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Our Alberta trip in few words

Everyone has safely returned to their respective home towns now. Rad Owl had a matinée show in Red Deer on Sunday along with the Offsailors and Trashed Ambulance, but we just checked out of the hotel and drove back to Calgary to catch a 2:20pm flight back to Vancouver.

Saturday night in Edmonton turned out to be a particularly fun and crazy night. I had no idea there was stormy weather warning–it was maybe clouding over a bit on the way back to the venue. I felt a drop or two of rain pulling up out front of the Starlite, but I later heard that roads massively flooded and there was apparently torrential downpours while we were playing. I also heard Shane’s buddy from Teenage Bottlerocket had to turn his car around halfway to the venue due to the impasse of water.

The vibe inside was super cool though. Parents with their grown up kids, (Hi Pauly) and a few stalwart Dough fans from the olden days, full of stories.

Davin from Cutoffs was determined to outgun Shockker’s guitar antics from the night before, and he had plenty of homies in the room to egg him on. Our VERY long soundcheck proved to be worthwhile because they sounded great.

When I took the stage to join Rad Owl for “Numbered Days” and “I Won’t Write You a Letter”, suddenly there were phones out everywhere and I kind of had to close my eyes to focus on actually hitting the notes. These four Minnesota dudes did the songs proud and I felt very honoured to have the opportunity to sing them again with such a punishing and dedicated lineup.

At a certain point, “Are you the band that was staying at the Days Inn?” was heard, so I guess the folks we bumped into in the elevator showed up too. Oh, and I kissed Brian during “Hurrah Hooray” without completely fucking up what I was playing.

Shockker won the “guitar battle”, I would say, but I kinda rigged it in his favour by calling the vote when Davin was out in the alley. You snooze, you lose, buddy!

Since Büddies Fest last year, when Shockk threw his guitar onto the roof of the gear truck sidestage at the end of the set, it has kinda become a thing. In Calgary, he just kinda tossed it onto the floor, making a hell of a racket. This time he hung it up on some cables on the wall. What will he come up with next?

Our Dickens show was an early one before the Emo DJ Night, so we were done in time to be able to get lost on the way to Tubby’s (underpasses can be tricky) and still meet up with Darren and the JSM folks. I was pretty beat and falling into a food coma after a Stan Mikita Dog and a Straightedge Pale Ale, but Shockk and Dave probably closed the place down. Shockk woke me up with Mork and Mindy on the TV at like 3:30 am.

There are a ton of people to thank, and it was awesome to put faces to names and voices. Bill sure hit it on the head when he said, “If 50 people like your band, well, 50 people like your band!”

With our Alberta shows coming up, Brett Baumback was kind enough to host me on an episode of the Rad Dads Podcast. We got pretty deep into it, so I hope you guys enjoy! You can stream on Apple Music Podcasts or your favourite pod platform. There’s also a video version on the Rad Dads Youtube channel if you want to see my messy kitchen in the background.

Jeremy Jessen of Rad Owl will also be featured on the next episode in a week or so, so be sure to check that out as well!

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.