What happened to the Slip?

[Kevin_Kjr]

Did they get bored or what? It seemed at the height of their popularity with Even Rats being on Guitar Hero and the late night gig they just pulled the plug? I long for the days when they would book numerous shows throughout the year. It seems now that the band is headed in a different direction if not 3 different ones with the exception of doing a few shows here and there or doing stuff with SMMD. Unfortunately i started to follow the Slip in 2004 after they stopped doing the whole jazz bit. Dont get me wrong I like there new stuff but going to shows throughout the last 5 years I just got tired of hearing the same set list night after night when they have so much other great music. Sorry for the rant, just sad that the slip kind of just died.

[lucasdavidsamuels]

oh man if i could count the number of times this conversation has been brought up haha.

you gotta look at the slip in a different way. i've come to appreciate the fact that these guys make so much good music in so many different forms that is never boring when they play or put out something new. the barr brothers show i saw in toronto was probably the best show i've seen from brad/andrew in the various forms. i love the slip and i do miss them, but i'm so happy that i get to see the guys making new and different music all the time. these are some of the most talented musicians around today and they're happy spreading their tunes in as many different bands as possible

[Kevin_Kjr]

haha yeah i mean, ive seen them solo stuff done by brad and SMMD a few times but I still crave the Slip. It probably has to do with me discovering them during college and now that i graduated not just having nostalgia for college but for the Slip songs i remember during different times of it.

Do you think that theres going to be a chance that they'll start touring a lot more again? Theres so much unreleased music the slip did that i wish they put it on an album or at least made a few more live CD's. I have some old slip shows but, songs like Tonight we leave chicago seem lost unless you have it on a early live show

[lucasdavidsamuels]

i just graduated 2 days ago. i discovered the slip in 1st year university, 2006. i missed all the shows around me at that time cause i wasn't so seriously into them yet and had no idea about their live shows. anyways since then i've seen them in the various forms as much as i can, even if that just meant hitting a marco trio show in montreal knowing brad would show up and getting to see andrew dominate the skins

i think there will be a nice tour come the fall once the boys release the new album. they say it should be done in the summer but these things never go as planned. hopefully in late 2010/early 2011 we will see a tour by The Slip.

[Kevin_Kjr]

any idea what would be on it? I feel like they mostly just play stuff from Eisenhower at their most recent shows give or take a few new songs? If they just kept a bunch of the new stuff secret that would be sick.

The thing i didnt ever really understand is that why only play stuff from eisenhower with maybe one or 2 songs from past albums? Its not like they are still trying to promote the album since it game out in 06 or 07.'

Does anyone know what caused them to take such a drastic new direction in their music than from their earlier days? I mean eisenhower is cool and all but i just feel like its way too overproduced and i long for their jazzier days rather than the style eisenhower took. I dont know if they just got tired doing the same stuff but we'll see

[booher]

They do play a lot of Eisenhower songs, but those songs were also big before Eisenhower. Unfortunately, I think a lot of them lose their magic because they play them so strictly studio (Soft Machine comes to mind, Even Rats' backing track...my favorite version of that one is easily from an '04 Pearl St. Ball Room show, etc.). But they do throw in a lot of randoms, too. The last couple of times I saw them, I saw them play Sometimes True to Nothing, Dear Melina, Autobody Experience, The Weight of Solomon...

I honestly couldn't tell you what goes through their heads when they play a set. Something has me wondering if the light they got from the Eisenhower album had them playing to a new audience more than playing to older fans and what we would perceive as a "better" set list. I noticed a big change in the people at the shows after the Eisenhower release, although there were still many old school Slip fans about. Even Rats on Guitar Hero, I thought, was a really different painting of the type of band they were.

[Kevin_Kjr]

oh def, i'd imagine a lot of old slip fans were turned off by the new direction. Its almost perplexing to listen to the 3 old studio albums and then listen to Eisenhower, your like where the hell did this come from? But even fans like me who still saw them during the transformation, i dont want to hear Even rats and 5 other eisenhower songs every time i see the show, its like they were just playing to the new fans.

Not sure but what happened but am wondering for those older fans if there fan base was growing in the early 2000's or what it mostly the same amount of people? I feel liek they could have had more success with their old stuff than with the new

[harrymcq]

Well the change wasn't really that dramatic. If you listen to the shows in 2003-2004 particularly there was a real evolution. Since they didn't really come out with an album between angels come on time and Eisenhower the change could seem sudden to the casual fan but my feeling is that they really wanted to be playing the music they wanted to be playing.

I'm sure commercial success or the relative lack thereof factored into their thinking but by that logic why would they have hung it up in 2007 when by all indicators they had a tremendous amount of momentum?

I personally have stopped trying to think about this too much. Though I miss the slip terribly and wish they were touring regularly playing a good mix of old, middle and new material I am happy to have such wonderful music like smmd, barr bros & Marco trio. I am hoping for a slip resurgence at some point in the not too distant future but I am not holding my breath.

[johnhk4]

yes, I too saw this thread start and said to myself: "If I had a nickel for every time..."

What Eisenhower (with it's 4 minute pop songs) got me really thinking about is... how many other bands that I only one or two albums of had a back story and deep catalog like The Slip? ...Lots of 'em probably! Everyone starts somewhere after all. What seems like a revolution in their sound to us, is another person's first impression.

I just really hope they don't go down in history is a flash in the pan Grey's Anatomy soundtrack contributor. I think Brad's guitar solos should be written about in Guitar Magazine, and I think 'Droo and Marc deserve extremely high praise for the musical community.

I am reading a book about Hendrix right now, written by some insiders and they talk about how relentless touring and studio work caused a lot of tension within the group, and is what eventually broke up the Experience. Members in the band had their own side projects and needed other outlets as well as rest in order to perform their best. Although not released, many Experience recordings were not so good. Off-key singing, issues with tempo, sound problems, etc.

At the time, especially just after the Woodstock performance (with Billy Cox on bass and not Noel Redding), many of those close to Hendrix thought that performance was the end of him. It was sloppy, poorly attended, etc.

The version of that performance most people have heard though, is picks of the best of it. Just think if every single Hendrix show had been released as it was happening, good or bad, and there was no mystery about their live show. Remember when theslip.com had an mp3 of "summer of my fall" up? That version was KILLER, and got me interested in SMMD. Then there were a bunch of live shows out, and the setlists were all the same! I am not blaming the band for the setlist, but why would any live shows be released with such similar setlists.

I think The Slip and SMMD should be more selective about which live material is released. Even though all of us will be Jonesing for it real bad! I think for them it's going to come down to PR and booking. Because the talent and magic is there!

My ultimate suggestion for SMMD and the BBros and even The Slip, would be to wait until a tour run is over, then select a best of CD for that run. "Best of April 07" or whatever. That's quality control and I would certainly pay 10$ for it.

So I guess my point is that The Slip taking time off here and there is just a small facet of their eventual success. The talent is there, the songs are there. I don't think the fans should lose heart, until there is some kind of official announcement of their disbanding.

In fact, they are working on a studio album in Brooklyn right now. So cheer up slipfans! and no more drunken song requests.

just my two cents (and a lot of meandering)
- john

[lucasdavidsamuels]

i hope they put the new version of Solomon on the new album, that'd be sweet.
p.s. with kevin calabro at the reigns the boys finally have some proper representation. point in case, their facebook page has been updated a lot, and the royal potato family website constantly has new posts about them.

[bear]

Kevin and RPF are working davis though, not the slip. correct? Not that the SLip are doing anything newsworthy at the moment aside from a couple one off festy gigs

[lucasdavidsamuels]

He's working Davis, it seems like he was working Barr Brothers, which leads me to believe he will be working The Slip when they drop the new album.

[Kevin_Kjr]

did the slip ever have a manager, i remember seeing them in Northampton in 04-05 as SMMD and I believe they had some sort of manager.

The transformation was there from Angels to Eisenhower in their live shows. But after a few years of the Eisenhower release why still play 6 songs from the album at a live show? When they toured a whole bunch, I would try to go to a bunch of shows in the Northeast however after a while i got tired of hearing the same set lists night after night. Obviously the Slip are great live and provide variation and you never know what ur going to get with them but still change it up a bit. My issues, I'm sure are the same as everyone elses but still, i mean when was the last time they updated theslip.com? Dont get me wrong SMMD and barr bros as acts are great but i still long for the old slip days which who knows what will happen. I just find the original old studio stuff so fascinating and so much more interesting than life in disguise or soft machine.

I mean how do you let all these gems just float out there without releasing some sort of compilation of live shows? Like Dear Melina or Tonight we Leave Chicago etc... lot of great songs in the library that you can only get from a taper.

What do i know though, im not in a band nor do i know the financials of such a thing but they really had something there.

[Kevin_Kjr]

just from going through slipbase, its interesting that Children of December first was play in 2002 (maybe earlier but not documented) and they played that until tweaking it in eisenhower, but for me it feels like that song brought on the new direction of the band.

has anyone here ever asked the band about the direction they took or why they just stopped touring?

[Caleb]

It seems like the sound/drive/entire live show experience with the slip changed right around the time the Tim Lanterman ( sp?) left as manager/shakers player. If I recall correctly his last show was the Axis/Dj Klock show.

Coincidence?