SLIM NO MORE

Yes folks, Feline1 delves into the very bowels of history to bring you an entire webpage on the band that was… SLIM NO MORE.

What?

• Slim No More was ein band I was in at school (in ‘lower sixth’, if the kids today even know what that means). We only ever played one gig!

When?

• It’s hard to remember, but unless I'm mistaken, the entire affair couldn’t have lasted more than about 3 weeks, in June 1991.

Why?!!?

• Our previous (and first ever) band was entitled Electric Slim & The Factory Hen, and had rehearsed every Saturday afternoon for almost an entire bloody year, to learn seven songs, finally performing them to a frankly rapturous reception at an end-of-term all-for-charridee school rawk concert. Exhausted by all those ardous and somewhat fractious practices, we bowed out in an blaze of teenage glory :)
• However not so long afterwards, I believe we received an offer to play at an Private Function in a genuine bona-fide licensed night club, where some glamourous young flibertigibbet from our sixth form was having her 18th birthday bash—but did we still have a band?

• Some mildly-frantic backroom cabinet reshuffle shenanigans ensued: Our singer Archie chose not to sully the memory of Electric Slim’s recent triumph, but the even more giñger ‘Ernie’ Arneill lept at the chance to take his place.
• Meanwhile, Stephen McD and I look the opportunity to poach the wonderful Nicholas Carlisle for our keyboard player. He was in the year above us, and we'd seen him play at that same school concert with his band The Anthropomorphic. He knew what a mellotron was, he could play the incredibly fast widdly bits in Stranglers songs with his own fingers (previously, I’d been sequencing them on my ZX Spectrum—no, really), and most importantly, he was also a giñger. We were very proud and excited to have him on board. One minor problem was that he was due to sit his A-level exams right after the impending gig, but he wisely decided to learn our set-list rather than bother with any last minute revision…

• We bolstered the Electric Slim set with yet more crowd-pleasing madchester covers (a pair of Inspirals and an extra Charlatans), I just about managed to persaude them to let me do another Tubeway Army song, and for reasons which escape me, we threw in The Trogg’s Wild Thing for good measure.
• As a special concession, it was agreed that I, rather than Ernie, could sing lead vocals those two Gary Numan songs myself, thus providing me with my first ever bit of lead singing on stage. As I recall, Cars went rather well, however Me, I Disconnect from You cleared the dance floor in quite spectacular fashion…surely fitting for a song about alienation :)

• Our audience of drunken schoolkids seemed to have a quite marvellous time. The show was captured on camcorder by the estimable Michael Staley, and it is stills from this footage which adorn the page you are now reading. Alarmingly, this is now available to watch on YouTube Playlist.
• I gather the Stagecoach Inn has since been demolished, which feels kinda fitting, somehow…

The Full & Sordid Details: