bitchtits wrote:The Slip is done (good source told me) im sure they will play a show here and there but their last show was at the "dice" amazing show happy to be there for a fans only show. Now we have SMMD still as the closest thing to The Slip. It was an amazing run I saw alot of really great shows THANK YOU BAM!!!!
Hmmm...a "good source"? I may wonder...no offense meant. They're definitely not done if they're playing shows here and there. And these are EPIC and well-rehearsed, not just random get-togethers. They
brought the heat, not just playing to make us happy (whatever
that means...do musicians play for us, or them, or some higher power...Apollo perhaps?
). I know there will be more of these, but I don't "know" as BAM said something...I just feel it would be much more obviously they've "given up the ghost" -- there would certainly be a disturbance in the force that we all would have felt. It would be clear.
Remember when Phish "officially" called it quits? (Did I just compare Phish with The Slip? Oh, the horror!
They're nothing alike, of course...I'm just comparing the situation, which is also nothing alike, so my comparison is weak at best...BAM plays a lot more than Phish did when they went on "permanent hiatus").
Part of the problem is that most people's memories only last about a week or a month at the most. They don't remember shit from last year and certainly not from a decade ago (especially if they weren't there, but there is also a collective or absorbed memory like I can "remember" Woodstock from watching the documentary, but I wasn't there of course!). Without a lot of assistance (like forums, eh?) we wouldn't even remember what we wrote or read, and that's supposed to be more ingrained than just hearsay (verbal).
Saying "The Slip is done" is sort of a subtle form of "
disasterbation" ( actually has a more specific definition, attributed to Dave Kreiger, the "inventor" of the "Kreiger waves" [Star Trek: TNG]). To try to feel better by predicting someone's untimely (IMO) demise is disasterbatory...though it's part of human nature and not something we can easily control (depends on willpower, which again is not so easy to find, control or create if there's none there). It is still soothing, especially when we share how we feel, and friends say yea or nay but give their impressions ("social mirror" theory, et al).
It hurts both ways, but one is hurt on the way down, one is hurt on the way up. Positive hurt, like muscle cramps we get from working out. Can we also "work out" emotionally? This was Aristotle's take -- it's also called catharsis...but even just saying it brings expurgation, even if we learn what we feel is complicated and maybe not so bad. It really isn't. I just know this...which is why I don't feel a "shadow over the hope"...just hope. That becomes satisfaction every time I see a Slip show, but also when I see them separately in their
various incarnations of musical expansion (ruminate upon that).
There is also an essential aspect of humanity that Aristotle discussed (among others, but his writings were among the most profound, and were even a model for Shakespeare, who studied the ancients extensively)...which is that
drama is an essential aspect of humanity. We need drama to survive, in essence. So, I'm not saying disasterbation is a bad thing per se, it's like wrapping ourselves in a mantle of drama that perhaps we need in order to feel something or anything at all. When one of the loves of our lives (excuse me this transgression, but it's fitting here) has gone off the face of the earth for so long, there will be sadness and fear. I usually try to find some silver sliver of humor in the grey clouds. Since I've known old and dear friends who have "come around, in their own time", I always have hope. There's not far to "come around" here...we still see BAM at times and sometimes together, sometimes with other musicians. People have to all rise of their own accord...and with a band, that means all the members at the same time. This is a delicate but also magical moment...and if they don't "feel" the moment, the moment may take a very long time (what's "long" to you might not be "long" to me or "long" to a band that's toured for over 10 years!...another important point I feel a need to restate). Patience is all relative.
It would ordinarily cause great chagrin for a band to hear "they are done". I'm sure it would be worse coming from a close friend -- most musicians will say "naaaw...nothing of the sort". This to me is more of an "extended partial hiatus", not full and not short. If BAM took five years off and worked on side projects, to me, this makes their art more powerful and valuable. Think of all the adventures they are going on with so many other artists...expanding their repertoire but also expanding their "musical wisdom" as well as other experiences they may never get as an "avante-garde progressive jazz-rock power trio" (hahaha, put that in your pipe and smoke it...I know how much people hate labels, but again, this is part of human reality and we'll never get away from it...and I used the "cool" 'j'-word, not the other "uncool" 'j'-word, OK?
).
Another thing is that comment by Marco means a lot...because he indeed knows them...quite well (as most of us should know). The Duo+SMMD collective at BB King's was also completely outta control and a hellofalot of fun. I wasn't thinking for a second "I wish that was The Duo with The Slip" at all...I was almost surprised (after forgetting what I knew
) to experience the interleaving songs like that...and with two drummers at the highest levels of musical caliber. With such a diverse set of musicians and song repertoire, this is a masterpiece occurrence and if they keep doing these "hybrid experiments" while dropping in a purely-Slip show from time to time, I'm perfectly OK with this kind of "hiatus", which is much nicer than if they all literally dropped off the face of the earth for many years (which is what many or even most other bands have done).
And as Lucas says, if they really did play a "last show", they would definitely
bust out the bomb lab and leave a
smoking crater in our minds that only an epic music documentary could do justice.
Florida is down south, right?
-Phrazz
P.S.: As I finish editing, "My Landlord" comes on at random from Paradise 2004, which was also an EPIC show. I wonder if the "landlord" has been
plugging any paper birds lately.