SlipLive

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The Slip: Fusion band, jazz band, jam band, or rock band?
Actually, it's been all of the above, and without losing its identity or its audience

By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | December 1, 2006

‘‘Eisenhower,’’ the new album from the Slip, begins with a luscious rock song called ‘‘Children of December.’’ The tune is made of bright guitars and rubber-band bass, crisp drums and just four winsome chords. It’s got verses and a sort-of chorus and goes on for several minutes — hardly a novelty unless you consider that the Slip’s last album was a two-disc collection of meandering musical rumpuses captured in all their improv-stoked glory on a dubious-quality live recording made one night at Lupo’s in Providence. Notable among them is a 12-minute rendition of ‘‘Children of December.’’

If change is healthy, the Slip is in peak condition. After beginning life as a fusion band, shifting toward minimalist jazz, diving into experimental rock, and immersing itself in the jam scene, the 10-year-old Boston trio (now technically a Boston-Montreal trio) has released an excellent pop album. ‘‘Eisenhower’’ is full of alt-rock sculpted with the sort of innovation, and played with a level of rigor, normally associated with jazz giants. The songs are smart and sophisticated but also heartfelt and humble.

The album is certain to attract new fans, and may alienate some old ones. ‘‘Even Rats,’’ a languorous arena rocker stuffed with an unlikely mix of catchy hooks and tricky time signatures, is featured in Sony Playstation’s ‘‘Guitar Hero’’ video game.

‘‘We definitely have sailed into some uncharted territory,’’ says bassist Marc Friedman, on the phone from a tour stop outside Chicago.

‘‘For one reason or another we’ve fallen in love with the idea of trying to communicate with a large group of people,’’ adds drummer Andrew Barr, who is also on the phone. Singer-guitarist Brad Barr, Andrew’s brother, is sick from food poisoning and has to miss the interview. ‘‘We’re not scared of sounding commercial. We don’t want to run away from that.’’

The Slip’s giant step toward the mainstream began in 2005, when the band contacted local producer-engineer Matthew Ellard (veteran of sessions with Morphine, Juliana Hatfield, and Billy Bragg & Wilco) about working on its fourth studio album. He said yes, on the condition that the group agreed to do less jamming and more song crafting. The original plan was to spend 15 days in the studio — a lengthy stay for a band whose three previous albums were live concert recordings. Ellard and the band ended up working on ‘‘Eisenhower’’ for more than a year.

‘‘They’re amazing musicians, and there was no shortage of ideas,’’ says Ellard. ‘‘We tried a lot and rejected a lot. We didn’t use anything that didn’t make the song better. And it just clicked. There’s structure and form, but it doesn’t sound like anything else.’’

My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James concurs: ‘‘Polished and weird’’ is how he enthusiastically describes the Slip’s music on the phone a few days ago. James first heard the band play at Mountain Jam in upstate New York last year and invited it to open a string of dates for My Morning Jacket. The tour stops at Avalon tomorrow.

‘‘With so many bands, there’s so much hype and fashion, but the Slip is so unpretentious,’’ James says. ‘‘It’s three dudes playing really psychedelic but really approachable music.’’

The Barr brothers — who are originally from Providence and didn’t tell anyone at the Boston Music Awards that they’d moved to Montreal until after they won this year’s award for best live act — met Friedman in jazz band at the Tabor Academy in Marion. All three attended the Berklee College of Music for a year before dropping out to ply their wares in the real world. While the Slip’s early material resembled ‘‘intense instrumental exercises,’’ says Barr, the group’s love of spontaneous improvisation and avant-garde roots music made them rising stars on the jam-band circuit.

‘‘We came up as a band focused on live performance,’’ Barr explains. ‘‘Shows were like all-night parties with big mixes of different kinds of music, and it was easy to get caught up in the art of putting on a live show. Now we’re feeling more inspired by the art of making a record, and influenced by the great rock ’n’ roll songwriters we’ve always loved, like Led Zeppelin and Van Morrison.’’

Concerned about how the Slip’s new sound would go over with fans, Barr recalls consulting with a seasoned music industry denizen, who advised them to change the band’s name.

‘‘We actually thought about it for a little while,’’ says Barr. ‘‘But while it can be hard to mark any shift, we see this more as a new chapter than a massive departure. I like the idea of building something that’s really wide in spectrum.’’

‘‘I think we’ve hit on something, though — a flavor, an idea — that we’re going to stick with for a while,’’ notes Friedman. ‘‘We’ll definitely take ‘Eisenhower’ to second term.’’

http://ledger.southofboston.com/article ... life01.txt

My Morning Jacket members from left: Jim James, “Two Tone” Tommy, Patrick Hallahan, Bo Koster and Carl Broemel.

By CHAD BERNDTSON
For The Patriot Ledger

The mutual admiration of two bands with no shortage of Boston-area connections will make for one of the month’s hottest shows, as Kentucky wonders My Morning Jacket roll into Avalon tomorrow night, with Boston/Providence avant-rock stalwarts The Slip set to open.

My Morning Jacket’s headlining spot will mark its third visit to Boston this year. Back in May, it was the opening act for none other than Pearl Jam at TD Banknorth Garden.

It returned in June for two nights as special guest of the Boston Pops as the most adventurous act yet to link up with Keith Lockhart and Co. for the ongoing ‘‘Pops On the Edge’’ series at Symphony Hall.

‘‘It was certainly an experience that I never would have imagined we’d have the opportunity to be a part of,’’ said bassist ‘‘Two Tone’’ Tommy in an e-mail interview. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve smiled so much onstage, during rehearsals, and both nights of performance, than I did on those three days. It was like another author - in this case arranger Pat Hollenbeck - had written dialogue for some long-established characters and we were just delighted and amazed to find ourselves in the middle of this book that felt altogether familiar and a new experience at the same moment. Playing ‘Golden’ was like walking through an old Disney animated short.’’

After releasing what was arguably 2005’s best rock album (‘‘Z,’’ which along with 2003’s ‘‘It Still Moves’’ is among the decade’s essential pickups), MMJ aimed higher in 2006, with swaths of tours, much-celebrated performances at a number of the year’s big music festivals (it’s the only band to have played Bonnaroo four years in a row) and also good returns on its appearance in Cameron Crowe’s 2005 film ‘‘Elizabethtown,’’ performing a note-for-note rendition of ‘‘Freebird’’ as a Southern rock band called Ruckus.

This year also saw the release of a crackling live album (‘‘Okonokos’’) and companion concert DVD, recorded and shot at one of the band’s favorite venues, San Francisco’s Fillmore.

Tommy and lead singer/guitarist Jim James are the remaining original members of MMJ, which formed in 1998 in Louisville. The name ‘‘My Morning Jacket’’ refers to a coat James found in the smoldering remains of his favorite local bar after it burned down.

While MMJ was originally a trio, it added keyboards and became a quintet, whose members include drummer Patrick Hallahan, guitarist/pedal steel player/saxophonist/vocalist Carl Broemel, and keys man Bo Koster.

The group may have a South Shore connection, too; its 2004 live EP, ‘‘Acoustic Citsuoca’’ was rumored to have been recorded at Braintree’s Startime Pavilion, during a Halloween party thrown by a friend from the area.

Some sources deny that the recording is from the party - if it even happened at all - and was culled from several fall 2003 tour stops instead. Then again, the band’s Web site does offer 10/31/03 in Braintree on its list of past gigs.

‘‘We care deeply about the good folks of Braintree and hope that our secret show has not upset them in any way,’’ says Tommy, doing nearly zero to clear things up.

MMJ is full of praise for The Slip, which received two major national notices through James’ graces, after James mentioned his admiration for the band in interviews for the New York Times and Rolling Stone.

‘‘It was really through a mutual friend who introduced us and brought Jim to one of our shows,’’ said Slip guitarist/singer/keyboardist Brad Barr in a recent phone chat. ‘‘I remember seeing Jim there in the crowd and it was something pretty great, and the Symphony Hall shows were on the horizon. After we did that show, we hung out and got beers with those guys at Bukowski’s.’’

Barr said the trio, which features his brother Andrew on drums and Marc Friedman on bass, got the call to tour, and was quick to agree.

‘‘We’ve never really toured with anyone whose production has been so professional and whose overall sound is so tremendously in line with what we enjoy,’’ Barr professed. ‘‘The thing they have is so solid, so I’m not exactly holding my breath for much collaboration, but it’d be fun to do.’’

The Slip as presently constituted formed in Providence in the mid-1990s, although the name The Slip was first that of a mostly covers rock group that originally included neither Friedman nor either of the Barrs. When Brad and Andrew began introducing original material, the band evolved into their baby, and they invited Friedman, with whom they’d played in a jazz band, to anchor it.

Establishing itself with a live presence in both Providence and Boston, The Slip’s proclivities were experimental, its gifts for jazz- and rock-based improvisation making it a favorite of the jamband set. Since then, the trio’s been in an ever-evolving state, absorbing more jazz, funk, sunny pop, and plenty of international sounds into its palette.

No two Slip albums sound alike, and the band’s newest, a masterpiece called ‘‘Eisenhower,’’ is not unlike many of the current sounds that get tagged ‘‘indie rock,’’ though in the hands of Friedman and the Barrs it comes off as about 100 times more varied and sophisticated.

This is terrifically ambitious music: pop hooks and whoa-whoa choruses here knot up with complex jazz progressions there, often, as in the case of ‘‘Even Rats’’ (which appears on the soundtrack to Sony PlayStation 2’s ‘‘Guitar Hero’’) in the same song.

Yet, on the same album, you have rapidly shifting African rhythms underneath noisy, almost prog-rock leads in ‘‘The Original Blue Air,’’ punchy vocals and a swirly melody in ‘‘Children of December,’’ and both haunting ballads (‘‘Suffocation Keep’’) and oddly absorbing anthems (‘‘If One Of Us Should Fall’’). As dangerously eclectic as The Slip can sometimes be, the trio’s ability to handle it all - especially the rhythm players - is ever more astute.

-‘‘We spent many years experimenting with sounds in a polyrhythmic, adventurous way,’’ Barr said. ‘‘After years of that, the sounds led me in a folk kind of way - songs that would move easily to other people’s lips from mine, honest songs, and and songs I really stood behind. We kind of landed on this modern rock sound - it worked its way into the overall realm of The Slip.’’

Change has been a healthy thing for The Slip. While Friedman remains in the area, the Barr brothers moved from Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood - where they’d shared an apartment for eight years - to Montreal, ‘‘to try something completely different,’’ Barr says. While living far from Friedman has complicated their schedules a bit, Barr thinks it’s actually focused their rehearsals a lot more.

Of note: You’ll have one more opportunity to catch The Slip this year, as they headline Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence on Dec. 29, before heading to Brooklyn’s Northsix for New Year’s Eve.