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Automatic Slim

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Milk Cow Blues

From the recording Down by the Waterside

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Farewell, friends…

IT is with very great regret that we have to announce that Automatic Slim has finally called it a day…

After more than 40 years of gigs, adventures, fun and friendship the band has decided to quit while it's ahead. None of us is getting any younger and maintaining the onstage energy and commitment for which Slim has always been known is becoming increasingly difficult. Health issues have led to the cancellation of some gigs in recent times - something Slim had previously only ever done on a handful of occasions in the space of thousands of shows. We hated disappointing people and felt we were starting to do it too often.

Automatic Slim played our very last show at Blues at Barleylands in Billericay - Slim's Last Hurrah - in October and will not be booking or playing any further shows.

Our sincere thanks go to the many thousands who have come to see the band play since our very first outing at the Treble Chance in Basildon in November 1982, and to the many, many people who have helped and supported us in so many ways down the years. We are very grateful indeed.

It's been a hell of a ride!

Tim, Ian, Howard and Don

Automatic Slim - 40+ years of fun and games,
good times and great music!

NOVEMBER 3, 1982. The world was a rather younger and more innocent - and so were the principal players in this story.

November 3, 1982 was the date on the very first poster to bear the name AUTOMATIC SLIM... The venue was a small and entirely unprepossessing place just outside Basildon called the Treble Chance, behind a disused gravel pit enjoyed chiefly by the jet-skiing fraternity and the town's more inventive flytippers.

The band - Tim Aves (vocals/harmonica), Ian Cundy (guitar/vocals), Howard J Bills (bass/vocals)and original drummer Chris Love - were all self-confessed Dr Feelgood nuts. No prizes, then, for guessing what the music was that night - tunes from the songbook of the Feelgoods, Wilko, George Thorogood, Mickey Jupp and Nick Lowe, played fast and furious and with commitment, energy and a cast-iron determination to entertain. The small audience wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, a few muttering into their beer that this band was a flash in the pan, a decidedly short-term proposition.

Fast-forward to 1999...Automatic Slim had proved the doubters wrong...3,000-odd gigs around the UK and continental Europe, sharing stages with some of the biggest names in the business, four albums, a string of singles, tens of thousands of miles on the tour-bus clock. Oh, and four drummers...present incumbent Don Moore is the longest-serving by a huge margin, after almost three decades. By 1999, the musical world had changed, however. (Boy George was at Number One!!!) Punters' lives and tastes had moved on and the number of gig-goers who actually "got" what 'Slim were about was dwindling. The boys decided to quit while they were still ahead. They sold the van and the PA and came off the road.

2002 brought the band's 20th anniversary and a return to the fray. After three years of silence, the fearsome beast that was 'Slim raised its head again for a big birthday celebration. The gig was such fun the boys decided it wouldn't hurt to reunite for the odd gig now and then.

Two decades on, ‘Slim is still gigging - albeit these days, only handful of times each year rather than the relentless three or four gigs a week of its heyday. The guys pick and choose those gigs, but still invariably delight friends old and new, ALWAYS giving 100% commitment on stage, even though most of the band is now firmly in bus pass territory. This was never more apparent than with their a sensationally explosive performance a few years back, second on the bill to the Blockheads in front of 5,000-plus people at the Kelvedon Free Festival...

The summer of 2019 assembled Slim for a week in Rooks Yard Studio, in the Essex Delta, recording their first album in 17 years, a process rudely interrupted (as, unfortunately, was the band's gig calendar) by the dreaded coronavirus.

So on to 2022… With life returning to normal and the odd gig being added to the schedule, 'Slim is celebrating its 40th anniversary year by finally releasing that album, "Down by the Waterside", to widespread acclaim. The CD has also won a surprising amount of airplay on specialist blues shows (No 14, no less, in the official IBBA Airplay Chart for February!) but also on mainstream radio, including the legendary Radio Caroline.

In the summer of 2023, after 41 years together, the members of Slim finally decided to call it a day. With an average now well in excess of pensionable age and the ravages of age and infirmity starting to bite, they've decided to quit while they're head.

One final gig was played in October 2023 to say farewell to many of the great friends they have made over the years. After that, there will be no more shows, though the latest CD, “Down by the Waterside” will continue be available while stocks last.

Thanks folks...it's been a blast!

Automatic Slim Discography

"Julie B" c/w "Tame Man" 7" single, 1983, Square One Records, Square 001 - Not Available
"Shoot!" Cassette-only LP, 1984, Square One Records, Square 002  - Not Available
"Slim Live!" - 12" vinyl album/cassette, 1986, Square One Records Square 020 - Not Available
"The Spoonful EP " 7" 4-track EP, 1987 Square One Records, Square 022 - Not Available
"He Ain't Heavy (He's the Singer)"
12" vinyl album/cassette, 1988, Square One Records, Square 030 - Not Available
"10 Years Live - Out-Takes and Double-Takes"
limited edition CD, 1992, Square One Records No Cat no  - Not Available
"Growing Old Disgracefully - Slim's Dagenham Salad Days"
CD, 2002, Square One Records Square 0200 - Not Available
"Down by the Waterside"
- CD released, February 2022 Radio Caroline Records Caro 001 Click here for clips and details of how to buy

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