Only Music Can Set Us Free

Theme Song: September 2011

2011-09-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Every month we’re gonna feature a Rookie theme song by a different band that we love. For our first one, we couldn’t have done better than Supercute! Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Supercute! is Rachel Trachtenburg, age 17, on vocals and ukelele; Julia Cumming, 15, on ukelele, guitar and vocals; and Olivia Ferrer, 12, on keyboards and vocals. For more about them, please visit their Facebook or their MySpace. We are refraining ourselves from making so many puns with “super” and “cute” right now.

We are proud to present, as our inaugural theme song, “Superrookie,” by Supercute! (!!)

Download the song here.

Supercute Haunted Hostel

2010-05-22T08:43:00.002-07:00

Supercute Haunted Hostel by TimeOutNewYork

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players All Over This World

2010-05-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players All Over This World by TimeOutNewYork

Bionic Genius Round Table

2008-10-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

the Bionic Genius Roundtable - The Trachtenburg Issue | Episode 0000010

Alberto Giacometti. Four Figurines on a Base. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

2008-10-01T11:33:00.001-07:00

Raw Canvas - Matter and Gesture: Indie vaudeville rockers The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (Jason Trachtenburg, Tina Piña Trachtenburg and Rachel Piña Trachtenburg) talk art and music and the magic of numbers.

download from here

THE G SPOD #124 for June 1-7 : Jason Trachtenburg

2008-10-01T11:27:00.001-07:00

THE G SPOD #124 for June 1-7 : Jason Trachtenburg

Two BBC Streams

2008-10-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

THE TEXAS CHEQUEBOOK MASSACRE

Every year, for four days in March, the world's music industry descends on the sleepy town of Austin, Texas. Over 1000 bands play in every bar, club and restaurant down the length of 6th Street, transforming the town into a sort of urban Glastonbury.

But why? Well, The Strokes were discovered here. And The White Stripes. And the Polyphonic Spree. And so it's no surprise that in 2004, an army of A&R men, record labels and press invaded Austin to discover the next big thing.

Presented by one of last year's big discoveries, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, 'The Texas Chequebook Massacre' takes an inside look at one of the biggest events in the music world's calendar.

Featuring Franz Ferdinand, The Thrills, Scissor Sisters, The Von Bondies, Junior Senior, The Cooper Temple Clause, Polyphonic Spree… and maybe what we'll all be listening to next in 2004.

LISTEN AGAIN >>
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FRONT ROW
06 December 2004
Presented by Razia Iqbal

Listen to the programme

The Pirates of Penzance
David Mellor reviews the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic: "The Pirates of Penzance", which has just opened at the English National Opera . Directed by Elijah Moshinsky and starring Richard Suart as the Major-General and Karl Daymond as the Pirate King, the show is at the Coliseum until February 15th

The Heist
In `The Heist' - a new 3 part series for Channel 4, reformed criminals form a gang to attempt the perfect crime. Criminologist David Wilson reviews the programme which starts at 9 pm tonight .

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
The Trachtenburg Family Players , talk about composing songs to accompany the slide collections of complete strangers, which they buy at garage sales. Performances at the Soho Theatre in London continue until December 23rd and the CD - Vintage Slide Collections from Seattle Volume 1 - is out now.

Christmas book picks
Richard Cork picks his top Art books of the year in the first of this week's series of christmas book suggestions.
Browse the Front Row Christmas book picks

Answer Phone Message

2008-10-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

To start things off here's a weird one actual Answer phone message's from the Trachtenburg's

full story here

Last week I was digging through a large mound of newly arrived cassette tapes at a pet-friendly thrift store. It addition to the standard fare stuff such as Morrissey and the Thompson Twins, one of the boxes had a bunch of unusual tapes, like Samba Mapangala from Nairobi and a various tapes from Thailand. I decided to go through and look at each and every tape. I got excited when I found one marked "messeges" since it seemed to be a tape from an answering machine. Some of us like listening to calls left by strangers. Seattle's Damien Jurado even put out an entire CD filled with messages he found on thrift store tapes ("Postcards And Audio Letters"). I also found one marked "telephone calls" and decided to buy that one too. Each tape was 25 cents.

Later in the day I got around to listening to the tapes. After hearing a few callers talk about the "Dog Squad" walking their dogs, I decided to turn to Google to see if I could find out about the mentioned business. Seconds after the search results appeared on my screen I realized who the tapes used to belong to. It felt like I had hit a goldmine, for I was listening to calls left on the Trachtenburg family's answering machine!

And now I'll quote The Stranger... "But before we get into all of that, a little background for folks who've missed out on one of the city's most original rock bands. The music part of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is composed of keyboardist and guitarist Jason and drummer [and his daughter] Rachel, age nine. The rest of the act is centered on a slide projector, run by [wife] Tina. A couple years ago, the Trachtenburgs came up with the idea of purchasing vintage slides sold at estate sales and then writing songs based on the inherent themes the anonymous images lent to the imagination."

Note that the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players base their songs around old slides found at estate sales. The fact that I happened upon a Trachtenburg tape at a thrift store just seemed fitting. I knew that they were in the process of moving to NYC (after playing their last shows in Seattle a few weeks ago) and so they apparently dumped a bunch of their unwanted goods at the store prior to fleeing this city. They probably inadvertently donated these two tapes as well. I continued listening to the tapes with more interest.

Both tapes are from 1993. The first tape contains answering machine messages from April '93 through November '93. The second tape is a bit different. It contains two phone conversations that Jason had in '93, one with his parents and one with an old friend.

Lots of the calls on the first tape involve the Dog Squad, the dog sitting/walking business that the family ran for awhile. These callers are confirming appointments, trying to make future appointments, or just trying to get information on what exactly the Dog Squad is.

Another chunk of the calls pertain to music-related items. Of these, the ones that stand out are the calls from Chris Ballew, formerly of Presidents of the United States and long-time friend of Jason Trachtenburg. I don't know if it was just a Chris-Jason thing, but Chris refers to himself as Casper Babypants in half of the messages he leaves. The most humorous messages on the tape are the ones left by Chris.

I've decided to share excerpts from the first tape. Click here to listen to a MP3 of them (file size is about 480K). There are six calls on the track and it runs about 4 minutes. The mp3 contains a few messages from Jason's mother. It also has a message that relates to the Dog Squad although it's not a genuine Dog Squad call. Note that it abruptly ends with the word "babysit" as that was the end of that message.

The conversations on the second tape are in some ways more interesting, but the audio quality is not as good (there's a constant hum). By listening to it though you learn the cost of Tina's engagement ring and other such matters. Lots of the talk involves daughter Rachel, who hadn't been born yet.

Anyhow, perhaps in another 30 years someone will happen upon these tapes, write music to go along with them, and perform the act in New York City. Who knows.

-LP 7/02

mp3