Slipped A Mickey

Newest News and Events

2008

021508 - O.K. here's the first CD update. We have been getting together every other Friday for about the past year or so. Several new songs have been written and some old songs of ours have been updated. Quite a bit of new equipment has been purchased. I don't want to spoil the surprise yet. We have a couple of songs for the CD finished and I'll post some samples soon.

021008 - 26th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Sunday, February 11th 1pm to 8pm. We decided to skip it this year. Don't worry, we're still playin'.

011008 - Hey, Happy New Year! This time it's for real. We are going to get a CD finished this year or else. You have been warned. I'll try to keep you up to date on the progress and change out the songs on the audio page so you can hear the new stuff we're working on. It's a bit different that the usual jug band stuff but if you heard us at last years events you'll know we've stepped it up another notch... again.

News Archive

2007

072707 - Battle of the Jug Bands at Floyd's Bar in Victoria, MN. We were declaired the winners and took home the mess kit! Paul's late 1930's Kay archtop made it's debut. How long did we play anyhow? Let's see... there was our set, the first group jam, the second group jam, our encore...

052707 - Battle of the Jug Bands at the Amazing Grace Cafe and Bakery in Duluth, MN. We came in 2nd place! The first place winners were the legendary Bo Conrad Spit Band. We don't mind coming in 2nd place to those guys.

021107 - 25th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Sunday, February 11th 1pm to 8pm. We were told by an inebriated judge that they wanted us to win but because we didn't bribe them we were the runners up. An unmentioned 2nd place finish.

2006

021206 - 24th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Sunday, February 11th 1pm to 8pm.

020106 - We have started regular get to gethers every other week. We are going through our song book and selecting songs to record. We are also writing new stuff as we go.

011106 - O.K., maybe we just took a break. We are back and planning on playing at the 24th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Sunday, February 12th 1pm to 8pm. After that we believe we will record a CD. Let's just see about that.

2005

2005 - Well, it looks as though we have hit the end of the line. Slipped A Mickey has gone the way of the dodo. Our group has imploded and each of us has been scattered to the four winds. When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.

2004

070804 - Erin and Paul sat in with the Fat Chance Jug Band at Molly Quinn's on Lake Street in Minneapolis.

070704 - Al and Paul sat in with the Fat Chance Jug Band at the Viking bar in Minneapolis. This may be a first step in some local gigs, so for those of you who have been clamoring to see Slipped A Mickey without having to book hotel reservations, here's your chance to see us in town. Be sure to keep an eye on the band calendar for updated information.

053004 - Up in Duluth for the 8th annual Battle of the Jug Bands. We camped out as is usual for our little rag tag bunch. Things were nice Friday and Saturday, but Sunday after the gig we hit rain and our camp site was a mud puddle in an undisclosed location. We hadn't played together since the Cabooze show so we were very much adhering to the unrehearsed stipulation of the event. Our set list: Stealin, My Gal, Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian, Jambalaya and I'll Fly Away.

020804 - 22nd Annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Yes! We played it again. Much better this time. The word on the street was that we turned it up a notch. There were actual people there that had come just to see us play. Strokin' the ego. Again we didn't win...I don't know who won. We managed to steal all of the awards though and had a band photo taken in front of the Cabooze. Our set list: Roving Gambler, Kansas City, When I Get Drunk and The Memphis Stagger.

2003

123103 - New Years Eve at the Stanchion Bar in Corcoran, MN. We are also signed up to again vie for the coveted Waffle Iron at the 22nd Annual Battle of the Jug Bands, Sunday February 8 2004 at the Cabooze. Please check the calendar for updated information.

122803 - Upcoming events are New Years Eve Wednesday December 31, 2003 9:00 to 1:00 at the Stanchion Bar in Corcoran, MN. We are also signed up to again vie for the coveted Waffle Iron at the 22nd Annual Battle of the Jug Bands, Sunday February 8 2004 at the Cabooze. Please check the calendar for updated information.

112303 - Sunday November 23, 2003 7:00 to 10:00 at the Stanchion Bar in Corcoran, MN. We trekked to Corcoran through a mighty blizzard. What's the deal with this band and crazy weather? Despite the massive amounts of snow approximately 25-30 people showed up to see Slipped A Mickey's first solo gig. We played pretty well especially the first and second set. The third and fourth...well...we played. Ah, yes, the Sue incident. See you all on New Years Eve!

110103 - Congratulations to Erin and Al! They were wed November 1st. Everyone in the band is now married, and some to each other! All went well during the service and only a few snickers were heard. During the reception someone slipped a copy of Slipped A Mickey's "Merc Coupe" to the Dj, Nice!

102103 - We are practicing for a scheduled gig Sunday November 23, 2003 7:00 to 10:00 at the Stanchion Bar in Corcoran, MN. We have all the details on the calendar. We now have Slipped A Mickey Kazoos for sale in the store area, they will also be for sale at shows. Al and Erin are set to tie the knot November 1st.

090703 - We planned on attending the Battle of the Jug Bands in Effie, MN. Things just don't work out sometimes and we were real disappointed we couldn't make it. Hopefully things will work out for next year. We recieved a message from the folks in Effie: You guys should have come up to Effie, ya would a won, I'm sure cause you guys are great. As it were, Girls on Top, (a.k.a. took home the fish skinner) - Sarita

062703 - We played at the Battle of the Jug Bands hosted by Floyd's Bar in Victoria, MN. Paul did the Tour De Bar in White Bear Lake the night before so he was a wee bit hung over and Chris and Al were feelin'...pretty good let's say. We don't much remember playing but we think that we had fun.

052503 - (includes the 23rd and 24th) Friday - We headed up to Duluth for the 7th annual Battle of the Jug Bands at the Amazing Grace Bakery & Cafe. We camped out on park point for the weekend. It was cold sleeping the first night, but overall the weather was great. Saturday - We tried a couple of run throughs of the songs we planned on playing. Next we headed into town and set up on the boardwalk in canal park and played for about an hour. We met some great people... (Hello Freeport Indiana and Mountainview Arkansas!) Finally we went into to Amazing Grace to see the stage.The DeElliot Brothers Jug Band was playing so we had a little listen. Sunday - We ended up being the first band to play. We think that we played better than we did at the Cabooze, but alas we did not win the krumkake iron. We did finish in the top four, maybe next year. Here is a letter we received from our host at the Amazing Grace Cafe: Thanks for coming up and help make this Battle successful. Only one band was not in the final selection, to give you an idea of how hard it was to pick a winner. You were in the top four. Your band sounded very good. Keep on singin. Its wonderful to see and hear younger folks, enjoy old tyme jugband music. Keep in touch....and thanks.... Elliot Silberman of the Amazing Grace Cafe & DeElliot Brothers Jug Band

040103 - Getting ready to head up to Duluth. We are trying to figure out what songs to play. We are also putting together our song book which will be a collection of all the songs we know how to play, new and old.

021103 - There's a whole lot of stuff going on here! The web site has gone through a complete redesign. We now have a calendar installed. There is now a press section which will house everything needed to put together a press package and materials from events we participate in. We have some video frim the Battle of the Jug Bands in the event section and some new songs in the audio archives. Enjoy!

020203 - The Battle of the Jug Bands! What a day! Our first ever public performance couldn't have gone better. We were a bit nervous and didn't know what to expect during our 15 minutes and were quite surprised at the reaction we received. The audience was amazing. They were singing and dancing whooping and cheering. At the end of the night it was announced that we won Best New Band. Thanks to everyone in attendance for making it such a fun day. Look out Duluth and Effie, here we come!

020103 - We had a last rehearsal house party the night before the Battle of the Jug bands. Thanks to Jon and Deb for showing up. Andrew, Justin and Joe brought us all pizza, then at 1am we thought it would be a good idea to go and play boot hockey and use a can of cranberry sauce as a puck. We played until 4am. Slipped A Mickey had their butts kicked in by the youngsters. So now we get to play the show hung over, battered, cut and bruised. Oh, well, that's they Slipped A Mickey style.

010103 - We played in front of a small gathering for New Years with some of those in attendance joining in. We recorded some of it on the digital recorder and a digital video recorder. I haven't taken a look at any of it yet, but I'm sure that it is quite under whelming. We have been practicing for the upcoming Battle of the Jug bands 1:00 PM. Sun Feb. 2 at the Cabooze in Minneapolis, MN. We have sort of decided on our set list for the show: "The Fried Pipers", "Jug Band Music", "The Lay of Nina Clifford" and "The Mission Song". We have about 15 minutes of stage time so we'll have to narrow it down and check for time.

121102 - Finally some songs have been added to the audio page! MP3 away folks and enjoy Slipped A Mickey in the privacy of your home. We'll try and get a few Christmas tunes up in time for the holidays so don't despair, you too can be Slipped A Mickey for Christmas.

120202 - Band meeting today, and in true Slipped A Mickey style we decided that we will again be unable to finish the Christmas CD by this coming Christmas. So, the release of the Slipped A Mickey Christmas CD (2 years in the making) "Mix Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" will now be Thanksgiving of 2003! We have switched back over to our other CD project which will be the first official (we're not counting the Disco-ology CD) Slipped A Mickey titled "The Fried Pipers". We have been working on this CD simultaneously with the Christmas CD and now having gone full force towards its completion we have about 10 songs completed so far. We still need to get some song samples up on the web site. We would like to put up some new songs and not the songs we had up previously. They were so terrible!

112802 - Folk-Blues Hero Dave Ray Dies - Dave "Snaker" Ray, an influential figure of the folk-blues scene of the 1960s who won quiet renown for his virtuoso guitar work, died Thursday at his home in Minneapolis. He was 59. Ray had been diagnosed with lung cancer in May, according to his longtime band partner "Spider" John Koerner. The two, plus harmonica player Tony "Little Sun" Glover, formed the acoustic trio Koerner, Ray & Glover in 1962, and the next year released the landmark album "Blues, Rags and Hollers." Recording several albums and performing at folk festivals countrywide, the trio never achieved more than cult status. But they influenced such artists as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, and Beck. The trio parted ways in the late 1960s but periodically reunited over the years and also recorded individual albums. Ray also engineered Raitt's 1971 self-titled Warner Bros. debut and carved out a cultish solo career. Beck, who had Ray and Glover open for him in the Twin Cities, said of the trio: "They seemed to be one of the only people from that folk-revival period who would just completely play their music with abandon. They were just so raucous." As young Bobby Zimmerman, Dylan had listened to records at Ray's house and traveled in the same circles. "Every time they play, the lights shine," wrote Dylan when the three released their "One Foot in the Groove" album in 1996. In recent years, some of their earlier works, including "Blues, Rags and Hollers," have been reissued on CD by Red House Records. * associated press

Slipped A Mickey owes a lot to Koerner, Ray and Glover. We were lucky enough to meet these guys several times. My wife and I followed Dave around for about a year taking photos. I had some great talks with Dave and shared some of my music with him. The reason I bought a 12 string guitar was because of Dave. When Slipped A Mickey first started playing music together we often played Koerner, Ray and Glover tunes. I guess what I want to say here is that I feel a great loss. The person I strived to play guitar like and learn from is now gone. I regret never having my picture taken with him, not discussing music more or getting to jam with him. I am thankful that I did meet him and spend some time with him. I know that many people do not get to have such an opportunity like that. I have the photos that my wife and I took and the email that Dave and I sent back and forth and I have Daves CDs and above all the memories which I will never forget. Thanks Dave.

111002 - Continued recording. We have the song list selected for the Christmas CD and we recorded a new song for it. We have been reviewing and revising the web site and will continue to tweak it as we go. The band member pages and song samples are currently offline at the moment. The member pages need to be created and the songs need to be chosen, we'll see what happens.

110902 - We worked this weekend on the two CD's. We are still hoping to have the Christmas CD finished for Thanksgiving, so stay tuned!

110102 - The new and improved web site is just about complete. Here we are at www.slippedamickey.com! The web site is here!

033002 - The new and improved web site is almost complete. We are waiting for the domain name slippedamickey.com to become available. It is currently owned by some film company out of Canada. Their contract for it expired a month ago, so hopefully soon we can nab that sucker and get out stuff spackled on the web. Today is Easter Sunday so we will not be getting together today. Some of the band members have this "thing" about family.

030902 - We headed back to the "Little Wood Lake Adolescent Correctional Facility" on a band retreat. We listened to our finished Disco-Ology cd and had some band photos shot. We also had a band therapy session where we discussed the content of the cd and our use of alcohol as a stimulant.

030202 - All of the songs have been chosen and finalized for our Disco Ography, previously thought of as being the Disco Goddess cd single. We decided to make it a collection of our 4 track tape stuff. We put songs of ours that are key examples of what we were doing during our early years. There are 12 songs and the cd is going to have between track commentary from the band trying to explain what is going on in the songs. We are recording the commentary tonight and possibly finishing the cd. After tonight we hope that the only thing left to do is the cover artwork, and then it's done!

021002 - We went to the Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. We didn't compete in the contest, we were there just to see what the jug band scene is like and how these competitions work. We decided that it looked like something we would like to do. Our goal is to have some material ready to play at this thing next year.

020102 - The month of February. This is the deal here. We have been getting together on a regular basis now and have a schedule that we are following. We decided that we will pick up on the Christmas cd in July. We didn't want to keep doing Christmas songs any more and needed a break from them, but the release is planned for Thanksgiving. In the meantime we are working on a cd to be finished by July, and we are also working on a Disco Goddess cd single. We did a song called Disco Goddess (020698) which we consider the lowest of the low points of making music together. To summarize what this song is: Slipped a Mickey, 2 cases of beer, a cheap keyboard, 3 verses about disco, a megaphone and 18 minutes and 26 seconds of tape. Not for the faint of heart and not at all folk blues or jug band stuff. Believe it or not we have had requests to make it available on cd! So we have that song and as sort of an apology we are planning on putting a few other songs on that cd. The songs will be a sample of the journey from terrible crap to not so bad crap. Silly listenable crap if you will.

012502 - Here's an update! Our web site used to be at xoom, then NBC bought out xoom and deleted all of the web sites on those servers. That's why our web site has disappeared and now reappeared at Angelfire. A little after Thanksgiving we picked up a Tascam 788 digital recorder and we have been working on that Christmas album of ours. We have about half of the songs finished and the artwork for the cd cover nearly complete. You may begin preparing yourselves for Slipped A Mickey - "Mix Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". These Christmas songs will showcase the growth of the band thus far. What does that mean to you? Not a whole lot, but then again, if you have heard some of the songs we have had up on our web site I declare that you will be truly amazed! We should have it completed for Christmas 2002. The web site is going to be going through some big changes as well. We will be adding a Slipped A Mickey store where we will be offering CDs, stickers and possibly T-shirts and brownies in the back.

030101 - Wow, it's been almost exactly a year since I said, "Hey it's been awhile." I upgraded my computer system some time ago and the audio program I was using no longer worked. Since I wasn't able to create audio files until I got a new program I kind of let the web site go to pot. I think that I may have found one that will work so hopefully I'll get back to business here real soon. During this time we have still been getting together and recording. We started on our Christmas CD so prepare yourselves for "Willie the Christmas Bum." We sure as hell better have it done by next Christmas! We've also completed our recording equipment collection and the quality of the recordings are better than ever. The songs, however, are just about the same as they ever were. Like the newly styled web site? What the hell...

032300 - Hey it's been awhile. The band members have all been busy with life so we have not played for quite some time. We played a few weeks ago. The less said the better. We were a rusty set of nails! So we played for an hour or two, then drank for three or four. Good times! Anyhow, we have a logo. So look for T-shirts and bumper stickers! Just kidding, we don't have any of that crap, not even in the back. We should be getting together within the next two weeks, maybe not, and does it really matter?

022000 - We went to the Back Porch Rockers cd release party (Dave Ray, Tony Glover, and members of the Radiators).

073199 - The site has been updated with a new look and navigation. There are new audio files up also. We are getting together tonight to record some more new songs. We recorded 3 tapes of folk and blues songs. We were pretty pumped up about the Koerner, Ray and Glover music and we tried to do some of the songs that they do.

072499 - Big Al and his gal Erin, my little minx Karissa and I went to Osseo, MN to see Koerner, Ray, and Glover play for three hours. It was about 98 degrees out and we each drank about 3 gallons of water, but it was worth it.

052899 - This was Paul's Birthday. We played in front of a small select audience. It was a pretty good time. The garage was set up with a couch and a snack table, we even had a sound system set up that ran out of the 4 track. The evening was recorded from beginning to the last bottle of beer. For his birthday, Paul bought himself a 12-string guitar. We are currently working on some folk blues tunes about St. Paul history.

051999 - Slipped A Mickey is coming along much better now. Our past two practices were a lot of fun. We got together for a whole weekend and played for the majority of it. We have talked about playing our first gig (possibly at Bon Appetite in Minneapolis), but we're still not certain when it will be. We're just not confident in ourselves enough to get up in front of people, plus we would like to sound a whole lot better since we all agree that we are pretty terrible. I'm going to be making some changes to the site during the next couple of days, I lost my internet access for the past month and just got it back today.

042499 - Played in the garage for a long time. 8 tapes of music. We had the banjo and went through a Leadbelly song book and tried to play all of the songs. We also did a song using all of the street signs that are hanging in the garage as lyrics.

032999 - Slipped A Mickey has been doing some song writing and some new audio clips are up. You can now download the real audio files if the streaming is too slow. Keep sending the feedback, we've received some really great messages so far. Another band practice and clips coming soon. Oh, and we visited the grave site of Clellan Card (known as Axel from the old kids show Axel's Tree house).

121898 - We built a washtub bass for the band. Slipped A Mickey practiced today. Big Al is going to be playing the bass now along with the rest of his repertoire.

120898 - I spent the past week learning how to encode Real Audio files. Over the weekend I hooked a 4-track up to my computer and made some audio files of Slipped A Mickey songs. I spent eight hours today still trying to figure out those darn Real Audio codes and such. I think that I finally figured it out, but I couldn't really check because this server didn't have any available streams at the time. POOP!

112098 - Slipped A Mickey band practice. Played some blues stuff. We all were trashed and laying on the floor. 2 tapes

101498 - Got together, drank, made a bunch of noise and had some very interesting conversation. 4 tapes

062098 - We took a trip to Wilmer Minnesota and saw the largest ball of twine collected by one person. Then we went back home and recorded 3 tapes of music, some related to our trip. The City Slicker Country Bumpkin Hoedown comes from this.

042998 - We gave away 50 copies of a collection of spoken-word with music called "That's How Sick I Was."