The Slip have been taking a break after extensive touring behind 2006's 'Eisenhower,' but the trio fired up their engines last week for their occasional "alternate" band, Surprise Me Mister Davis -- a quartet that stars singer-songwriter Nathan Moore (TheMuseMent). The band just completed a four-night Northern California run highlighted by a two-night stand in Santa Cruz, and an intimate acoustic show with Moore and Slip guitarist Brad Barr. Throughout the run, Surprise Me invited members of Apollo Sunshine and the Mother Hips to join them for various tunes, most notably on a cover of the Rolling Stones' '19th Nervous Breakdown.'

The band, which rarely performs apart from their annual appearances at the High Sierra Music Festival (Quincy, CA), had the energy of a full-time rock group on the verge of a national breakthrough. "I just am really thankful for it being there and I want to do as much of it as I can in the future," Barr tells Spinner. "It has the potential to be a really strange and cool art project, not unlike a vaudevillian collage where it's ripe with imperfection. That is where the magic lies -- things can happen on an almost entropic level and anything is possible. Anything can happen."

Hardcore Slip fans have always longed for more Surprise Me Mister Davis. If they're not careful, they might be longing for more Slip from now on instead. It's a win-win situation.