Special Live Performance

Fri May 25 | 9:00 pm | VIFC

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Price: $20. Ticket includes post-show party; no festival passes.

Critically acclaimed Canadian musician Bobby Wiseman teams up with the Jason Trachtenburg Slideshow Conception and Toronto band The Phonemes to present a one-of-a-kind musical and visual performance. Read on for the scandalous details of what made it all possible…

“Sometime before May 25th, 2007, Jason Trachtenburg, Bouncing Bobby Wiseman and The Phonemes were kidnapped by an unnamed branch of the Lithuanian government and flown to Vilnius, where they were forced to answer serious questions about slides and super 8 projectors mixed with accordions and/or guitars. Fortunately the Canadian government, now led by Stephen Harper, had boosted their investment in all-things-military (because pay equity, aboriginal issues and poverty in Canada were solved?) and spies, proficient in Lithuanian, French and English were able to rekidnap (a real word) and set free Jason Trachtenburg, Bouncing Bobby Wiseman and The Phonemes. To celebrate their restored liberty they decided to perform new and old works Friday May 25th in Vancouver using slide projectors, super 8’s and musical instruments, and call this demonstration the Before The End Of The World Tour.”

Artist Biographies

Bob Wiseman, formerly of The Hidden Cameras and Blue Rodeo, was actually born in what they refer to in the far east as the Year-Of-The-Cat-That-Constantly-Wants-To-Go-Out-Then-Wants-To-Come-In. Though he claims to not believe in astrology, a brief glance at his career – 9 CDs on Warner, Atlantic, Bar/None and now the Blocks Recording Club, 14 films made from super 8, mini DV or flash animation, plus producing Ron Sexsmith, Edie Brickell, and Bruce McCulloch and collaborating with Scott Thompson and Maggie MacDonald –  demonstrates that he really might seriously reconsider occasionally having an oracle live nearby. Or maybe he doesn’t want to know what will happen next. His latest record, Theme and Variations, was a cumulative meditation about his area of expertise: ex-girlfriends.

Jason Trachtenburg’s musical career began in the late ‘80s in New York City, where he was part of the Lower East Side’s anti-folk and performance-art scenes. In 1992, he moved to Austin, TX, where he worked with Daniel Johnston on music and video projects. He relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 1993 to collaborate with Chris Ballew of Presidents of the United States of America. In 1999, Trachtenburg released Your Favorite Song and gained favorable attention from Seattle music fans and from the Orange Recording Company, who released his Revolutions Per Minute album in 2000, finally garnering Trachtenburg the national attention he’d always deserved. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were born during this time. Deriving their song topics from vintage slides, the trio (musician/vocalist Jason Trachtenburg, slide projector/ costume designer Tina Piña Trachtenburg, and preteen drummer Rachel Piña Trachtenburg) became the first unsigned act to play on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Jason recently released TOGETHER, his latest solo record.

The Phonemes from Toronto have a respect for rubato and a hankering for harmonies. 2007 sees the release of the first Phonemes full-length CD “there’s something we’ve been meaning to do.” This new record was produced by Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mount Zion) and also features the ubiquitous wunderkind Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy, Arcade Fire, The Hidden Cameras, etc.). Magali Meagher is head bee-keeper of The Phonemes. As well as continually writing and recording soon-to-be-classic songs, she drums and sings with Blocks labelmates Hank and was the star in author Maggie MacDonald’s rock opera The Rat King, which will be remounted in New York City in August 2007.

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