it comes to live performance.

Jason Trachtenburg, who writes songs inspired by offbeat slides his spouse finds at estate sales or flea markets, views all of the critical praise as left-handed compliments.

"To call us great onstage is nice, but it doesn't mean as much as it could because there is no showmanship in rock 'n' roll anymore," he said while calling from his Manhattan apartment. "We're more entertaining than all of the other bands in rock combined. We're different (from) any other band."

The group, which will make its Asbury Park debut Saturday at Asbury Lanes, is unusual but above all, a family.

"You can't forget about that," Tina Trachtenburg said.

The Trachtenburg parents formed the group eight years ago in Seattle. Daughter Rachel is the act's evolving wildcard. She has morphed from a novelty to a respected entity.

"It's about time that that's happening," Jason Trachtenburg said. "She's not a little kid anymore. She's a musician."

The Trachtenburgs' lone child is learning to make art for arts sake.

"I just think you need to make the best music that you can and realize that it's unlikely that it's going to be a hit," Jason Trachtenburg said. "Rachel understands that. The bully wins out in entertainment. Intellectuals are marginalized in this business. That's something that hasn't changed and won't change, but you can't stop making music. I know we're not going to be a huge success, but I'm having as much fun as I can doing this."

Part of the fun for the Trachtenburgs is that there always seems to be a filmmaker documenting their music.

"I think there's been at least six documentaries shot about us," Tina Trachtenburg said. "We just can't say no to anyone who wants to make a movie about us."

The most important visual production involving the Trachtenburgs is "Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World." The show, which is in production, will run on the band's Web site and is being shopped to networks.

"It's a wild variety show/"Mr. Rogers'-type program for those (age 2) and up," Tina Trachtenburg said. "It's Rachel's venture, and it's so entertaining. There (are) puppets who come to life, and it's just all-around entertaining."

March 2008

2008-03-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

Saturday March 15th 2008 Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World"
(formerly the Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show) 1:45 p.m.
Auditorium Shores Stage (Lady Bird Lake) (Riverside Dr & S 1st St)

Hit Sheet Magazine (UK) Party @ Momo's 618 W. 6th Street Suite 200

Austin, TX 78701
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Thursday, March 13th 2008
Sarathan Records Party Noon-5pm
@ Friends Bar (208 East 6th Street)
12:00 Abra Moore (Sarathan Records)
12:45 Peter Bradley Adams (Sarathan Records)
1:30 Jason & Rachel Trachtenburg (Sarathan Records)
2:15 Two Loons for Tea (Sarathan Records)
3:00 The Ettes
3:45 Feral Children (Sarathan Records)
4:30 War Tapes (Sarathan Records)
RSVP: sxsarathan08@gmail.com
sarathan.com/ecards/SXSW2008

review from here

Jason and Rachel at SXSW
Jason and Rachel were awesome at South by Southwest. Rachel did a solo song with ukulele (along with a felt board display by Tina), both of them did a few songs together, and Jason did some solo acoustic guitar stuff, including a very interesting cover of "She Loves You." I've posted my photos on Flickr.

February 2008

2008-01-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

More than 50 songwriters, musicians, bands, spoken word artists and other performers from the world of Antifolk will take the stage of Sidewalk Café (94 Avenue A, NYC. Club Phone: 212-473-7373) for the 2008 Fortified Summer Antifolk Festival, running February 19-29. The Festival provides the opportunity to tap into a cross section of the creative and expressive musical community centered in the East Village. Now in its 23rd year, Fortified Entertainment, an entertainment company run by Lach, presents the Antifolk Festival.

Wednesday Feb.27 2008 7:30-Brian Speaker, 8-Brownbird Rudy Relic, 8:30-Isto, 9-Poez, 9:30-Debe Dalton, 10-Eric Wolfson and The War Cabinet, 11-Jason Trachtenburg and The National Distractions Sidewalk Cafe New York USA
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Sat 23 FEB 2008 The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002, 3pm $12.00

Miss Trachtenburg, the young yet veteran drummer in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, launches a sure-to-be-fun variety show that she debuted in London and now takes to her hometown. How can this not be interesting? (Note that not only is this an all-ages performances, but kids are encouraged to come!)

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Sunday, February 10, 2008 The Khyber Philadelphia USA

Bob Wiseman Hanging a label on Bob Wiseman is an effort not worth undertaking. By the time you get around to setting a boundary to what it is that he does, it no longer applies. He is an idiosyncratically unique performer who has always remained true to his artistic vision. An award winning pianist (he can play 5 Cs simultaneously) and song-writer who accompanies live on the accordion, guitar or casio - little films he writes featuring guests Feist, Sara Harmer or Scott Thompson of Kids in The Hall. Unfortunately Warner Canada chose to destroy their first pressings (2,000 copies) of his debut release "In Her Dream" , as lawyers deemed his political songs libelous, yet precisely for his songs he won the 2007 "Lifetime Achievement" award from CBC Radio 3. He has also been the recipient of 5 Juno awards (The Canadian Grammys), 3 NOW Magazine Peoples' Choice Awards, Q107 Radio Best Keyboardist Award and sits on the board of directors for both the Blocks Recording Club (the only Musician owned and run co-op in the world) and TAIS (the Toronto Animated Image Society).

Jason Trachtenburg and The National Distractions
Mem of Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

Charles Latham "The heir to the KY Jelly fortune, Charles Latham blew his inheritence on a massive underground bunker, which he stocked with low-grade instruments, recording equipment, liquor and ready-meals. Since it was completed he has released an album a year, most of which have disappeared into obscurity."

8 PM $7 21+

Upstairs:
Khyber Drink Special!
The Strawberry Mansion DJs
9 PM
$10
21+
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Saturday February 9 2008 Pete's Candy Store NYC USA
La Pieta 9pm
Bob Wiseman 10pm
Jason Trachtenburg 11pm

Also The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show
Valentine episode
Different friends, new snack, new craft. Wear red. 45 Bleecker St between Mott and Mulberry Sts East Village USA 3.00 pm $12
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Saturday February 9 2008 STRAIGHT UP VAMPIRE:

A musical history of vampires in Colonial Pennsylvania.

8 pm-10.00 pm $10

Bowery Poetry Club,
308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston, NYC

It’s 1763 and there are vampires in Philadelphia.

Paula Abdul Blackwood is a beautiful young quaker girl being forced into marriage with the wheelwright’s son.

Jack Sheridan, a politically idealistic young vampire, is the man she loves.

Everywhere there is dissent. Fractious parties debate the future of the colony.

MC Skat Kat and Benjamin Franklin vie for power in the Assembly.
_______

A touching, informative, and spooky musical hayride through fake American history, set to the music of Paula Abdul, as performed by the likes of CORN MO, THE O’DEBRA TWINS, JASON TRACHTENBERG, THE PIZZAS, and more. . .

Learn about the history of vampires in Philadelphia while crying because you are so moved by the plot in this staged reading of a new jukebox musical
from my sister’s dead friend.

written by Paige Greenwald (RIP)
as
reconstituted by Nick Jones, Zak Vreeland and Peter J. Cook

directed by Peter J. Cook

music arranged and performed
by Dr Steamwhipple and the Prescriptions

with performances by
Magin Schantz
Jason Quarles
The O’Debra Twins
Members of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang
Jason Trachtenberg
Megan Stern
Aziza Omar
Justin Noble
Zak Vreeland
Draeregano
and Corn Mo as Benjamin Franklin

produced by Nick Jones
_______________________________________

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, btwn Bleecker and Houston
NYC

(The Halloween Romance Returns for Valentine's Day!!)

You may lie awake at night and think, Why hasn’t anyone made a jukebox musical based on the hits of Paula Abdul? Oh, but they have: Just in time for the Valentine’s season, Corn Mo, the O’Debra Twins, Jason Trachtenberg and the Jollyship the Whiz-Bang crew revive their horror-musical about young Quaker Paula Abdul Blackwood and the idealist bloodsucker she gives her heart to in colonial Pennsylvania

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Fri 8 February 2008 STRAIGHT UP VAMPIRE:

A musical history of vampires in Colonial Pennsylvania.

8 pm-10.00 pm $10

Bowery Poetry Club,
308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston, NYC

It’s 1763 and there are vampires in Philadelphia.

Paula Abdul Blackwood is a beautiful young quaker girl being forced into marriage with the wheelwright’s son.

Jack Sheridan, a politically idealistic young vampire, is the man she loves.

Everywhere there is dissent. Fractious parties debate the future of the colony.

MC Skat Kat and Benjamin Franklin vie for power in the Assembly.
_______

A touching, informative, and spooky musical hayride through fake American history, set to the music of Paula Abdul, as performed by the likes of CORN MO, THE O’DEBRA TWINS, JASON TRACHTENBERG, THE PIZZAS, and more. . .

Learn about the history of vampires in Philadelphia while crying because you are so moved by the plot in this staged reading of a new jukebox musical
from my sister’s dead friend.

written by Paige Greenwald (RIP)
as
reconstituted by Nick Jones, Zak Vreeland and Peter J. Cook

directed by Peter J. Cook

music arranged and performed
by Dr Steamwhipple and the Prescriptions

with performances by
Magin Schantz
Jason Quarles
The O’Debra Twins
Members of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang
Jason Trachtenberg
Megan Stern
Aziza Omar
Justin Noble
Zak Vreeland
Draeregano
and Corn Mo as Benjamin Franklin

produced by Nick Jones
_______________________________________

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, btwn Bleecker and Houston
NYC

(The Halloween Romance Returns for Valentine's Day!!)

You may lie awake at night and think, Why hasn’t anyone made a jukebox musical based on the hits of Paula Abdul? Oh, but they have: Just in time for the Valentine’s season, Corn Mo, the O’Debra Twins, Jason Trachtenberg and the Jollyship the Whiz-Bang crew revive their horror-musical about young Quaker Paula Abdul Blackwood and the idealist bloodsucker she gives her heart to in colonial Pennsylvania

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Thur February 7 2008 STRAIGHT UP VAMPIRE:

A musical history of vampires in Colonial Pennsylvania.

8 pm-10.00pm $10

Bowery Poetry Club,
308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston, NYC

It’s 1763 and there are vampires in Philadelphia.

Paula Abdul Blackwood is a beautiful young quaker girl being forced into marriage with the wheelwright’s son.

Jack Sheridan, a politically idealistic young vampire, is the man she loves.

Everywhere there is dissent. Fractious parties debate the future of the colony.

MC Skat Kat and Benjamin Franklin vie for power in the Assembly.
_______

A touching, informative, and spooky musical hayride through fake American history, set to the music of Paula Abdul, as performed by the likes of CORN MO, THE O’DEBRA TWINS, JASON TRACHTENBERG, THE PIZZAS, and more. . .

Learn about the history of vampires in Philadelphia while crying because you are so moved by the plot in this staged reading of a new jukebox musical
from my sister’s dead friend.

written by Paige Greenwald (RIP)
as
reconstituted by Nick Jones, Zak Vreeland and Peter J. Cook

directed by Peter J. Cook

music arranged and performed
by Dr Steamwhipple and the Prescriptions

with performances by
Magin Schantz
Jason Quarles
The O’Debra Twins
Members of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang
Jason Trachtenberg
Megan Stern
Aziza Omar
Justin Noble
Zak Vreeland
Draeregano
and Corn Mo as Benjamin Franklin

produced by Nick Jones
_______________________________________

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, btwn Bleecker and Houston
NYC

You may lie awake at night and think, Why hasn’t anyone made a jukebox musical based on the hits of Paula Abdul? Oh, but they have: Just in time for the Valentine’s season, Corn Mo, the O’Debra Twins, Jason Trachtenberg and the Jollyship the Whiz-Bang crew revive their horror-musical about young Quaker Paula Abdul Blackwood and the idealist bloodsucker she gives her heart to in colonial Pennsylvania

January 2008

2007-12-31T03:10:00.000-08:00

Sat 26 Jan 2008 The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002, 3pm $12.00

Miss Trachtenburg, the young yet veteran drummer in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, launches a sure-to-be-fun variety show that she debuted in London and now takes to her hometown. How can this not be interesting? (Note that not only is this an all-ages performances, but kids are encouraged to come!)

review:

On the Scene: The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show
Jan 28, 2008, 02:48 PM | by Alisa Cohen

Categories: Concert Reviews, Kids' Corner, Morning Madness, Music

If Rachael Ray pulled a Network and slipped some anti-corporate-America sentiments in between her "Yum-O!s," her TV series might look a wee bit like The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show, a kid-friendly, progressive-parent-approved variety show in downtown Manhattan. (Well, at the very least, both shows do have snacks, crafts, and special guests…) I first caught 14-year-old Rachel's band, the indie-vaudeville Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, about five years ago, playing at a shoebox-y theater with a then-unknown Regina Spektor. Back then, Rachel (pictured) could barely reach her drum kit, but she made her presence known with her winningly off-the-cuff comments and chirpy-sweet singing voice. So when I heard she was putting on a show of her own, I figured it wouldn't be your typical children's hour. Right I was.

The purple octopus who offered me a balloon on the way in was my first clue. After he danced an awkward jig, I overheard him admit to another audience member, "I never realized how complicated it is to be an octopus." It was that kind of freewheeling, glimpse-behind-the-curtain quality that summed up the show. Sets fell down and science experiments fizzled the first time around, but I'm firmly in the camp that prefers charming goofs to robotic perfection. "You heard there's a writers' strike! I don't think so. This is 'A' material, people!" joked manic dad Jason as he helped Rachel and wife Tina do the weather report on a felt board. (Despite the name-branding, the RTMS is still a family affair.) And much of the material did kill, based on the hearty, knowing response from the adults in the crowd, including actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale), who told me he owns all of the Slideshow Players' CDs.

Performance artist Reverend Jen gave gentrification a childlike spin with a puppet show about the sale of Manhattan for $24. "Smallpox, dysentery, cholera, malaria, and whiskey" were just a few of the "gifts" bestowed upon the Native American puppet — who was promptly replaced by a dead Native American puppet. A hilariously deadpan magic-mushroom puppet, voiced by comic Master Lee, dissed David Copperfield and hinted at the meaning of life. Australian/vegetarian go-go dancer Anna Copa Cabanna and her sequin-wearing male dancers (no doubt moonlighting as understudies in the Broadway production of Xanadu) cautioned against cellphone use via a lilting little musical number. But the award for most whacked-out political performance went to death-metal enthusiast T.Y. (link contains some non-kid-friendly language), who didn't even remotely try to candy-coat his segment for the kiddies. "Can you say 'Super Satan,' boys and girls?" he asked while holding up a hand-drawn picture of Rudy Giuliani.

Lest you think said kiddies sat with their chins in their hands while their parents laughed and laughed, there was plenty to keep the under-8 set enthralled. They traipsed after roller-skating Rosie Rebel, who led a workout with construction-paper weights to the tune of "Eye of the Tiger," and giggled at Seagull the puppet, a Scottish bird fond of eating its "cousin," General Tso's chicken. (Of course, the bird appeared to be the only meat-eater on stage. The snack du jour: organic popcorn with vegan butter.) If I could relive my kindergarten days (and I wouldn't mind, if only for the mandatory naptime), I'd probably be right up there in the front row, dancing around to Rachel's ukulele. Some might call it indoctrination; I call it an entertaining way to spend a Saturday.

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Fri 18 Jan 2008 20:00 Ching Chong Song CD release w/ Jason Trachtenburg and the National Distractions, The Wowz, and Creaky Boards at Sound Fix Records 110 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11211 USA (718) 388-8090
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sat 19 Jan 2008 The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002, 3pm $12.00

Miss Trachtenburg, the young yet veteran drummer in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, launches a sure-to-be-fun variety show that she debuted in London and now takes to her hometown. How can this not be interesting? (Note that not only is this an all-ages performances, but kids are encouraged to come!)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thur 17 Jan 2008 The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002, 9.30pm $12.00

Miss Trachtenburg, the young yet veteran drummer in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, launches a sure-to-be-fun variety show that she debuted in London and now takes to her hometown. How can this not be interesting? (Note that not only is this an all-ages performances, but kids are encouraged to come!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sat 12 Jan 2008 The Rachel Trachtenburg Morning Show The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002, 3pm $12.00

Miss Trachtenburg, the young yet veteran drummer in the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, launches a sure-to-be-fun variety show that she debuted in London and now takes to her hometown. How can this not be interesting? (Note that not only is this an all-ages performances, but kids are encouraged to come!)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 1 2008 The Green Room
45 Bleecker, manhattan at lafayette, NYC, 10002
Cost : $6

Super-Show Every New Year's Day, traditionally your cultural choices for this day off (a Tuesday this time) are the two giant all-day poetry readings, so finally this year there'll be an alternative: It's the Super-Show. Over 50 acts, featuring some of NYC's most insanely talented maniacs in the fields of comedy, music, video, acting, and hard-to-describe shit. Help us remind people to drink lots of water before they go to bed on December 31 (to avoid hangovers) and then party harder at this clusterfest! Confirmations from: Juggernut, Reverend Jen, Seth Herzog, Puppies Hold Hands, Mike Dobbins, Goatslayer of Uber Luber, Diane ODebra as Murder, Jessica Delfino, the Vox Illuminati, Howling Vic, Rob Latahn, Mike Amato as Mormon Surprise Is Mormon Delicious, Livia Scott, Mike Raphone as the Megalomaniac, John F. ODonnell as Shard, David Jenness as Barry Agida, Dr. Steamwhipple of the Pizzas, Rob Shapiro, the Bitter Poet, Rosie Rebel, Jason Trachtenburg, Peter Mavros of Bellmer Dolls, the Fools, Dame Darcy, Touching You, Tom Ritchford, Chuck Funk, Bohemaphelia, Erick Kirchberger, Kelli Rae Powell, and more. The Green Room,45 Bleecker, Manhattan 1p-midnight.$6

2007

2006-12-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Thur 27 December 2007 Jason Trachtenburg and the National Distractions at The Sidewalk Cafe NYC, USA 11pm

Fri 21 December 8:00 PM EST (8:00 PM Doors) Paul Robeson Theater Brooklyn, NY The Jason Trachtenburg Pop Conception, Christina Courtin and Jigsaw Soul

Gen Admission - $10.00

Thur 29 November - Sat 22 December 2007 Jason Trachtenburg stars in A Christmas Carol as Scrooge at Sanford Meisner Theatre New York USA

PERFORMANCES
Thu - Sat at 8pm; Sun at 5pm; also Dec 17 at 8pm; no perf Dec 8, 9

TICKETS
$12 and up
212-352-3101

Vortex Theater Company presents a new rock musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. This description is from the press materials: "Set in modern day North Carolina during a December heat wave, this is a frightening vision of A Christmas Carol that explores Dickens's original themes of greed, social responsibility, and redemption within a contemporary setting. Not the miserly old misanthropic archetype, but rather a modern day twist on Scrooge--a corporate philanthropist who must examine what it means to do good in a country faced with environmental destruction and corporate domination."

Sat December 8 Crocodile Cafe 2200 2ND AVE Seattle USA-$10adv/$15dos
Doors 8pm/ Show 9pm
JDUB RECORDS & TAGLIT-BIRTHRIGHT PRESENT:
"THE 8" FEATURING:
TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS
GOLEM
And GUESTS

Mon December 3 The Back Room 102 Norfolk Street(between Delancey St & Rivington St) New York City, NY 10002 USA

1745.

Charles Edward Stewart, a zealous Scottish prince better known by his nom de plume Bonnie Prince Charlie, flees British captors in a daring pursuit across the Scottish Highlands. The evasion succeeds all the way to the border, thanks to the kindness of harboring clans along the way. To repay the favor, he leaves with one family a treasured royal secret -- a recipe.

2007.

Nearly 300 years later, the secret of that recipe is still intact, and the concoction, which you know as Drambuie, is still brewed by the same family.

This Monday, December 3rd, join Myopenbar and Drambuie for a celebration of well-kept secrets, risk, rebellion, and adventure.

Here's the plan: look for the hidden entrance and meet us at the Back Room. With its working candlestick phone, curious serving vessels and roomy split-level lounge, you'll think of Prohibition times, when fun shit was even more fun because it was banned and risky.

First things first, grab one of the complimentary Drambuie cocktails, which will be aplenty. Then settle in with some chi-chi hors d'oeuvres. Doppleganger MCs Andrew Andrew will lead you through the rest:

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players entertain you with their delightful take on family values

Julie Klausner sings and ruminates about geeks

Most importantly, this is also your last grab at winning the Drambuie Pursuit prize, an all-expenses paid journey for you and your own clan, retracing Bonnie Prince Charlie's infamous path across the Scottish Highlands.

RSVP to myopenbar.com/lastchance for entry.

Sat. December 1st @ 12 pm (noon) @ THE GREEN ROOM
45 Bleecker St @ Lafayette 6 to Bleecker, B/D/F/V to Broadway-Lafayette, R/W to Prince Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show $12; $20.50/ two tickets (use code "green241")

Tina and Jason (Mom and Dad) take a back seat on this one and let Rachel, their 13-year daughter (and drummer of the TFSP) boldly lead the show. It's a one-hour journey adapted from her real-life experiences in the endlessly creative community she's raised in. The RTMS is an inspiring show full of live music accompanied by felt board stories, handmade puppets, audience sing-alongs, a weather forecast, interactive arts and crafts, environmental messages, and cooking segments, all on a 60's retro D-I-Y set. The show will also feature guest appearances by some of Rachel's older friends: local artists and performers who stop by to share their own talents along the way. There's an overall theme here: encouraging young people to think outside the box. Each member of the audience will be supplied with their own goody bag of art supplies so they can participate in the interactive parts of the show…and there are many, so be prepared to get creative

promo video avalible here

Fri 27 November 2007 Myopenbar Chicago Presents: The Drambuie Pursuit

The wayward offspring of the New York Internet darling Myopenbar.com, Chicago Myopenbar offers their devoted readership an exclusive evening of entertainment, refreshments, and the chance to become intimately acquainted with Scottish whisky Drambuie at an all-night open bar.

Party-goers will have the opportunity to sign up for the ultimate adventure: The Drambuie Pursuit, an all-expenses-paid race across Scotland in April 2008. The Pursuit is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that retraces the legendary origins of Drambuie in 1745, when a zealous Scottish prince fled from captivity across the Highlands, imparting the secret recipe for Drambuie to a clan chieftan. 300 years later, the secret is still intact, but the drink is known world-wide.

The evening's entertainment comes direct from New York via MCs Andrew Andrew, live performances from such NYC notables as The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Gabriel Kahane. Add to this the novel cocktails mixed up by Drambuie, plus a parting gift bag bursting with goodies from your favorite Chicago businesses, and Myopenbar guarantees everyone a rip-roarin' good time.

Free with RSVP to myopenbar.com/drambuie.

Fri November 9 2007 Jason Trachtenburg Solo Sidewalk Cafe New York USA

8-Otis, 9-Tom Clark, 10-Jason Trachtenburg (of The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players), 11-Darwin, 12-Level Two

Mon October 29 2007 Karma 51 1st Ave New York USA 8:00pm - $15

London Calling: Liam's European Tour Kickoff! w/ The Daily Show's John Oliver, The Onion's Todd Hanson, Jason Trachtenburg, Leo Allen, more...

picture from

more pictures available here

Thur 11 October 2007 Jason Trachtenburg solo The Glasslands Gallery (289 Kent Ave. btw. S 1st & S 2nd Sts.,
Williamsburg, Bklyn.) New York USA 9 pm $6.00

Art Star superstars the O'Debra Twins host a fun and fabulous night of music,
sketch and comedy at this newly reopened experimental community arts space.
First on the lineup is folk duo A Brief View of the Hudson, (our fave real blonde
Ann Enzminger and the equally fave Nick Nace) who have gained quite a
reputation for their imaginative blend of traditional folk style with a modern edge.
Next, indie darling Jason Trachtenburg of the world-renowned Trachtenburg Family
Slideshow Players, going solo, sans family and slideshow. Last, but certainly not
least, Gato Loco will rock the show until the early hours of the morn. This brass-
centered band features Stefan Zeniuk of The NY Howl on saxophone and Tuba Joe
on, well, the tuba. Plus, a full bar

Sat 6 Oct 2007 Jason Trachtenburg Band Sidewalk Cafe New York New York USA

featuring Soft Black.Jason Trachtenburg, David Peel& the LES

soft black is a beautiful catastrophe. one of the most influential groups in the current wave of nyc antifolk. simple and sophisticated. angry and apologetic. lead by the bipolar, vincent cacchione, soft black recall moments of acoustic beck, nirvana unplugged, early VU, and mid 70's dylan.

soft black performs regularly at the sidewalk cafe (avenue a + 6th street). they are performing at midnight on saturday october 6th alongside east village legends david peel and jason trachtenburg.

Mon 24 Sep 2007 Sarah Lawrence College Bronxville, NY

Mon 17 Sep 2007 Pace University White Plains, NY Bronxville, NY

After the Edinburgh shows the Trachtenburg's bring both shows to the Soho Theatre in September 2007

Opening for them will be Jessica Delfino

All shows start 9.30pm

30 Aug–1 Sept
In advance: £10
On the door £12.50

4–15 Sept
In advance: £15 (£12.50)
On the door: £17.50 (£15)

From website

The world’s foremost indie-vaudeville, conceptual art-pop, travelling family slideshow rock band.

Using found slide collections gathered from garage sales and charity shops, the lives of
anonymous, deceased strangers are turned into hilarious pop-rock musical exposés.

‘They are the most original, uplifting, charming, peculiar, and downright hilarious thing I have seen in a very long time.’
Time Out

Thur 30 Aug 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk
9.30 pm

Fri 31 Aug 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Sat 1 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Plus Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning show 11.00 am £10 (£8)

Mon 3 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Tue 4 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Wed 5 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Thur 6 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Fri 7 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Sat 8 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Plus Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning show 11.00 am £10 (£8)

Mon 10 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Tue 11 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Wed 12 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Thur 13 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Fri 14 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Sat 15 Sep 2007 Soho Theatre London Uk

Plus Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning show 11.00 am £10 (£8)

The Trachtenburg’s bring 2 shows to this years Edinburgh Festival both at The Green Room

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: The Complicated Life

Lights! Camera! Action! Live taping of a real situation comedy with the first family of slideshow pop, set - literally and figuratively - in their 200 square-foot apartment. Hilarious songs, stories, and reality. Fringe Award 2004/2005.

Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show

Hey Kids!! (And Parents!!) Let's learn life lessons through crafty expressions, music, cooking and artisitcal sessions. Edinburgh stars, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players present hilarous info-tainment designed to enlighten and entertain kids of all ages.

Each show ends with a mass sing along of the Hammer Song, the words are handed out on this sheet

The full Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players show is on all the dates listed, The Rachel Trachtenburg show is only on the dates marked below (brackets indicate price for pre booking tickets!)

Thur 2 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £7.00
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £6.00

Fri 3 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £7.00
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £6.00

Sat 4 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £7.00
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £6.00

Sun 5 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00

Mon 6 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00

Tue 7 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Wed 8 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Thur 9 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £7.00 (£6.00)

Fri 10 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Sat 11 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Sun 12 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Tue 14 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Wed 15 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Thur 16 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £7.00 (£6.00)

Fri 17 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Sat 18 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show£8.00 (£7.00)

Sun 19 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show£8.00 (£7.00)

Mon 20 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Tue 21 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Wed 22 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)

Thur 23 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £9.00 (£8.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £7.00 (£6.00)

Fri 24 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Sat 25 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Sun 26 Aug 2007 The Green Room Edinburgh Uk £10.00 (£9.00)
& Rachel Trachtenburg's Morning Show £8.00 (£7.00)

Review from The Stage http://www.thestage.co.uk/edinburgh/reviews/review.php/17776/the-trachtenburg-family-slideshow-players-

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: The Complicated Life
The Green Room, Edinburgh

It is fitting that Edinburgh’s coolest family should be performing in the festival fringe’s coolest new venue, although something of a shame that the sound wasn’t good enough to catch some of their song lyrics and kept quitting on the mics and the guitar.

The Trachtenburgs - pop, mom and young daughter Rachel - are a real family. They play quirky, cleverly constructed songs on guitar, piano and drums that tell an accompanying story for the personal and corporate slides from the 1950s to the 1970s (brought from thrift stores) that are projected on to a sheet above the stage. There is something quite moving and not a little existential about watching the family slides of deceased people.

It’s brilliantly original, but only half of the story. The great fun of seeing the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is the joy with which they performing. It is all so wonderfully shambolic as they chat among themselves, often off-mic, picking which slides to show and talking generally about the normal family things.

It is unscripted, unpretentious and totally endearing. Watching the Trachtenburg’s is like poking a hole through the wall of the apartment next door and spying on a cute family tradition.

They give a deeply warm feeling of a happy family, enjoying each other’s company and letting us in out of the cold, damp Edinburgh evening. They are the White Stripes’ quirky cousins and a totally unique, Vaudevillian act that should be nurtured.

Production information
The Green Room, Edinburgh, August 2-26

0: Written, produced, performed, directed by the Trachtenburgs
Running time: 1hr
Production information can change over the run of the show

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sat 28 July 2007 Charter Oak Cultural Center Hartford CT USA opening for them will be The Chuck Hestons

$10 $8 with canned goods $5 kids

doors 6 Hestons 7 TFSP 8

Sat, Jun 30, 07:00 pm Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St, New York, NY 10002 $7.00
Although originally listed as "JASON TRACHTENBURG and pals", the show will be a full-on Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players "open rehersal", and "a chance to see something new and be witness to the development of some new concepts that are being developed for the Edinburgh Fringe in Aug. A lengthy Q and A session will also occur."

Fri June 15 2007 RADICAL VAUDEVILLE!!! @ Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Midnight

Mo Pitkin’s and Surf Reality Proudly Present:
RADICAL VAUDEVILLE!!!
BRUTALLY BRILLIANT ENTERTAINMENT DONE DIRT CHEAP $5
MO PITKIN’S DOWNSTAIRS 34 Ave. A BTW 2nd & 3rd St.s
Your Host and MC: Henry Faulkner
Featuring the in house comedy stylings of Mo’s Hos
starring The O’Debra Twins, Jessica Delfino, Steph Sabelli and
Rosie Rebel
This week’s special guests:
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Ammo
Remy
Vangeline
Karlita The Belly Dancer
Magic Brian
Erin and her Cello

Thur June 14 2007 The (Not-So) Late Show with Jason Trachtenburg

TIME: 9pm
PLACE: Sound Fix Records, 110 Bedford Ave at N 11th, Williamsburg
COST: Free

SUMMARY: “A live, theatrical talk show hosted by none other than Jason Trachtenburg, the madcap leader of noted indie-rock-vaudeville act the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. For its inaugural show acclaimed novelist and essayist Rick Moody, best known for The Ice Storm and Garden State, will be on hand to discuss his new award-winning series on National Public Radio, ” Song and Memory,” in which people revisit and talk about the songs that create the strongest memories for them. During this unique public appearance, Rick will have a Q&A with the Sound Fix audience where people can share the songs from their childhood that evoke powerful memories.”

Mon June 4 2007 THIRD ANNUAL O'DEBBIE AWARDS, Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Houston and Bleecker) New York USA

WHAT: THIRD ANNUAL O'DEBBIE AWARDS
WHEN: Mon 06.04 @ 10 PM
WHERE: Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery btw. Houston and Bleecker)
PRICE: $5

http://www.bowerypoetry.com

WHY:

I don't care how early your Tuesday morning staff meeting is.
You are GOING to this show. You will HATE yourself forever if
you don't. It's the most glamorous and fabulous event of the
year. Maybe of all time.

SHOW & TELL, The O’Debra Twins’ wet and wild open mic, is
turning 4!!! The O’Debra Twins celebrate this momentous
occasion by presenting the 3nd Annual O’Debbie Awards Ceremony!
Five bucks at the door buys you a night of Bowery-style glamor!

Slated to perform at the "it" party of the season are some of the
artstar scene's best and brightest. The New York Howl (AGAIN!!!!! :D)
along with Langhorne Slim, fresh off his stint at South by Southwest,
and last but not least, A Brief View of the Hudson will be folking shit up!

Additional performances by The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players,
Reverend Jen, Mike Amato, Jennifer Blowdryer, Remy Benice, Zeroboy,
Shappy, Christine, Liam McEneaney, The Fools, Ben Lerman, Zeroboy,
Moonshine Shorey, The Manson Family Singers, Chuck Funk, Victor Varnado,
Jessica Delfino, Eric Kirchberger, Master Lee, Robert Prichard, and many
more! Get a cheap cut with Snips for Tips by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz!!!

Be prepared for anything and dress to impress!!! Last year's O'Debbie
Awards were written up in the Best of edition of The Village Voice!!!
http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2006/category/arts/261

I've got my five dollar prom dress ready. Do you?

Fri May 25, 2007 Jason Trachtenburg solo (The Future of Entertainment) The Sidewalk Cafe New York USA

9.00-10.00pm

The following tour is Jason solo billed as The Before The End Of The World Tour feat The Jason Trachtenburg Slideshow Conception (Jason solo)with Bouncing Bob Wiseman & The Phonemes

Due to a family emergency Jason Trachtenburg has had to pull out from the rest of this tour

Wed May 9 Windsor @ the phog lounge

Tue May 8 Hamilton @ the casbah

Sat May 5 Toronto @ over the top festival

pics here

@Whippersnapper Art Gallery (587a College St.)
8PM. $10ADV/12DR

review:

Jason Trachtenburg @ Whippersnapper
No offense to Trachtenburg, but I was pretty skeptical that his songs could hold up without the visual aids and kitsch value of his Family Slideshow Players. He circumvented my misgivings by not playing any music at all for about 15 minutes. For the first half of his performance, he talked and told corny jokes. He was the goofy dad who embarrasses his kids, but entertains their friends.
"What is the opiate of the masses?"
"Religion!"
"No, it's opium."
Har har. Is it possible that Trachtenburg's parents were Woody Allen and Rick Moranis? After the comedy warm-up, the Slideshow Players songs about American consumer culture and ironic optimism were just as charming without the wife and kid.

Bob Wiseman @ Whippersnapper
Like Trachtenburg, Bob Wiseman's show was as much comedy as music. He projected films about indecision (Scott Thompson was in one) and funny answering machine messages on a big white sheet at the front of the room. While the movies were hilarious, Wiseman seemed a little bored with older songs "Fluke Of World" and "Uranium." He rushed through them and introduced arbitrary tempo changes, which I suppose kept him engaged. He's awesome, though. His self-deprecating humour and Buster Keaton stone-face make you want to run on stage and hug him.

The Phonemes @ Whippersnapper
This indie pop trio sure know how to keep an audience on their toes. On top of the choir wearing '30s banker suits, almost every song had unusual instrumentation. The weirdest included a glockenspiel, an iron played with a paintbrush, three coloured lights and a theremin. (Kids, bring back the theremin. Find out how to make your own on the internet. When you play it, you'll look like you're casting spells.) Poor Magali Meagher must have been really tired, because she had all the personality of Lurch from the Addams Family. Her stage banter was loaded with ums and uhs, and her stories tended to trail off. She should have stuck to the music, which had all the precious beauty and bubbly pop The Phonemes are known for. My girlfriend tried to buy their new album five minutes after the show and it was sold out.

from:http://www.chartattack.com/DAMN/2007/05/0812.cfm

Fri May 4 Brampton @ TBA

Thur May 3 Princess Cinema. 6 Princess St. Waterloo
Doors open at 9pm

Featuring Bob Wiseman (“instinctive genius”, “wise guy” “captivating”), Jason Trachtenburg (you can take the man out of NYC, but you can’t take NYC out of the man), Phonemes (with Magalie Meagher formerly of the Hidden Cameras).

On-stage live music and on-screen moving pictures create an unforgettable evening of pop, rock and stories. Apparently uranium is not that good for you.

Tickets $15 – includes $15 discount on a new subscription to Alternatives Journal.
Tickets are available at the Alternatives office, ES1-140, University of Waterloo, 519-888-4442; Princess Cinemas; Old Goat Books; and Encore Records. ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bob Wiseman -- check out the Rainbow Warrior story in 2 parts: "Commotion" and "Just Tourists" on the album In Her Dreams"cantankerous truth-teller and manic musical virtuoso"Vue Weekly -- read the article."a mix of equal parts keen socio-political commentary, personal whimsy, and genre-bustin' mix n' match musical moves."In Music We Trust -- read the article.~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jason Trachtenburg -- pop is tops -- then add a little of this and that -- Andy Warhol would approve."Working-class poet. Eccentric writer of memorably eccentric songs. Vaudeville genius."Tablet Newspaper -- read more.New solo album Together~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phonemes -- pop and harmony is deliciousThere's lots more from the band that names themselves after the tiniest phonetic unit in language.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Benefit for Alternatives Journal.
Gracious thanks to UW Clearing a Path, UW Environmental Studies Society, UW Graphics, princesscinemas.com thephonemes.com, trachtenburg.net, bobwiseman.ca

Wed May 2 Ottawa @ zaphod beeblebrox
Tickets: $10.00 advance from www.TicketWeb.ca Doors 7pm. Show 8pm

The Jason Trachtenburg Slideshow Conception / Bouncing Bobby Wiseman / The Phonemes
Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ottawa ON May 2
By Daniel SylvesterWith his wife, eight-year-old daughter and family slide projector, Jason Trachtenburg’s Family Slideshow Players gained a small but unswerving audience, appearing on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and in Moby’s “New York New York” video. As the family decided to take a break from a seven-year touring schedule, Jason Trachtenburg, like many Vaudeville performers of the past, adopted the old adage of “the show must go on,” releasing a solo album and launching a tour with Canadians Bouncing Bobby Wiseman and the Phonemes. Led by occasional Hidden Cameras Magali Meagher and Matias Rozenberg (along with Liz Forsberg), the Phonemes treated the crowd to a decadently quirky set that could best describe the Toronto trio as the lost link between My Bloody Valentine and the Banana Splits. Bob Wiseman, another ex-Camera, helped lift the mood of the small Wednesday crowd from the first note of his accordion. Performing a brief set of light but poignant songs about love and the dying environment, Wiseman utilised the projection screen to his right with his droll short films starring Scott Thompson, Levi MacDougall and Jim Guthrie. Jason Trachtenburg entered the stage feigning an awkward and wary demeanour while introducing himself and struggling to strap a guitar to his body. Trachtenburg used the audience’s uneasy reception as fuel for his chic and sharp humour, often compared to a mixture of Woody Allen and David Cross. Jason played three songs accompanied by video slides and home movies compiled by his wife before crashing Wiseman’s Mac and explaining, “This is why I use a slide projector.” The show was wrapped up with a final song minus the video images. As he quipped, “You’ve been the best crowd I’ve played to all tour,” the audience half-clapped, once again unsure how to respond to the bizarre persona of Jason Trachtenburg.

Tue May 1 Montreal @ bar st. Laurent 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mon Apr 9 2007 the Lolita bar! 266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen
8:00pm - FREE!

Host: Victor Varnado - from "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien" & "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

Acts:
Jason Trachtenberg - from the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

Tony Camin - as seen on "Conan," "Kimmel," "Tough Crowd w/ Colin Quinn," and a writer/star of The Marijuanalogues

Liam McEneaney - has been on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend" and VH1's "Best Week Ever"

Andres DuBouchet - one of NYC's premeire comedians

and TYF! newcomer Sean Murphy

also on the same day

TIME: 8pm
PLACE:Galapagos, 70 North 6th St, between Kent and Wythe, Williamsburg
COST: $5

SUMMARY: “The third installment of the ever-popular/bizarre cabaret, OCCURRENCE is a rollicking alternative performace + film event curated by comedian Reggie Watts and playwright Tommy Smith. The stellar lineup includes songs from Jason Trachtenburg, comedy from Kristen Schaal, an opera recital by Max Sharam, as well as the genre bending films of Reggie and Tommy. The evening will close with a comedy set by Reggie Watts.”

Fri April 6 2007 4th Street Food Co-op fundraiser The Bowery Ballroom New York

From the press release:

4th St. Food Co-op's Renegade Benefit Show: Help Save Community!
Local Food Co-op vs Corporate Behemoths

The 4th St. Food Co-op: Manhattan's ONLY nonprofit, volunteer run, anti-corporate, organic, vegetarian, food/bulk goods storefront, is holding their first annual benefit!

A star studded lineup will join forces to raise awareness and much needed fundage for the 4th St. Food Co-op, an overlooked diamond in the rough. In light of the imminent arrival of the new Whole Foods megaplex around the corner that is scheduled to open on March 29 (exceeding an entire avenue!). After more than thirteen years in the neighborhood, the 4th St. Food Co-op is planning a major "green" in-store renovation, using sustainable methods and renewable materials.
The co-op is already facing fiscal challenges due to mounting debt and needs support to continue to bring organic food to the community. These obstacles combined make this timely event more urgent and pertinent than ever before.

The magic will ensue between 10pm (sharp)-midnight on Friday, April 6th @ the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery, NY, NY). $10 donation at the door.

Performances by co-cop supporters including:

Pioneers of the indie-vaudville-conceptual-art-rock slideshow genre the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

Reggie Watts the super human with a sampler, operatic beat boxing prodigy, alternative comedian

NYC's premier Antifolk swamp rock duo, Schwervon! "Unplugged"

Former 80's actress turned quirky comedian extraordinare, Sue Ball

...and surprise celebrity guests too huge to mention due to contractual obligations.

These artists share two things in common: alternative lifestyles and unmatched showmanship. All will grace the stage in a valiant attempt to save the 4th St. Co-op!

Donations by vegan dessert sorceress Yoli Cakes (www.yolicakes.com), fair trade supporters Gimme Coffee (www.gimmecoffee.com), organic beauty experts The Beehive Salon (www.thebeehivesalon.com), holistic healer Michelle Kasmir, culinary whizzes Tina and Rachel Trachtenburg and various items from 4th St. Coop suppliers will be raffled/auctioned off.

About the 4th St. Food Co-op: Recently featured in the NY Times and located at 58 E 4th St. (between 2nd Ave and Bowery), the co-op endorses, "food for people, not for profit." The store is open seven days a week and everyone is welcome to shop, member or not. The co-op is committed to supporting local organic farms and grassroots vendors. All work is done on a purely volunteer basis. Utilities are 100% wind powered! For more information visit
www.4thstreetfoodcoop.org

Thur April 5 2007 Tang Museum at Skidmore College Saratoga Springs, New York US

Begins at 9:00pm

3 Apr 2007 Canal Room - The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players... On Ice !!! New York With Corn Mo and Reggie Watts

8:00pm
(doors 7:30pm) $10.50 in advance
$12 at the door

Sat 24 Mar 2007 SLIDELUCK POTSHOW IX in NYC
Springtide Greetings!
This Saturday night, March 24th, many will convene at the lovely Sandbox Studio for a potluck feast and an incredible slideshow. I doubt this gathering could be confused with anything other than Slideluck Potshow IX.
The theme of the slideshow is Family, the mood is festive, and the idea is simple: bring something delicious to eat, something nice to drink, and join us for an unforgettable evening. If you choose to come with little or nothing at all, please be prepared to make a generous donation.
We also ask that you and anyone you bring be attentive and engaged during what we consider to be our best slideshow ever. Below is a partial list of contributors:
Anna Bauer
Baldomero Fernandez
Christine Connor
Christoph Morlinghaus/ DW Photographers
Colby Katz
Dima Gavrysh
Don Cunningham
Douglas Abuelo
Elinor Carucci/ Edwynn Houk
Eric White
Guggenheim Foundation
Holly Lynton/ Jen Bekman
Jessica Dimmock
Jill Greenberg/ ClampArt
John Milisenda
Jonathan Tunick
Karen Gunderson/ ClampArt
Krisanne Johnson
Mark McCarty
Martin Betz
Martin Parr/ Magnum
Michael Christopher Brown
Noah Sheldon
Peter van Agtmael/ Polaris
Pierre St. Jacques
Rose & Olive
Sara Benincasa
Sarah A. Friedman
Simone Pierotti
Sven Jacobsen/ Monaco
The Burg
Tia Dunn/ Magnum
Timothy Fadek/ Polaris
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Veras Images
Will Anderson
We hope to see your most resplendent self on Saturday night.
Best,
Casey

SLIDELUCK POTSHOW IX
SATURDAY, MARCH 24TH
7PM POTLUCK
8:45PM MUSICAL GUESTS
9PM SLIDESHOW
http://www.slideluckpotshow.com
SANDBOX STUDIO
250 HUDSON ST.
11TH FLOOR
@ BROOME ST.
NEW YORK CITY
http://www.sandboxstudio.com
Casey Kelbaugh
917.804.2767
http://www.caseykelbaugh.com
http://www.slideluckpotshow.com

Thur 8 Mar 2007 Sidewalk Cafe - Piermont, NY

Feb 17 2007 Sidewalk Cafe, New York USA Jason Solo with slides, but without Tina & Rachel

Sat Feb 10 2007 2007 PLUG Independent Music Awards Irving Plaza, New York, USA

performed World’s Best Friend

Fri Jan 12 2007 Sidewalk Cafe Jason Solo New York, USA

Thur Jan 11 2007 POP EMPORIUM NIGHT ft. Jason Trachtenburg + Reggie Watts + Ching Chong Song Union Hall Brooklyn, New York USA

2006

2006-11-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

Fri Dec 22 2006 Kn itting Factory New York, NY New York, NY (cancelled)

Wed Dec 20 2006 The Chameleon Lancaster, PA (J Trachtenburg solo)with ching chong song & The Bear & The Wolf

Mon Dec 18 2006 The Earl Atlanta, GA (J Trachtenburg solo)

Sat Dec 16 2006 Raleigh Music Hall Raleigh, NC

Fri Dec 08 2006 VA Starr Hill Music Hall Charlottesville,

Thu Dec 07 2006 Mexicali Blues Teaneck, NJ with Ching Chong Song

Sat Sep 30, 2006 Concerts at the Crossing Titusville NJ US

Wed Sep 27, 2006 Stone Church Music Club Newmarket NH US

Tue Sep 26, 2006 T.T. the Bear's Cambridge MA US

Mon Sep 25, 2006 Higher Ground South Burlington VT US

Sat Sep 23, 2006 Castaways Ithaca NY

Fri Sep 22, 2006 The Buffalo Icon Buffalo NY US

Thu Sep 21, 2006 Rex Theater Pittsburgh PA US

Tue Sep 19, 2006 Double Door Chicago IL US

Mon Sep 18, 2006 Vaudeville Mews Des Moines IA US

Sun Sep 17, 2006 7th Street Entry Minneapolis MN US

Sat Sep 16, 2006 Shank Hall Milwaukee WI US

Fri Sep 15, 2006 High Dive Champaign IL US

Thu Sep 14, 2006 Blueberry Hill Saint Louis MO US

Tue Sep 12, 2006 Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom Denver CO US

Sat Sep 09, 2006 The Crocodile Cafe Seattle WA US

Fri Sep 08, 2006 Crystal Ballroom - Lola's Portland OR US

Wed Sep 06, 2006 Last Day Saloon - Santa Rosa Santa Rosa CA US

Mon Sep 04, 2006 Cafe Du Nord San Francisco CA US

Sun Sep 03, 2006 Troubadour Los Angeles CA US

Sat Sep 02, 2006 Club Congress Tucson AZ US

Fri Sep 01, 2006 Clubhouse Tempe AZ US

Tue Aug 29, 2006 Cactus Cafe Austin TX US

Mon Aug 28, 2006 Gypsy Tea Room Dallas TX US

Sat Aug 26, 2006 Sticky Fingerz Chicken Shack Little Rock AR US

Fri Aug 25, 2006 EARL Atlanta GA US

Thu Aug 24, 2006 40 Watt Club Athens GA US

Wed Aug 23, 2006 Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall Asheville NC US

Tue Aug 22, 2006 Cat's Cradle Carrboro NC US

Sun Aug 20, 2006 Ottobar Baltimore MD US

Sat Aug 19, 2006 IOTA Club & Cafe Arlington VA US

Fri Aug 18, 2006 First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia Philadelphia PA US

Thu Aug 17, 2006 Maxwell's Hoboken NJ US

Wed Aug 09, 2006 The Mercury Lounge New York NY US

Mon Aug 07, 2006 The Big Chill Festival Herefordshire UK

Sat Aug 05, 2006 Bowling Green Manchester UK

Wed Aug 02, 2006 Dingwalls London UK (Cancelled Jason Trachtenburg played solo at The Social W1, London UK)

Tue Aug 01, 2006 Hoxton Bar & Grill London UK

Sun Jul 30, 2006 Connolly's Of Leap IE

Sat Jul 29, 2006 Town Hall Galway IE

Fri Jul 28, 2006 Town Hall Galway IE

Thu Jul 27, 2006 Triskel Arts Centre Cork IE

Wed Jul 26, 2006 Sugar Club Dublin IE

Wed Jun 28, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Tue Jun 27, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Mon Jun 26, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sun Jun 25, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sat Jun 24, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Fri Jun 23, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Thu Jun 22, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Wed Jun 21, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Tue Jun 20, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Mon Jun 19, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sun Jun 18, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sat Jun 17, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Fri Jun 16, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Thu Jun 15, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Wed Jun 14, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Tue Jun 13, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Mon Jun 12, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sun Jun 11, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sat Jun 10, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Fri Jun 09, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Thu Jun 08, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Wed Jun 07, 2006 Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction New York NY US

Sun May 28, 2006 Arts Fest Harrisburg PA US

Fri Apr 28, 2006 Cactus Cafe Austin TX US

Thu Apr 27, 2006 Vortex Beaumont TX US

Fri Feb 10, 2006 Knitting Factory New York, NY New York, NY

Thu Jan 26, 2006 S.F. SketchFest San Francisco CA US

Wed Jan 25, 2006 S.F. SketchFest San Francisco CA US

Sun Jan 22, 2006 Birchmere Alexandria VA US

2005

2006-11-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Fri Dec 23, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Thu Dec 22, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Wed Dec 21, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Wed Dec 21, 2005 The Bowery Ballroom New York NY US

Tue Dec 20, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Mon Dec 19, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Sun Dec 18, 2005 Performance Space 122 New York NY US

Sat Dec 17, 2005 Painted Bride Art Center Philadelphia PA US

Fri Dec 16, 2005 Painted Bride Art Center Philadelphia PA US

Thu Dec 08, 2005 Eight By Ten - 8 x 10 Baltimore MD US

Wed Dec 07, 2005 State Theatre Falls Church VA US

Sat Oct 29, 2005 Festival Periferias Huesca ES

Tue Oct 4 2005, 21 South Street Arts Centre, Reading UK review

Thur Sep 29 2005 Bloomsbury Theatre London UK

Wed Sep 28 2005 Bloomsbury Theatre London UK

Sat Sep 17, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Fri Sep 16, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Thu Sep 15, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Wed Sep 14, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Tue Sep 13, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Mon Sep 12, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Sat Sep 10, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Fri Sep 9, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Thu Sep 8, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Wed Sep 7, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Tue Sep 6, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Mon Sep 5, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Sat Sep 3, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Fri Sep 2, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Thu Sep 1, 2005 Soho Theatre, London UK

Sat Jun 11, 2005 Club Cafe Pittsburgh PA US

Sat Jun 11, 2005 Club Cafe Pittsburgh PA US

Sun Apr 10, 2005 Baltimore Theatre Project Baltimore MD US

Sat Apr 09, 2005 Baltimore Theatre Project Baltimore MD US

Fri Apr 08, 2005 Baltimore Theatre Project Baltimore MD US

Thu Apr 07, 2005 Baltimore Theatre Project Baltimore MD US

Wed Mar 30, 2005 Irving Plaza New York NY US opening for Nellie Mckay

Fri Mar 18, 2005 Dallas Museum of Art Dallas TX US

2004

2006-11-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

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

2003

2006-11-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Oct. 1 Winooski, VT - Higher Ground
Oct. 2 Bronxville, NY - Sarah Lawrence Coallege/The Pub
Oct. 3 NYC, NY - Knitting Factory
Oct. 4 Parmus, NJ - Paramus Picture Show
Oct. 7 Charlottesville, VA - Star Hill Music Hall
Oct. 8 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
Oct. 10 Columbia, SC - New Brookland Tavern
Oct. 11 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge
Oct. 12 Live Oak, FL - Great Southern Music Harvest
Oct. 14 Charlotte, NC - Visulite Theatre
Oct. 16 Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theater
Oct. 17 Baltimore, MD - American Visionary Museum
Oct. 18 Brooklyn, NY - Southpaw
Oct. 23 New York, NY - CMJ - Tonic
Oct. 29 Cleveland, OH - Agora Ballroom
Oct. 30 Ferndale, MI - Magic Bag Theatre Cafe
Oct. ! 31 Chicago, IL - Old Town School of Folk
Nov. 1 Madison, WI - Luther Blues
Nov. 3 Ames, IA - Maintenance Shop
Nov 7 San Francisco, CA -Warfield w/ Guster
Nov 8 Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern w/Guster
Nov 9 Tempe, AZ -tba w/ Guster
Nov 13 Eugene. OR - McDonald w/Guster
Nov 14 Vancouver or Spokane w/ Guster
Nov 15 Portland,OR -Roseland w/Guster
Nov 16 Seattle, WA -Moore w/Guster
Nov 18 Boise, ID -TBA
Nov 19 Salt lake City, UT - w/ Guster
Nov 21 Denver, CO -Fillmore w/Guster
Dec. 13 Pittsfield, MA - Berkshire Museum

Fri 31 Oct 2003 Old Town School of Folk Music Chicago IL

photo's & mp3's available using above link

saw the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Friday, with their two openers, Saint Reverend Jen and Kimya Dawson. It went like this (mp3s as linked and a few photos in the cut):

Reverend Jen's set:
Reverend Jen's Theme Song / selections from the musical Rats: We Don't Have Thumbs ~ Put the Glue Traps Away / selections from the puppet musical Les Mizrahi: scene 1 ~ scene 2 ~ interlude: excerpts from Don't Call Me Rat-dog, the autobiography of Reverend Jen Jr ~ scene 3

Kimya Dawson:
(I don't know the names of any of these songs so I'm just listing them by the opening lyric)
"my mother says that rain is angels" / "we switched to Jay Leno" / "my heart is on my sleeve" / "[something about] the persistence of time" / "a white man in white pants"

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players:
Trachtenburgs Theme Song / Mountain Trip to Old Japan, 1959 / Look at Me / Don't You Know What I Mean / Christian Terror (? not sure of the title) / Middle America / The OPNAD Contribution Study Committee Report, June 1977 / Closing Theme

This was a fun show, and I just have to repeat again that the Old Town School of Folk Music is the greatest concert venue/music school ever.

Okay, so I didn't know anything about Reverend Jen and I'd read a lot of Kimya Dawson hate in the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw that these would be the two openers. I checked out Reverend Jen's website and just from that it seemed like she might turn out to be pretty annoying, but in fact she was really, really funny. Jason Trachtenburg introduced "Saint Reverend Jen and Reverend Jen Junior"; Rev. Jen Jr turned out to be a chihuahua wearing a lizard costume (it was Halloween, after all). The dog stayed in a shoulder bag during the whole performance and was perfectly behaved, much better than the children in the audience--I heard several of them crying, but that might have been because Rev. Jen was definitely not appropriate for children: she said "fucking" within thirty seconds of getting onstage, used the words "dildo" and "carpet-munchers" in her puppet show, and told us a story about selling herself into prostitution in order to pay Rev. Jen Jr's hospital bills (I don't think it was a true story). I'm not a big fan of dogs that fit into purses, but Reverend Jen had me from this:

Rev. Jen: So, do you like musicals?
audience: [scattered applause and cheers]
Rev. Jen: I hate them.

So she busted on Cats for a second or two and then performed selections from her own musical Rats. She warned us before she started, "I can't sing nor can I dance," so caveat emptor if you choose to listen to this mp3. (She's actually not a particularly bad singer, but the song isn't particularly melodic either.)

When her set was done she introduced Kimya Dawson. Rev. Jen made reference to Kimya's "costume," which as far as I could tell was simply a big hooded cape. Kimya had long, white-blond dreadlocks; because Rev. Jen had talked about a costume, I assumed they were a wig, but thinking back I'm totally not sure whether they were a wig or her real hair. Anyway, she played some songs and I thought she wasn't bad at all. She seemed sort of nervous--is she known for having chronic stage fright? At one point she said, "It's intimidating playing at a music school. [whispering] I'm self-taught." I actually really like her voice--maybe it's because I myself am an unskilled musician, but I like the unschooled, very natural quality of it.

There was a costume parade and intermission after Kimya's set, so I went out and asked her to sign my Bed Bed Bed book. She seemed genuinely excited when she saw I had it (which was rather cute). And she told me she'd done some shows with TMBG in New York recently, so I asked her if she'd also be performing with Them here in Chicago in December, but she said no. And I was going to buy a button from her but this guy came up and started talking to her in this really pretentious manner and I had to run away to prevent myself from slapping him.

Okay, so the Trachtenburgs made their appearance. Tina came up onstage for the opening theme before going to the back to work the slide projector; Rachel was in costume as Wednesday (from The Addams Family), which suited her very well. There were of course a lot of Jason's characteristic scattered monologues; Rachel took advantage of this lengthy downtime to work intently on de-tangling her row of chimes, which seemed to be giving her a lot of trouble: I could see that even when she had to drum and sing she kept frowning at the chimes, as if she really couldn't wait for the song to be over so she could work on them some more.

There was an excellent moment toward the middle of the set when Jason asked if the guy with the "dog guitar" was in the audience. I had noticed that there was this guy who came in with a guitar gig bag and thought that was odd; so it turned it out he had brought this guitar that was carved into the shape of a dog. Jason took it to play for one song. He seemed very amused by it. (I did get a picture of Jason playing the dog guitar, but it didn't turn out that great--it was quite dark in the auditorium, my zoom isn't very powerful, and it didn't help visibility that Jason was standing behind his keyboard at the time. But there it is.)

Toward the end of the show Rachel had to keep prompting her dad to hurry, because there was going to be a second show. They had a discussion about the setlist--Rachel was in charge that night and the promise was made that the second show would be completely different from the first show, at which point Jason laughed and said he didn't really know how that was going to happen, since he didn't think they knew enough songs, but Rachel said, "I know how it's going to happen." (I never found out how, though, because I didn't go to the second show.) And then they did the OPNAD song to great acclaim, and Tina came back onstage and the whole family sang the closing theme and the show was over.

I feel I got my $14 worth.

I have a recording of the whole show and am open for trades as usual. (Check out my sort-of-new trade page for other stuff, too.) It sounds pretty good overall though there are some rustling moments when I'm moving my bag around because people are coming and going (but not during songs). Also, I accidentally hit the compression button before the Trachtenburg set, which resulted in a surprising amount of hiss on the recording. I got rid of most of it using CD Spin Doctor, but I'm still peeved at myself for being careless. So email me if you're interested.

Sun, Oct 19 2003 MicroCineFest 2003 Awards

July 30, 2003 Cafe DuNord San Francisco, CA, USA

review & photos

Fri May 2 2003 GEL Conference

Good Experience Live IX

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Look at Us
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is a three-piece musical group that creates music based on photographic slides acquired at yard sales and estate sales. Here is a rough transcript of remarks made during their performance at Good Experience Live:

We are the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. My name is Jason, and I play the keyboard. My name is Tina, and I run the slide projector. My name is Rachel, and I play the drums. We are a conceptual art rock band. We read the newspapers to track down strangers' yard sales. We look for obituaries to see who died. We go to their estate sales, and we buy their slide collections. Assuming they have a slide collection. We turn these slide collections into pop rock performance exposes. We're going to do the best 15 minutes of our songs this afternoon. This song is called Look at Me and is about two retired military nurses named Jean and Cathy. How do we know their names? Sometimes they write them on the bottoms of the slides.

Everyone's slide collections says, "Look at us!" And by us I mean them. For this next song, we were fortunate enough to acquire slides taken from a traffic education class in the '70s. We like to call this one "Middle America." This is a slide that's been in our act for about a year now. But you see that Hershey bar guy? I just noticed him and every time I look at him he is so disturbing. This is the content of the Opnad Contribution Study Committee Report from June 1977. This song will justify our existence. These were taken from an internal McDonald's corporate marketing meeting. These slides were meant to be buried for absolutely forever. We unearthed them in Seattle. We turned these into a six-song rock opera. Part one, "Theme from Opnad." Part two, "What Will the Corporation Do?" We took Ed Schmitt's quote here word for word and turned it into a rock opera number. Words by Ed Schmitt. Music by the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. This is a controversial piece. This song was banned in 17 states, along with our first two CD's. This song is called "Wendy's, Sambo's, and Long John Silver's." "New competitors are using network television to take advantage of efficiency." I just got the hurry up from the drummer here. That's OK. This is part four of six, and it's called "Let's Not Have the Same Weight in 1978." Joe Casper raises several troubling questions, actually. We're at part five of six. They're at the crucial part where they need to ask the eternal important question of, "Why did we decide to take this decision to you?" Who should we take this question to, Ed Schmitt? Ed Schmitt? Then you hear some rumblings in the back: Joe Casper. Look at Joe. Everyone wanted to be a white-collar executive. Joe was a vinyl-collar executive. They don't make executives like Joe Casper any more. Joe Casper was not a man of many words. He was a many of high fashion." Thank you so much! This is part six of six. It's the final song of our part of the afternoon. "Together, As a System, We Are Unbeatable." It's how they wrapped up their business meeting rock opera. That's all!

taken from http://www.mediadiet.net/2003/05/good-experience-live-ix.html

2002

2006-11-22T11:36:00.000-08:00

Sat Dec 28 2002 Irving Plaza New York NY US opening for They Might Be Giants

Fri Dec 27 2002 Irving Plaza New York NY US opening for They Might Be Giants

Sat June 8 2002 In-Store Performances at Sonic Boom Records pics available using link

2001

2006-11-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

2000

2006-11-22T11:34:00.000-08:00