Search - The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Off and on Broadway on DVD

Pretentious And Over-rated

Emerson Shiff | Long Beach, CA | 10/04/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I picked this up on the strength of seeing them perform "Look At Me" on Conan O'Brien years ago. They must have been really on that night because in this collection they're sloppy, not clever and waaaay too impressed with themselves. The hipster doofus factor is high, both in how others describe them and how they see themselves.

The father is an unwashed Rick Moranis/Robert Crumb hybrid, and if their daughter wasn't precocious, cute and stylishly bored they'd still be walking dogs and being act #7 at beatnik clubs.

Their political songs are the worst because Rick-Crumb finds so much horrible, incriminating (and of course artfully ironic) evidence in simple corporate slide show presentations he simply smirks and sing-songs the words on the screen.

It seems little effort was put into writing more than one or two awkward melodies, and then beating them into the ground. I write this as a fan of The Shaggs. Their whole act is look at us, dig our concept, love our thrift store fashions and envy our Bohemian lifestyle.

This was a big letdown. I wanted and expected to like this. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were great on Conan but besides that they're a pretentious, lazy mess. The DVD was filmed well and offers a lot of songs for the buck, but wow, this sucks.
"

Humor and talent has never sounded this good...

Eddie Badger | New York | 08/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Trachtenburg Family is a unique one. Two parents, and their 12-year old daughter, in a band, and play slide on their projector from pics they have found at garage sales, and then make songs based on the slides. Unreal. I've been reading about them and then got this DVD which in good insight into the band and the music. Highly recommended, and i can't wait to see them live!"