E-Mail This Article to a Friend Slide rules The Trachtenburgs turn family night into rock and roll fun BY MIKE MILIARD

It’s been a whirlwind three years since Jason Trachtenburg’s wife, Tina, found an old projector at one estate sale and a trove of old slides at another. Flipping through a carousel labeled "MOUNTAIN TRIP TO JAPAN, 1959," Jason, a veteran of the Lower East Side anti-folk scene and a sometime collaborator with Daniel Johnston, half-jokingly began writing a song (called "Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959") about those washed-out images. He thought it was just a lark, but when Tina heard it, she had other ideas. They headed to an open-mike night; Jason sang and played guitar and keyboards, Tina beamed slides from the audience, and their six-year-old daughter, Rachel, tooted a harmonica. In short order, their "vaudeville family act," the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, became the toast of Seattle. Rachel (now nine) soon switched to bashing away at the drums — revelation: she’s good! — while chirping cherubic backing vocals. Not long after moving New York City in search of a bigger audience, they commenced barreling around the continental US in their wacky-painted mini-van. And you know what they say about the family that plays together.

"An important thing for the family dynamic is to spend as much time together as possible," says Jason from their home in New York City, where the Trachtenburgs are preparing for a tour that brings them to the Middle East this Sunday. "And the other important thing is to make that time have some meaning." So what does Rachel, who attends an alternative school back in Seattle when she’s not being home-schooled, make of the rock-star lifestyle, staying up till 2 or 3 a.m. and playing to clubs packed with boozy hipsters? "She loves it!," says her dad.

Dressed in matching outfits (made by Tina from old tablecloths) and silver-spraypainted boots, the Trachtenburgs sound about the way you’d expect them to. Their jangly jingles about fondue, European boys, and McDonald’s corporate meetings are rousing and ramshackle and a little bit randy. They’re not as innocent as they first appear. Many of the folks in these vintage images are, well, dead. Jason also sneaks darker subtexts and social commentary into his sunny songs. "Eggs" slips in sly references to Watergate and Vietnam while slides of off-white ova are intercut with footage of carpet bombings and boot camp. "That’s the beauty of the slide concept right there," he says in his characteristic ultra-nerdy, adenoidal motormouth spiel. Uh, that it makes no sense? "No more or less than these songs do! Some songs make a hell of a lot less sense than these songs do!"

Indubitably. Regardless, the Trachtenburg juggernaut grows more massive by the day. They’ve been written up adoringly in innumerable publications since the New Yorker profiled them in its "Talk of the Town" section just days after their arrival in Gotham. Their debut record — Vintage Slide Collections from Seattle, Vol. I, augmented with enhanced-CD slide shows — came out this fall on Bar/None. A new video for "Mountain Trip" is set to debut on MTV2. And demos have been cut for the second album. Jason describes Vol. I as the "show-tune, pop kinda record," but insists the next will be "Heavier. Darker. More rock." He continues, "I think we’re at a really crucial point right now as far as where we’re gonna go with this. We could take it to a much higher level, or we could stay the same. The decisions we make over the next couple months are gonna be completely crucial." To that end, they’ve just hired a new manager: Rachel.

Can there be any question that this nuclear family are having a blast? As Jason and Rachel sing in one of Trachtenburgs’ most anthemic numbers: "Together As a System We Are Unbeatable."

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players play the Middle East, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, this Sunday, December 14. Tickets are $12; call (617) 931-2000.