Poll: In what year did you first become a fan of The Slip?

[Cleantone]

Please talk a moment to click on the applicable answer. Thanks. April will be a decade for me. Caught them splitting a show with Schleigho and was floored.

[lumpy]

Good poll! I was lucky enough to be gifted a tape of their high sierra 98 set from a friend I was trading phish tapes with in early 99. By the end of the year I had moved out to upstate New York for college (from San Diego) and caught my first show in at the Iron Horse. I have very distinct memories of behind side-stage (essentially where you walk in at the Iron Horse) directly behind Androo, and just being in awe.

Thanks to Slipbase:
10/02/1999: Iron Horse Music Hall: Northampton, MA
Set I: Invocation> From the Gecko> Zion> Moral Decay, So Dope, Nellie Jean, Johnny's Tune> A Crack in the Sundial, Dont Foil the Mohel*, 54-46 Was My Number*
Encore: Dogs on Bikes
Notes: *=with Eric Krazno

I have no idea if this was recorded, but if it was - I'd love to hear it.

[harrymcq]

Oh man, the Iron Horse is a great hall, I wish I had caught the Slip there but I've never made it back there since I fled the East Coast in 1996, just in time to miss the beginnings of the Slip. I first saw the band at High Sierra in 1999, having skipped 1998 to see some Phish shows in Prague and Barcelona. I loved the guys, bought a sticker and put it on my guitar case. I saw them later that year in November at my friends' house party as the Slipping Daylights and was totally hooked after talking Marc and Arne into a bass duel to start the 3rd set.

[tyler]

2004. Think I might be one of the few who got into them from recordings and not from a live experience.

A bunch of my friends were into them, and that summer I had to see what all the fuss was about (despite my inherent dislike of jam bands). Went to TheSlip.com back when they had lots of random mp3s. The first two I heard were actually Mardi Gras and Snowed In from the first SMMD album. But what really caught me were The Woods and "The Zeroes". Those songs took FOREVER but they were so good I didn't even care. And they didn't partake in the direction-less, unfocused nonsense jamming that I hated jam bands for, so it worked out.

Over the next few months I found Sometimes True to Nothing stuck in my head often. And then one night I heard Alivelectric in my friend's car and thought, Wow that is the kind of music I want to listen to. Would've went to NYE 2004 at the Narrows, but it sold out quickly and I underestimated The Slip's popularity, and I didn't know the Narrows was so little. Then I almost went to the Lupo's show after a track meet but I couldn't persuade any of my friends to go with me. My first show wasn't until the SMMD Narrows show in April 05.

[r.c.]

Tuned in @ the late Choppin' Block Pub, started to frequent this venue when turned on to the hillbilly bluegrass of The Two High String Band and met a really cool crowd of people, everything snowballed, good times, memories, and stories, now seems like a strange trip a long time ago.

Would not currently consider myself a 'FAN'.
Maybee an Old Friend that will always Enjoy the Music.

Where is 'The Viper ?'

[JEFFfromNC]

98-99 time frame for me.

Someone handed me a live show and recommended I give it a good listen...

[chloe]

somewhere in 2001 if i remember correctly we were driving over the rise in comm ave on which i actually now live, one of my friends had popped in music from this band i "just had to listen to", and we had come to, don't laugh, honey melon. there was just so much good energy in that track, and then, listening, i made out "celebrate the ocean cried as i dove in" and may have actually shouted outloud, "did he just personify the ocean?!?" from there i was pretty much sold. of course it wasn't till after not sleeping for it think three days straight, the same friend mostly dragged me to the 4.19 show at the paradise in 2002. after this incredibly etherial intro that almost convinced me that tasoula was right when she said my life would never be the same after seeing the slip live, they opened with dear milena, my at the time favorite song, hadn't gotten into nellie jean yet, and i swear it wasn't just the sleep dep, they kicked that song into high gear and segued into get me with fuji, which i had never heard before, and totally blew my mind. I cried during if one of us should fall and left that club with just about as much faith in the human condition that i've ever had. i still kick myself for choosing sleep over the show the next night, but i can't say i've lacked defining moments with this music since. and as for the other six years, oh, those are whole other stories... some of the best times a gal coud hope to have with a lifetime.

[tim]

winter break, january '99. took a late night drive with a crazy kid named shreekar. he popped in a live tape(an actual cassete, remember those?!?) of a band named the slip, a band he claimed was better than phish. shreekar always knew what was up in regards to music, and was an amazing drummer himself, so i took him seriously on this claim. i don't know what exactly i heard that night. i want to say 'eube' and or 'honeymelon', but i'll never know for sure. i just know it was like nothing i had heard before. the following day shreekar (who was batshit crazy and prone to disappearing for months on end) and his tape went the way of the buffalo and i was left with nothing but a faint memory of that crazy shit i had heard. i checked every record store around to no avail. the net wasn't what it is today with it's mp3's and it's myspaces. maybe that stuff was out there on the web back then, but it wasn't easily accessible for a guy with no computer savy such as myself. the fact that i was immediately intrigued and unable to follow up on what i had heard added a real strong sense of mystique around the slip for the following months. i'm pretty sure that initial feeling had alot to do with how i've felt about their music ever since. it wasn't until that following may that i was finally able to see them at all good and pick up their album.

[magpie]

i discovered the slip almost by accident, it seems, by way of nathan moore... 2004 was my first high sierra, and i was determined to check out everything nathan was involved in. he told me to not to miss the late night in tulsa e scott room with this mysterious ensemble called surprise me mr davis opening for the slip. what followed was one of the most memorable shows of my life! smmd was magic, pure undiluted mushroom-saturated magic. and after such an experience, there was no way i wasn't going to stick around and see what the slip was all about... and the rest, as they say, is history...

[appleofmyeye]

For me it was 2001. My friend Sean kept taking over everyone’s stereos putting this band on that resembled so many bands I’ve always loved. The Slip is all he listened to! The collage I heard was of all the music styles I’ve always liked, jazz, blues, reggae, folk, hip hop, world beat, I was floored. He would walk around with a backpack full of slip cd’s and a boom box. This went on everyday for a long while. He mostly would put on shows from 97-99. Anyhow, I had to go see them, so a big crew of us drove up to Hollywood for the 10.25.02 show. It was actually kinda funny, that night stopped at a street light I looked over and Spielberg was filming a movie, to my surprise he was staring at me! My friends told me to go talk to him, I was too shy so we went to the show. The room was dark and there was red furniture, and a brick room out back for smoking, the perfect Hollywood dive bar feel. I remember that night the STTN was the highlight for me but now that I go back and listen to it that Spice Groove was off the hook!!! Sean gave Brad some kind of wall hanging with an Indian God on it that he later said he put up in the bus to welcome guests. That show and the next in SLO was Sean’s first time taping! If you haven’t listened to these two shows do yourself a favor and do so. It wasn’t until my second slip show, 09.12.03 that I actually got to meet BAM, but it was nice to meet such a humble group of talented guys, who weren’t full of themselves. I was impressed. I remember after that show listening to soft, warm, simple wonder from the 10.26.02 show, with Sean in the car at the belly up over and over again while everyone was inside for the long beach dub all stars, ah the memories. From my first show on I knew that The Slip had filled that empty place that became when Jerry died. The Slip is the closest thing to a pre-Jerry death Grateful Dead show I can come to and now it’s 2008, and I still feel the same way even though they’re now more indie. Thanks for posting this poll Tone.

[pete]

09/24/2002: Rex Theater: Pittsburgh, PA, thanks to etahn. Been hooked ever since.

I'm still waiting to see Marc play the bass with an apple again.

[Phrazz]

I remember seeing Red House shows in the winter before the first Ho-Down (which I missed, but some of my friends went). My roommates at that time might be able to help...who actually turned me onto the Red House parties, as well as Choppin' Block (and Skye played washboard in Two High String Band, also at the Block and there were plenty of these and Red House gigs not listed in Slipbase). 1991-1993 when I was at State Street, around 1994/5 I worked for a consulting company where one of my coworkers knew this security guard at Boston Stock Exchange who was a great drummer and was looking to move into a "jam house" with other musicians (I played bass and guitar, though not very well, but I did have a PA and amps which I kept plugged in for anyone to use). We had many keg parties in the basement...Berklee cats would come over and rip it up. Nigel of course graduated from there and is a pretty phenomenal bassist himself...it was he or Mike who most likely who found out about the Red House gigs. Probably right around the time Islington got started. Seems like ages ago (a decade is an awfully long time). Whoever knew Sammy first likely brought us over to the Red House...Choppin' Block shows were happening right around that time. Booty has some really old photos which help date some of these early shows, and of course the almost ancient tape archives. Coulda been 1995, or as late as early 1997. So 1996 is in the middle and my best guess until I look through some old files and can guess more accurately.

For me, it was sorta like this wave.

[-A]

November 1999 Santa Cruz. After an early show downtown there was an after party in the Aptos hills. Possibly the same fore mentioned Slipping/Daylights show. An intimate room of people soaked up the sounds of The Slip, the whirl of the fire dancers and the creaking of the hardwood floorboards. I remember watching the first rays of sunlight tickle the ocean as the The Slip's sweet lullabys floated up to the loft where I sat ............it's been a wonderful romance. I no longer see/feel music like I use to, but my love for the Slip never wanes.


p.s. I've never posted before, I dig the subject line, thanks. [/code]

[Cleantone]

I remember seeing Red House shows in the winter before the first Ho-Down (which I missed, but some of my friends went).

The FIRST Ho-Down was summer of 1996 in Amherst. It was in Eric Krasno's backyard. Schleigho let all the bands play a big long. Then they got up, played two tunes or maybe more and the cops came and shut it down. I have tapes of at least a few of the sets. yeP! comes to mind.

I've never posted before, I dig the subject line, thanks.

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[putty]

first heard of them in '99. my friend mary ellen was a freshman at Stanford then. she told me about a time she was sitting in a coffee shop in either palo alto, or san fran (can't remember), and the slip walked in and set up and started playing. on that recommendation i got From the Gecko, and then Does soon after that.

i think i first saw them at Berkfest. not sure what year that was. '01 maybe.

i was obsessed with Does for a while.