Woohoo!
We just approved the test pressings of our sophomore 12″ EP, “Overtime”. There’s still a ton of work to do, but we should have vinyl awfully soon in the new year. The Official Release Date is currently set for February 23, 2026, so expect to hear more soon in the usual places, along with announces of a couple shows we’re working on.
I’ll be setting up a pre-order on our bandcamp for you special keeners ASAP!
Stay Tuned and Happy New Year 2026 to everyone!
Some of you may have noticed that there are no longer any Slips songs on Spotify, so I figured a little clarification might be in order.
Back in August, I logged in to our Spotify For Artists to find that “Graystone” had been unceremoniously removed. When I reached out to our digital distributor, I was told (after waiting six weeks for a reply) that the song had “had a spike in streaming activity for a brief period that did not follow organic streaming patterns” and consequently, had been “taken down”.
Now, the “spike in streaming activity” they were alluding to, was caused by a scam playlist that had randomly added our song about six months prior. There are a number of these lists (this particular one was based in Finland) that prey on unsuspecting artists by adding their song, then botting a thousand streams in one day, with the aim of luring the unsuspecting artist into paying for more (botted) streams.
I’ve never been in favour of paying for streams, despite the fact that it is disturbingly common nowadays, and I’m incredibly proud (and grateful) that Graystone was listened to about 8000 times by actual humans. My response to the bot scam incident was to report the playlist, using the Spotify For Artists Tools. Spotify removed the playlist from our profile, the number of streams was adjusted, and everything was apparently fine, until the song was removed months later.
Our distributor was adamant that the song could not be reinstated, but suggested we could “re-release the content as a new submission, which will require new UPC and ISRC codes”. After I explained that the song had already been released to college radio in the US and Canada and that assigning a new ISRC code was out of the question, I was told “We apologize but there are no other options at this time if you wish to reinstate the music.”
They did at that point offer a coupon code to waive the cost of re-submitting the song.
After talking things over with the rest of the band, we decided to not pay to resubmit “Graystone”, and further, to cancel digital distribution for ALL of our remaining catalogue on Spotify, as well as all Brock Pytel solo releases.
As of this writing, the SLIP~ons catalogue is still available on other streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Tidal, but unfortunately, Tidal has also recently changed their terms of service to include sweeping concessions of artist rights, so we will probably be removing our catalogue from there as well.
We will continue to release vinyl recordings (more on the new one soon) and play live shows, and for the moment, our bandcamp remains the best way to support us. We are also exploring a new cooperative artist owned distribution service called Subvert and will let y’all know when there is a Slips page active there.
I’m feeling a bit under the weather tonight so I’m taking a pass on DeeDee Starr’s birthday show at Green Auto.
Nothing like good friends to get you through the tough times, like all my film crew pals in this shot from our last show there. You guys know who you are…
Sayyad’s doom outfit Hushed is also playing!
We’re stoked to let on that the Slips’ “Heavy Machinery” EP is now available in Japan from our brothers in arms at Waterslide Records
I guess there really isn’t any good time to test positive for Covid. My turn came on Monday. I didn’t feel 100% at band practice Sunday, so didn’t join Shockker for drinks afterwards and just went home. I had symptoms Monday morning, so got flagged by the health screen app from my work (Netflix TV series) and got a drive through test at the Netflix Lab (yes Netflix has its own doctors and labs). I got a call later from the HSS telling me the sad news, and began the task of cancelling our gig at the Railway (sorry Balto and Moylan).
After a hellish night of broken glass throat and chest pain, I’ve been able to keep symptoms at bay by eating DayQuil and NyQuil. My poor liver will need to recover from the vast amounts of acetaminophen, but all in all, things could be way worse. Unfortunately, Shane, Brian and Christa all tested positive today as well, and Shockk is isolating with symptoms so… Yeah, after dodging this bullet for two and a half years, we’ve all been caught.