medium pimping: the trachtenburgs
formerly
'le vie c'est tres droll'
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my good friend evan f. has been trying to convince me to see these nut cases for a while now. i finally broke down and we hauled out to galapagos freezing* our faces off.
The Trachtenburg Family Players feature: Dad on the mini keyboard synth, 9 year old daughter on the drums, and mom on the slide projector. The slides are all found at estate sales and pretty uniformly hilarious. If not for the subject matter, for the order in which they are viewed. One of the most successful songs featured shots of eggs interspersed with vietnam war scenes. Really, it's very funny. I swear.
The 9 year old, Rachel, is the real draw. She vassilates between abject boredom and giggles. Behind the drums she yields the almighty power of the rimshot, thereby controlling the button on all her fathers "jokes". She punctuated his description of one slide's subject as having had a stroke and the audience nearly fell apart. Did I mention the show was sold out? This family is working the fan base. Von Trapps, watch out.
Ultimately, the show itself was just not musical enough for me. I guess they are trying to work that whole Shaggs thing and sound all primitive and outsider on purpose. But lordy! One of the dad's oft repeated lines was, "wow, that was the best we've played that in weeks!". I don't know. The bad slides I can get into, but I just can't dig the irony of the bad music I guess. Sorry, Ev.
* I voted "colder than my soul" in the weekly poll. If for no other reason than to work that rhyme.
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