The AutistiX Band Update May 2023
The name of our unique rock band is The AutistiX, because the youngmusicians who started the band (and named it) are autistic. Our talented musicians re proud of ourselves, feeling that having autism adds uniqueness to our creativity, while acknowledging the challenges that autism adds to our lives. We write and perform our own evocative songs that are written from the heart and with our unique slant on life. Our stage act is high energy as we love to bring our music to our audiences and our mission to inspire people with our determination, our belief in ourselves and to show the talent of musicians with disabilities and to encourage people to follow their own dreams and passions. We also seek to promote valuing all people and to work for full social inclusion.
The AutistiX are: Jack Beaven-Duggan (acoustic and electric guitar plus backing vocals); Saul Zur-Szpiro (drums and backing vocals); Jim Connelly (lead singer); John Duggan (electric guitar/bass/vocals); Michael Zur-Szpiro, (harmonica) and recently have been joined by)Adam Markiewicz who also plays bass.
We are proud to include musicians with autism and are proud of ourselves for our creative song writing and performing talent. We aim to increase the inclusion of musicians with disabilities, but we are not a ‘disability band’. We seek to inspire neurodiverse musicians and encourage everyone to follow their own area of talent and dreams. This includes neurotypical musicians and everyone in general!
The band has performed at legendary UK venues (The Dublin CastleCamden Town, The Cavern Club Liverpool, O2 Academy Islington, The Barfly Chalk Farm, Brighton Dome, Star and Garter, The MonarchChalk Farm, The White Rock Hastings, etc.).
We appear at open air festivals, community gigs and charity events. We even performed once with Sir Tom Jones on stage and helped thecharity to achieve their highest ever fundraising record! We always bring in a sizeable crowd at our gigs.
Just before the pandemic, a new documentary was made about The AutistiX and included the drummer Rick Jupp (ex-Elbow) as he has a son (also a drummer) who is autistic. It was shown on BBC’s The One Show and we played live on the show.
Like everyone, Covid stopped our normal lives, however in the safer periods, we were delighted to play a few ‘socially distant’ open air gigs that our audience’s absolutely loved, having been starved of live music. The AutistiX were really energised to be performing again.
Last year, our drummer Saul inspired a wonderful feature film to be made about a drummer with autism who meets an ex boy band musician and how they transform each other’s lives. The screenwriter and director, Eddie Sternberg, has known Saul since his earliest days and was so astonished at his passion and talent for music, despite significant challenges, that he was moved to write a film script that was inspired by Saul. What’s more Saul is in the film, playing hand drums in a number of crucial drum circle scenes. Furthermore, one of The AutistiX’ newest songs ‘I Am As I Am’ is in the film! The film was released on Netflix in September 2022 and is called ‘I Used to Be Famous’. It reached no 2 in the UK digital download charts and no 4 globally.
A number of documentaries and articles have been written about our unique and inspirational band and we have a global reach of followers nearly 5000 on Facebook and over 1000 on Twitter and increasing all the time! We have increasing followers on Instagram and all of the popular digital music sites and, of course, our website and on youtube.
We are thrilled to be able to perform live again following the Covid pandemic and are proud of how we kept going throughout lockdown, releasing our latest EP ‘I Am As I Am’ with 4 of our newest songs in September 2022. We are working on our latest songs (10 in process from our prolific band!) for our next EP as well as playing a number ofgigs. Our next gigs, at the end of May, will be at Alexandra Palace’ 150thbirthday celebrations in North London and at Beatles 1Day Festival in Walthamstow. Then we have further gigs scheduled throughout the summer. We hope you will come and see us performing live!
Contact: Susan Zur-Szpiro, Manager, The AutistiXtheautistix@gmail.com
Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify and other music sites and website www.theautistix.com