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Happy New Year
for 2025 from
The AutistiX!

Happy New Year from The AutistiX for 2025! We hope that all our followers have had a good holiday season and that your New Year has got off to a good start. This week we celebrated the birthday of 2 of our band members, Jim Connelly and John Duggan, on the same day but a few years apart! We particularly wish them our very best as they have both lost a parent in the last few months, so wishing everyone good health, happiness, prosperity, success, caring, love and safety! Like most people, The AutistiX had a Winter break the last few weeks. We are now back together and energised to start back playing old favourites and our new songs. We met together for our first rehearsal of the year last Thursday 9th January, and were lucky to have our lead singer, Jim, in town again, after being able to rehearse with him shortly before the Xmas break in December. We are hoping he will be able to come to London to rehearse a bit more often this year, as well as playing in gigs! During the past year, highlights were playing in several gigs particularly during the Spring and Summer. We were glad that some festivals had started up again for the first time since the Covid pandemic while others, sadly, did not seem able to get going again after several years’ break due to the usual organisers moving onto other activities, the insurance cost of festivals and gigs having become prohibitively expensive, and less money being around due to the ‘cost of living’ crisis. We were happy to play in some great gigs and festivals, and also spending time to work on finishing our latest songs with a view to recording our 5th EP in the next few months. We can’t wait to get into the recording studio and for you to hear our newest songs. A further highlight of the year was deciding to contact Leo Long, the actor and musician who played the role of Stevie, the drummer with autism in the film ‘I Used To Be Famous’. This role, indeed the film itself, was inspired by our drummer Saul, about the impact of the Stevie character on Vince, the ex boyband musician, the other main protagonist in the film and how they transformed each other’s lives through the power of music, that also lies at the heart of The AutistiX. We asked Leo if he was interested in coming to meet the band and possibly sing and play with us. He was immediately enthusiastic about our offer and having the chance to make music with Saul (and the rest of the band). He is a fine singer and plays The Bazooki. He already knew one of our songs ‘I Am As I Am’ as it is in the film. We all hit it off immediately and really like playing with each other and he has become a regular part of our rehearsals. It is great to know Leo – a talented young actor, musician and singer on the autistic spectrum who is a great exemplar of the talent of performers with autism! He is lovely and warm and the band and he are enjoying the close relationship that we are developing with each other, along with his equally warm and supportive parents James and Yumi. We are all looking forward to Leo joining us performing in upcoming gigs with us. That brings me to our next news which is our plan to record our 5th EP soon, with 4-6 of our newest songs that are just about ready to record, so watch this space for further announcements. We have invited Leo to join The AutistiX in recording our newest EP! Another piece of news is that a few months ago, The AutistiX were approached by Emily Chambers, on the senior editorial team at a publication called UNREAL Rockstars. They cover startup news across the US and Europe with a practical focus on everyday business journeys in their publication. They were interested in The AutistiX as part of a spotlight piece focussing on a selection of eCommerce founders and businesses in UK, ie the story of how I initially set up The AutistiX in 2010 and how it grew from an after school music to a functioning band, known internationally, performing in many 100’s of gigs in the UK and abroad, creating and recording our own music, being in documentaries, performing on TV, (BBC1 The One Show, amongst others) our drummer Saul being the inspiration of the Netflix film ‘I Used To Be Famous’, Saul being in the film and including one of our original songs in the film, to workshops in school, colleges and unis, playing at countless festivals, and inspiring people globally on the talent of musicians who are on the autistic spectrum. The article is about founders who focus on ‘purpose not perfection’ and that is certainly true with respect to The AutistiX! It’s interesting to note that of the many profiles they have published over time, our unique band, The AutistiX, appears to be the only actual rockstars featured!!! A big thank you to Unreal Internet for featuring us in their UK Founder series. Click the link to read the article: https://www.unrealinternet.com/rockstars/founder-portraits/the-founders-series-uk-founders-this-december-focused-on-purpose-not-perfection Watch this space for further news, as well as our other social media sites on Facebook, ‘X’, Instagram, Spotify, Youtube, etc! We would love to hear from you! Especially telling people about The AutistiX and inviting us to perform at gigs, festivals and events in schools, colleges, universities, work places, etc. Every gig is unique and different and we can customise our performance to suit the event! Best wishes The AutistiX (and Susan) theautistix@gmail.com

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The AutistiX Band Update May 2023

  • Writer: theautistixband
    theautistixband
  • May 23, 2023
  • 3 min read

 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

 
 
 

1 Comment

Shane Johnston
Shane Johnston
Jan 03, 2024

Jack when you perform in the game please

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