late night, perplexed post
Whatever was, previously, the strangest show I've ever seen has been replaced, without a doubt. Opening up for They Might Be Giants tonight in NashVegas, in an outdoor show in a parking lot, was the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Daughter, maybe 11 years old, played the drums. Father (who I thought for a while was the mother), sang and played guitar and keyboards. Mother operated the slide projector. I'm still processing. But I had to tell someone.

I bought an overpriced t-shirt. More later below:

Here's their schtick: They travel around and go to yard sales and estate sales and buy strangers' old boxes of slides. You know, pictures of some 1979 vacation to Sweden, little Billy's 10th birthday party, whatever. They write songs based on the slides, funny depictions of what's happening, and show them, essentially synchronized. The man has a high voice and rambles nervously, really fast, but actually pretty funny. He does the singing and accompanies himself on keyboards/guitar. And the daughter as the drummer/back-up vocalist who throughout the show peppers dad with some one-liners and questions which are no doubt scripted but come off sounding spontaneous. They have a song about a mountain trip to Japan, a tribute to all the birthday slides they've got, a tribute to all the boring, nondescript slides they've received, they played 3 parts of a purported 5-part opera based on slides accompanying an internal McDonalds Corporation strategy meeting in the 70s.

They're the Trachteburg Family Slideshow Players (in the tradition, he said, of the great old slideshow bands.) I doubt I could take 2 hours of them, but if you get a chance to see them opening up for someone else, you don't want to pass it up.