BEST Slideshow EVER

How many times have you found yourself in this situation:

You: Welcome back from your trip! Did you have a good time?

Family or friend: The best. You'll have to come over and see the pictures. I must've taken a million of them.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo.

And it's even more common to come across that scenario now that everybody has a digital camera, which seems to justify the need to take 28 pictures of the exact same thing.

Well, on Saturday night we discovered the key ingredient to enjoying a lengthy slide show: Original songs that narrate it. Kimmmm, Vijaya, and I headed on over to Iota to take in the Tractenburg Family Singing and Slideshow Projector players. I will never figure out how they came up with the name of their band, but they are a family that sings and plays a slideshow projector.

As the first unsigned act to play on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the Tractenburg family is a trio consisting of the father on keys/guitar/lead vocals, the mother in charge of the slide projector and costume design, and the preteen daughter on drums. They derive their song topics from vintage slides that they find at flea markets, garage sales, etc. Then, they play simple, arty music and tell rambling stories while slides click behind them.

As if we needed more original performers that evening, the opening act featured a very funny accordion player, Corn Mo, who resembled Meat Loaf in appearance and played original songs with obvious Queen influences.

So, if you get the chance to catch these performers, you should check them out. After all, how often do you get to see a live performance that includes an accordion, a slideshow projector, and a preteen on drums?