Tuesday 4 October 2005, 21 South Street Arts Centre, Reading. "We don't write this stuff, we just interpret it" comes the kindly American accent belonging to Jason Trachtenburg, one third of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Looking and sounding like Rick Moranis in geeky retro garb, and complete with a broom-like moustache, he bumbles through a set that comprises of songs solely about 1950s slideshows, which we are duly shown on the backdrop.
Joining him are his bouffant-wigged wife, Tina Pina, who controls the slide projector and 11-year-old elvin daughter on red drums, looking like a mini-me Meg White. If this is all sounding a little too strange then this band are quick to point out that they are a real family. This is the real deal. Scarily so.
 | | Rachel Pina Trachtenburg |
Musically their set is child-like - the band rely more on people's hunger for the bizarre and different than any kind of serious talent. Their songs sound like the Velvet Underground holding a residency at Sesame Street. However, it's infectious stuff: using only guitar or keyboard coupled with drums, Jason sings about the slides so innocently, particularly when his bubblegum-voiced daughter joins him on backing vocals, that you're sucked into their little cocooned world.
 | | Tina Pina Trachtenburg |
Performance-wise this band are immensely entertaining. Rapid lyrics are expertly timed to coincide with the relevant slide on the wall. And the slides themselves, boy oh boy. Songs such as Look At Me and Beautiful Dandelion show a mixture of traditional slides of people in the 1950s indulging in the age of consumerism: posing in their car or with the Christmas roast turkey, to the more strange: friends posing with a papier mache toilet seat or with breast-like balloons under their jumper, to attempts at flamboyantly artistic photography. A nice touch is an interim 'question and answer' session - though perhaps predictably the questions asked by members of the audience are off-the-wall, touching on the Magnum detective series, Rick Moranis and moustaches. But what were the Trachtenburgs expecting? Esoteric questions about their music?
 | | One of the slides |
The slides, the songs, the whole oddball concept and the affably goofy Jason Trachtenburg with his loveable little anecdotes make this show a quirky comedy as much as a music gig. If you're game for a laugh and fancy a delve into the weirdly wonderful, go and see this band. | 
