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August 16, 2006
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
By Michelle Gilzenrat 
The days of laser light shows, spitting fake blood, and other over the top stage antics are long gone. A new era of rock 'n' roll showmanship is upon us, and it features a family and a slideshow projector.
The pioneers of slideshow rock are the aptly named Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. For the past five years the family of three has been singing the long-lost stories of people, places, and even corporations captured on vintage slides.
It’s a truly visual art, and the best way to experience The Trachtenburgs is by attending a live show. For fans who can’t make it out to the upcoming summer tour, you can check out the recently released DVD “The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Off & On Broadway.”
AMG talked with guitarist/singer/dad Jason Trachtenburg about the ins and outs of being a family slideshow band.
AMG: You’ve got this great DVD out which I think is a perfect medium for showcasing your work. How were you able to promote and express the concept of a slideshow band before the DVD was out? It can’t be as simple as sending out the record to radio stations and press like a traditional rock band might do.
JT: I definitely view us as a traditional rock band. That is the format that we are in. Rock ‘n’ roll is our medium. Our first CD did come with a full slide experience, and I think we definitely captured it well. We were able send compact disc audio along with a picture booklet and a multimedia experience to view at home on your hypothetical computer, assuming you have one. I think the DVD actually makes us more like a regular rock band. That’s the thing. It’s a great introduction to the band and it definitely chronicles the first era of the band. It features some of our more ground-breaking pieces (“songs” as people in the industry call them). It helped us learn about the DVD medium just like any band that made their first record.
What are your goals for this DVD? Is it a treat for old fans or more of a means to gain exposure amongst new, potential fans?
It’s just like any other band. It’s a product and a representation of our art. I hope it’s going to be the first of many, many DVDs. I want to have 20 DVDs over a 50-year time span of whatever we are doing. Every two years we’ll put out a DVD that represents the previous two year's work. In the same way that bands do albums once a year, we’ll do an album or two every year as well.
You are about to embark on a new tour. Talk to me a little about the technicalities of a having a slide projector as an instrument. You don’t exactly have slide techs like some bands have guitar techs…what happens when things go wrong?
That’s a great question...that’s funny. It’s a family slideshow presentation and inevitably with these presentations there will be technical problems with the projector. And, in a way, that's part of the fun...or at least it used to be. But then we didn’t want the show to keep on stopping for, like, half hours at a time. So we always carry back-up bulbs, we make sure the projector doesn’t fall, and that we take good care of our lenses. We’ve added a bit of levity to our show. We don’t have as many technical breakdowns as we used to because we know what to look for. We've gotten to the point where we can fix anything in about a minute. Our friends do help out sometimes, so, we have had slide crews before just to get the slideshow going.
The songs are so strongly tied to these old slides that it seems if you lose a slide you lose the ability to perform a song. Is there a way to back up the slides or make copies?
Oh sure, yeah…I’ll talk shop with you for a few minutes. You can take slides and digitize them. You can also duplicate slides for about $2 or $3 so you can reprint them and have a whole collection of back-up slides. Digitizing is probably cheaper and might be easier, too, because you can always keep the digital images and then turn those back into slides. Although each time it does lose a generation on the picture, generally its good enough. Photo slides are just so crisp, and the colors...you just don’t have those colors any more. They just don’t make ‘em. We’re archeological purveyors of different colors that have been lost.
It’s hard to tell sometimes during the performance if the slides in one song are all actually related--if they include the same people in each slide or if it’s a mix from different collections.
Generally our earlier numbers were all from one collection like the "Mountain Trip to Japan" was all from the first collection we bought. I think its good to stick to format. We are in the midst of our mid-surreal experimental period right now, which of course does mean more conglomerations from different collections. That’s especially true because of how my slides are organized right now- they are all mixed together. So it’s more collage-like.
Does it ever work the other way where the songwriting process comes first?
Yes. I do sometimes I have the songs and try to find the slides to go along with it. It doesn’t match up quite as well, but it’s always a little mix-and-match.
A lot of your slides come from “estate sales.” Before Trachtenburgs I wasn’t familiar with this term. Explain how you find an estate sale and how its different from, say, a garage sale.
Estate sales are several levels up from a garage sale. Good stuff is good stuff, crap is crap, but when it’s an estate sale, you have access to everything in the house so the odds are proportionately better that there’s going to be some good stuff. If it’s a garage sale, people are just kind of getting rid of their junk..just a bunch of plastic kids toys, horrible paperback novels, rusty tools, terrible glassware, and jars with lids…the worst of the worst is garage sales. Estate sales you have all that plus their most important possessions, which they are letting go of now because they died. So, that’s how we got most of our best buys, from people dying and also people not using the format anymore because its obsolete.
On the DVD is looks like you have thousands of slides already, are you still collecting?Absolutely! The best slides are still out there! We’ve filled .003% of our potential as far excavating slide collections and fulfilling our mission to bring people’s stories back to life through music while simultaneously commenting on the hilarities and exceesses of American culture.
Let’s change gears for a second. Of course everybody wants to know more about little Rachel because she is such a starlet, but she is getting older now. How do you think her age will affect the band?
The band is an extension of our regular lives. It’s all the same thing. I want to record ten records and we’ve already recorded two. The third is already written, it’s a Christmas record called “Trachtenburg Players on Ice.” Four is essentially written, too, and of course we’ll have number five, which is rarities and oddities. So, essentially our five records are already written, and three are ready to record. And of course we want to explore the next 4 records, how ever long it takes, it could be four years it could be ten.
Thinking back to being a young teenager, Rachel is at the age when most kids say “Ok…I’m getting tired of going on vacation with the parents,” you know? Is she getting to that point or is that not really in her personality?
I am sure she still likes hanging out with us. In general we have a really good time together. She definitely enjoys still doing it and she’d let us know if she didn’t. We’d be first to know!
At this point do you have any concerns about image issues for Rachel? The pattern seems to be that after being a child star, females in particular have to sex things up a little…
Maybe we can break the mold on that, like some artists are trying to do. That’s definitely something I think about, too. It’s a tricky business and you want to look your best for sure. But as far how the media irresponsibly uses sex and doesn’t use intelligence, that’s great ground for completely revolutionizing that mindset. And if we can be on the forefront of doing that through the media, changing sexual and social stereotypes, then that would be equally important as anything we do musically.
Rachel seems to have a good head on her shoulders, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she even took initiative with that.
That’s the truest part of all.
You guys have really started something very new and different. But let’s say a a fan or a family sees you and says, “Hey, I have a slide projector and a guitar, I can totally do that.” How would you feel about new bands popping up that are doing the same thing?
It’s like Sinatra went through that, with lots of Sinatra-type singers coming up. The Beatles had the same thing after their success; lots of bands that sounded like them came out. I mean, if that happened I would know we have succeeded. I love that! I wish the radio were filled with other family slideshow bands. What difference does it make? Instead of it being all these boring indie bands that are all of the same ilk, it would be all family slideshow bands. It would definitely be more entertaining. We’d definitely have to take it to the higher level if other family slideshow bands came along. Fortunately we have more experience than this new crop of family slideshow bands that just popped up which would give us a leg up.
Well I am glad you are supportive as opposed to intimidated by competition.
Just as long as they aren’t mocking us…or if they are, well, that’d be fine too…If family slideshow bands have a future in entertainment we’ll be at the forefront. I would imagine we’d be one of the notable ones
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players will bring their vaudville-style antics to The EARL on Friday, August 25th. | 
