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
