The Slip

There is something impossible about The SLIP.

Something humble and heroic, hard and tender, soft and monstrous. Certain people agree: The SLIP have brought the epic back to rock with their new record EISENHOWER.

Two brothers and a childhood friend, the three met in the halls of high school and immediately fell in together, later dropping out of college and heading off - criss-crossing the country, flying back and forth to Japan (where they developed a strong bond with cult superstar UA), and making lots of new friends and fans along the way.

These days, when not touring or busy in the recording studio, Brad, Andrew and Marc can be found roaming the streets of Boston or Montreal, enjoying a cafe from the local barista, catching a film at the moviehouse or reading quietly in the park. Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) tripped over them recently at one of their avant art-rock shows and told the New York Times about it:

“Seeing them live was amazing...I instantly felt a bond with these three guys. You see so many tired, boring rock acts doing the same thing over and over, but these guys are reaching out...They're taking what we know of music and trying to twist it to a different place." - Jim James, Sunday NYTimes, July 2, 2006

Brad Barr is the band’s core songwriter and one of the great rock guitarists of his generation. He is also looking to join an adult softball league. Brad is the troubadour who’s absorbed it all, from Blonde on Blonde to Bitches Brew. He has the ability to do almost anything on six strings, yet consistently plays with taste, context and humility, understanding the awesome power of three chords and a simple melody to bring people in.

Marc Friedman is mission control on bass guitar, the foundation keeping it all together. He brings the wide-ranging and eclectic interests - from Gershwin to Madonna - that result in many of the trio's most enduring arrangements, as well as many of the high-concept production elements on Eisenhower. Marc brings the nutmeg and the cinnamon. He’s the virtuoso who has literally invented new ways of playing his instrument yet also represents the band’s brick wall; constant and comprehensive in his support.

Andrew Barr is the engine and the source of the band’s chaos and primal energy, often forgetting where he put his shoes, and dreaming up elaborate beats that tell real stories. Andrew's drum parts are practically their own complete songs, adding thunder and lightning to the intimacy of a heartbeat. He rocks like Bonham and listens like your best friend.

Which brings us to the new record that these three have just completed. After drilling deep within their home studios over the almost five years since their last studio release, the band finally entered the illustrious Q-Division Studios in Boston to create a stunning new album that brings adventure, daring, and honest songwriting back to the annals of rock. The band’s first release for Bar/None Records, this is music that points to the future, synthesizing older influences like The Beatles, Bach, and Led Zeppelin while also engaging in a current dialogue with the likes of Built to Spill, Iron & Wine and Wilco.

Co-produced by the band and the dapper Matthew Ellard (Elliot Smith, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Morphine) and with additional engineering by good friend and fellow Montrealien Drew Malamud (Stars, Metric, The Dears), EISENHOWER easily stands as the most cohesive and evocative work The SLIP has released to date.

The album kicks off with “Children of December” and right away you can tell that something truly powerful and new is happening. Percussive vocal delivery over just four punchy chords that erupts unexpectedly into far-flung choruses and then backs out just as quickly - It’s a holiday song for no season in particular, a jump-up, generational anthem for the yesteryears of tomorrow.

" ‘Children of December’ is the song that hit me hardest,” adds Jim James, “the way the guitar and the melody interlace, it's incredible...It could even appeal to some kid who really likes punk rock. It's really challenging.” Immediately following is "Even Rats" - a super-charged, arena-rock racecar for your impersonal post-apocalypse. Hook-laden, and complete with politically-charged and ambiguous lyrics, the track has already been featured in Sony Playstation's top-selling "Guitar Hero" video game, and in doing so has introduced the band to a massive new crop of fans worldwide.

From then on, the record only pulls you further and further in, ranging effortlessly from intimate, hushed vocals to thunderous, big-beat anthem sincerity, all the while telling a single intense and meaningful story. Massive Lennon-esque ballads give way to angular post-punk deconstructions and gently transition into intimate acoustic lullabies. Virtuosic surf-rock intros drift seamlessly into dusty, epic, headphone Americana...all of this, and yet, somehow, the story is never lost, it all ends up making sense. It is the work of a band at it’s finest: a new paradigm in wide-awake rock-realism.

We are so pleased to bring you EISENHOWER.

The Slip began their career firmly entrenched in the jam band scene, but as time passed, members changed, and tastes within the group shifted, they evolved into a guitar-heavy indie rock band. Founded in the early '90s at the Tabor Academy, a New England boarding school, the Slip originated as a classic rock cover band featuring the Barr brothers: Brad Barr on guitar and vocals and Andrew Barr on drums and percussion, as well as guitarist Jon Myers. After Brad's graduation in 1995, Andrew met up with bassist Marc Friedman in one of the school's jazz ensembles. When Brad returned from Colorado a year later, he began to play out with Myers, Friedman, and Andrew. Myers left the band, and the remaining trio enrolled at the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA, but eventually dropped out to concentrate on playing professionally. By 1996, they self-released their debut album, From the Gecko, which was inspired by Miles Davis' seminal Bitches Brew. In the spring of 1999, Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks saw the band in concert and signed them to his new Flying Frog Records imprint, which released Does in 2000. After signing to Rykodisc the following year, the Slip issued Angels Come on Time -- which was recorded in Phish's barn -- in summer 2002.

The Slip's musical direction changed radically over the next few years, drawing on influences ranging from Can and U2 to Built to Spill and the Postal Service. A companion live set issued in 2003 on their own 216 Records, containing the albums Aliveacoustic and Alivelectric, reflected these changes. As they spent more time in their home studio, the Slip continued to move further away from their initial approach toward a more indie rock-inspired sound. In March 2005, the group began work on its fourth studio album with co-producer Mark Ellard; its first single, "Even Rats," was featured in the !Playstation 2 game Guitar Hero. The band performed throughout the spring of 2005 under the moniker Surprise Me Mr. Davis, featuring Nathan Moore on vocals and guitar; they also continued to perform -- sometimes in two-band shows along with Apollo Sunshine -- using their original name of the Slip. Live at Lupo's, recorded live at a summer 2004 Rhode Island show, appeared in January 2005 before the Slip returned with a new full-length that showcased their new sound. Eisenhower was released in the fall of 2006 through Bar/None Records. ~ Jesse Jarnow, All Music Guide