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Automatic Slim

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Mess Of The Blues

From the recording Down by the Waterside

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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.

Watch this space...this story is far from over!

Automatic Slim Discography

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

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