After yesterday's post on schadenfreude, Phil pointed me at my Dilbert desk calendar, which I hadn't checked since the weekend.
Lo and behold …
Hee hee hee. How cool is that?And talking of cool coincidences:
Katie's post yesterday mentioned Katharine and Otto's 1962 vacation movie, which immediately rang bells in the stranger parts of my brain.
Many years ago, the wonderful Peahen introduced me to a band whose link has been in my sidebar since day one (take a look; it's still there).
I wrote:
"There's a strange band over there in the States called the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (their link is in my sidebar, inevitably). They take all those old home movies and sets of slides and set them to music (imagine a hilariously amateurish They Might Be Giants tribute band with a nine-year-old girl drummer and a mom who operates the projector). They did a great song called Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959, starring some folks' holiday slides they found in a yard sale. They also performed a short opera based around an early 1970s Mc.Donald's staff training slideshow. They'd have a whale of a time with your postcards."
To which Katie replied:
"Dive if you can believe it, I've actually SEEN the Trachtenburg Family perform LIVE! Yes, for 3 months in 2003 I lived in my sister's apartment in Williamsburg Brooklyn and got to see them at a local joint. They were absolutely hysterical, the daughter especially, and I just loved what how they combined the slides, movies and their music."
So here - for any of you who wish to bathe in the glow of Katie's über-coolness - are the glorious Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players performing "Moutain Trip To Japan, 1959".
Check out the rest of their stuff, too. They are a cure for both the blues and sanity.
They're still going and still wonderful.
24 comments:
They're hilarious! Watching them could be a cure for all ills.
Hoorah for happy, silly music, Joy.
I have stacks of their stuff on my iPod and it is a surefire way to cheer me up when the train breaks down.
We could spend a lifetime compiling these old slideshows. What fun !
I reckon I have 1/2 million of 'em.
The Brandenburg gate, Hawaii, most everything. Just need the time to put 'em together. Nice one, old son.
Set 'em to music, find a cute little girl drummer and make records, Monsieur!
Dive you're too funny. I better watch what I say on my own blog! Now I'm probably going to end up pulling a sneezing-coffee-spilling stunt like your train guy tonight on the plane to LA just to set the universe right. Or else I'll be the one not invited to The Best Party Ever like in Dilbert.
I hope there are more videos of this wonderful family group on the internet because Joy is so right, watching them could be cure for just about any woe! What an amazingly cool family, making real art with their slides shows and funny songs. And M. Benaut I'd love to look through your slide show!
Have a fun rest of the week and I'll catch up with you on Sunday Dive. I hope I can survive without the internet until then.
That is the coolest music video I have ever seen!!
Very funny, and a great start to Wednesday.
Careful with that coffee, Katie!
And have great fun in LA (not that I'm jealous … oh, no … not me … not a bit of it).
Check their link in my sidebar. They've got loads of videos and several albums. Rachel also does supercute versions of old Syd Barrett songs.
See you Sunday.
Robyn, they are such an antidote to all that is bogus in the world. I am glad you enjoyed them.
That was hilarious. Thoroughly entertaining. What a clever bunch of goons! Love the little drummer, who totally gets the absurdity of it all.
Oh yes, I'm all over that music style! How fun that you and Katie have so much in common! And you're right about the weird cowinkadinks, How did Dilbert know? How did Katie see that group way back then and remind you recently? These are only a few of life's mysteries.
Now that I'm over my b-day, I'll just say this to you. It's not good to taunt either the Big Guy above OR the smaller one below. That's all I'm saying. ;)
Mme: Little Rachel takes cute to a whole new level, doesn't she?
Shan: You're over your birthday? What!?! It's a whole year until your next one. Make it last, young lady!
As for the Big Guy, as long as his aim is still about fifteen feet off I should be okay. Hee hee.
T: It's all one big conspiracy. Something to do with aliens, the grassy knoll in my front yard and the beardy terrorist hiding in my shed. I don't pretend to understand it, I just try to live through it all.
Just catching up, Dive. Like everyone else I loved yesterday's story so much. Thanks for the reminder about the TFSP, it's great to know they have other fans in this little circle of bloggers. I can't help feeling it's very silly but very clever at the same time. What warms my heart most, I think, is that the family are having so much fun doing something together. I'm so looking forward to a spinning holiday later in the year with whippetsgalore. I'll try to remember not to take it too seriously.
A spinning holiday? Cool, Pea!
I take it the two of you aren't going to be whirling like dervishes but rather making cool stuff like the crafty women you are.
And a hundred credibility points to you for pointing me at the Trachtenburgs in the first place. You have such cool tastes.
Give my love to the family and tell your mum that I still think "Whippets Galore" sounds like a kinkier, dominatrix version of Pussy Galore. Or perhaps she meant it that way! Hee hee.
Dive and Katie.....you guysssss.....:)
Is Terroni doing my work for me or is she merely being sarcastic? I think she's slowly getting aboard TEAM EVANGELIZE! Bahhaha, Come on in T, the baptismal water's warm.
Let's face it. In Shan's land, EVERY day is my birthday.
What a hoot!!! Maybe they should screen them on the subway to ease the tension of commuting??
Can I be the cute little "girl" drummer. i have some serious drums up here. The one with the shrunken head would do the trick!!!! Between us we could do "The Best Party Ever" Dive on his Beast, Katie on the slides - what do you play M B -????
Lynn: Hee hee. What have you been smoking?
Shan: Ah, I do love good sarcasm. And yikes! I'm up against Team Evangelise? I'd better hurry up and pick my side for Team Godless Heathen.
Enjoy today's birthday.
Jules: That would be cool, though at the moment we're getting the trailer for Mike Myers' new movie played all over the tube, which is fun.
You've got the job as "cute little girl drummer". The shrunken head swung that one for you! Hee hee.
To quote Hedley Lamarr: "Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!"
oh...thank you, thank you, thank you.
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - very refreshing, I thought.
I love their clean cut image.
LMAO~~~!!! What a freaking riot. Better than scrapbooking, eh?
Maria: My pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure. Hee hee.
Istvanski: They rule. Check out their other stuff on YouTube.
Katherine: MUCH better!
Nuffin Sir...onest. he he i've never smoked in my life.
Ah, it must be something in the water over in Tewkesbury.
I love this family. I want to invite them over for barbeque.
we'll have a wonderful time.
That would be too much fun, Neetzy!
I love the way they all dress the same in weird home-made clothes.
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