2006                      

23 Dec 06
The band got together last Thursday night to make some proper recordings of three of our more recent songs - "The idiots are ruining my day", "The next big thing", and "Oddball" (as the "song with many names" is now called). This was primarily to make a better quality demo CD than the one we cobbled together from the "Live at the Abbey" CD. We're very pleased with the result - the new "home page" music plays a clip from this new recording, and there's another on the "photos" page. If anyone would like a copy just drop us a line and we'll let you have a CD at a nominal cost, to cover expenses [or download the tracks from "MySpace"].

And a very Happy Christmas to all supporters of the band, from all of us!

12 Dec 06
James and Richard played as a duo in the "Suburban Style Bar" in Baildon last night, though actually billed as "Mulberry Blue". This was a gig that Gerry had organised for us - they run a Sunday night "acoustic" session. (That's a word that's changing its meaning: for our "acoustic" set we played amplified instruments - I used my 50W Marshall "acoustic" amp! - through a very loud PA.)

This was very definitely not our usual sort of venue - the bouncers weren't going to let James in (certainly not wearing his hat) till we explained we were the entertainment. He did get special dispensation to wear the hat while performing.

Nevertheless, we went down really well, despite being without our "lead singer". (A case of The Shadows without Cliff, or The Tremeloes without Brian, or is that before your time?) The high point of the set was when a punter staggered over and demanded we play "All along the watchtower".... We'd never played it before, not even in rehearsal, but James knew it, so we launched into it, and it was brilliant. Another tune to add to the set.

We're all three going out for a meal this week to celebrate a year of gigging.

25 Nov06
The final gig of the year - Otley Courthouse, yesterday evening - was a fantastic experience for us, a culmination of a year's hard work and our 26th public appearance in the space of 12 months. It was a fitting conclusion to the year, to play for Nick Hall. Nick was there in The Swan in Addingham, back in January, when the three of us first went in front of an audience under the name "Mulberry Blue", and his musicality, his instrumental technique, and above all his sheer professionalism, were things we knew we wanted to emulate.

On that occasion Nick was playing with brother Duncan - "The Hall Brothers" - and we heard Duncan's song "Following Orders" for the first time. That brilliant song was our set-opener last night, and we were chuffed that Dunc came along to hear us play. Nick and Duncan have been tremendously supportive over the last year, giving advice and encouragement, and particularly helping us to negotiate the murky world of gigs and bookings. Thanks guys!

Nick played last night with Chris O'Neill (as "Hall and O'Neill"), actor, singer-song writer, and charming scouser. Back stage Chris was enthusiastically telling us about his new project, to set Shakespeare to Beatles inspired music, and sat down at the piano to play us one of his songs. On stage, he played a brilliant solo spot, and was then joined by Nick for an inspired finale to the show. The music went on, in the bar, after the show, as we joined Chris, Nick, and Gerry McNeice, in a medley of Beatles songs, to an audience who wouldn't go home until the bar staff threw us out.

Gerry was compering last night, as well as giving a typically slick, energetic and highly professional set. He came and did a guest appearance with us, in the middle of our set, joining us on our version of his song "How about you". Gerry has also been a good friend to the band over the last few months, and we look forward to further collaborations in the future. (Link to some more of Ani McNeice's photos.)

We played a set almost entirely of Mulberry Blue originals, apart from the covers of Duncan and Gerry's songs. We played "Affluent son", "The idiots are ruining my day", "Next big thing", "Drop in the ocean", "One time conversation", "In my bones", and "Two's company". As an encore we played James's ever-so-poignant new song which at the moment hasn't got a name, but might be called "Nothing left to say", or "Don't talk to me", or "Oddball", or "St Mary's blues". (If you have an opinion on that title, we'd like to hear from you - we can't decide!) We enjoyed the set, because it's a great venue, and the sound is superb (thanks to sound engineer Rod Holt for his meticulous attention to detail), and the audience seemed to like it too.

And as it says in the song:

"....Thank you for coming and hearing us play, we hope you all had a wonderful day, and if you like the things we do, we go by the name of Mulberry Blue..."

[The Finale: everyone, including local singer/songwriter Mark Lunn, and Duncan Hall]

10 Nov06
Good gig last night at the Grove, supporting the tremendous and under-rated Tom Pacheco. He's a great performer, writes excellent songs, and is a really nice guy. The list of people he's played with over the years sounds like a who's who of American folk and rock music. We've asked him if we can play his song "Frieda's secret garden", and he was highly delighted, so listen out for that one in the new year.

We played a 30 minute set that seemed to go down well - I think we performed well, but were maybe a bit on the loud side - it's very difficult to tell from where you're playing. We need a sound engineer. Tom played his set through our PA, and I was very privileged to have been his sound man for the night!

Thanks to all our friends and supporters who turned up to see us play - we appreciate your support. Next gig is Otley in a fortnight's time - that should be really good as it's a fantastic venue with an excellent sound system.

16 Oct 06
Two very different gigs in the last couple of weeks: the session supporting Beck Sian at the Topic was a small, intimate gathering with a very attentive (i.e. very quiet) audience. We were not on top form - all suffering from colds to a greater or lesser degree - but played better than last time we supported there. We played without any amplification at all.

The Abbey Inn gig, last Saturday was in a very noisy pub, extremely full - people literally couldn't get in at one point - through a PA. The audience was very responsive and very appreciative. Both of these gigs were difficult in their own way, but excellent learning experiences for us. (One day we'll feel we don't have to keep learning - but that's a long way off yet!)

It was the first time we'd used our own PA, and that was exciting in itself. It takes an awful lot of setting up and a lot of tinkering with - too many variables - but the sound quality was good, by all accounts. We played 26 songs (is that the longest gig we've ever done?) and recorded the whole thing. We're hoping to put the best dozen or so tracks on to a "live CD". (Clip from our new "finale" song - "Two's company" - now playing.)

Thanks to Peter and Alison at the Abbey for coping with the crowds and being so welcoming to us and all the visitors, and thanks to Wayne for introducing the band, and to Roger for the pics.

No big gigs for two or three weeks, now, so maybe some time to write some more material, and add a bit more polish to some of the recent additions to the set.

2 Oct 06
We played a very long set in the "Rat and Ratchet" in Huddersfield yesterday as part of the Ossett Brewery beer festival, and were very pleased with the performance and the good reaction from the sizeable crowd. It's a very big pub, and it was very difficult to get enough sound without a PA. We do now amplify the instruments a bit, and that makes it even harder for Beth, who had very little voice left by the end of two and half hours. We are actually in the process of buying a small PA for just such gigs: small rooms we don't need one, big halls usually provide one, but for the in-between gigs a PA will be useful.

It was, essentially, the set we're going to perform at the Abbey in two weeks time, so it was a sort of dress rehearsal, and we were pleased with how well it's going. We've tried to put different genres of songs into blocks, so we did a section of traditional songs, and a short set of jazzy/blues songs, and all our own songs in a block at the end. The songs we wrote over the summer are still a bit flakey in performance, but getting stronger all the time. We risked our new finale song "Two's Company", and it held together very well for a first outing.

Ned came along with his camera (as well as with friends and family, including five year old daughter Lauren who knows all our songs by heart!), so we should be getting a few new pictures to go up on the website soon..

We are looking forward to a very exciting run up to Christmas, now, with gigs coming up at Otley Courthouse, and the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds (where the Kaiser Chiefs played their surprise gig just a few months ago), the concert in the Abbey Inn, and a couple of other club appearances as well.

19 Sept 06
Had a great time at Otley, at the Festival, over the weekend. We performed twice, at Korks on Saturday afternoon, through a PA, and an acoustic gig at the Red Lion in the evening. The feedback from the audiences was very good, for both gigs, and we felt very pleased at the way things went. We played mostly our old material in the afternoon, but did a set consisting of our own songs in the evening, apart from Duncan Hall's "Following Orders", Gerry McNeice's "How about you", (both very strong songs!) and an Incredible String Band encore.

Saw some very good bands. Two that particularly impressed were "Tiny Tin Lady" who played before us in the afternoon, and "Waking the Witch" who we saw in the big concert room on Friday night.

Several people who hadn't seen us since the spring commented on how much we'd come on since then. The new material we've written over the summer has certainly made a big change to the overall sound and direction of the band.

14 Sept 06
We're eagerly anticipating the two Otley Festival gigs at the weekend: this will be a great opportunity for us to play in a good venue, to a good audience, and in good company. The other bands on with us look very impressive, for example, look at the intimidating pedigree of TinyTinLady, who played at Glastonbury last year!

We were rehearsing on Tuesday night and decided to drop in on the Abbey singaround to try out a couple of things. Hopefully this didn't come across as too much of a prima donna act, but it was very useful trying out the songs on that intelligent and receptive audience.

11 Sept 06
"The Drop Inn"
The "Mulberries" returned to performing with a lively Sunday afternoon gig at "The Drop Inn", in Elland. The enthusiastic audience were treated to the first performance of several more new songs, and we think most of the new set will be ready to perform at Otley Festival next weekend.

James used his newly acquired "Microcube" to match the one Richard has been using for the last few gigs: it gives just a little bit more depth to the sound, without making it too loud, and allows us to balance the instruments better even in an "acoustic" set.



27 July 06
"The Shepherd's Boy"

Photo: Rose Clay

introduced three new songs, written by or for the band: Paul Turner's "Affluent son", Janet Clay's "In my bones", and James's "The idiots are ruining my day", and these are all going to be core songs in our repertoire for the autumn.


22 July 06
"Courthouse in Session"
James and I went along to the third of the regular "Courthouse in Session" concerts in Otley last night, primarily to hear our good friend Ramon de Juan play. If you've never heard Ramon he really is worth going out of your way to catch: a heart-stoppingly pure and vibrant voice, powerful rhythmic guitar playing full of controlled energy, and perfectly constructed songs. He praised the audience for their attention, but I've heard him perform lots of times and the room always goes very still as soon as he starts to play. There is tremendous musicality and professionalism in his performance and an absolutely gripping depth of emotion.

The rest of the bill wasn't bad either: the wonderful-as-always Nick Hall, this time in his partnership with the exhilarating fiddle player Hannah Bunyan, Will Green, an amazing young singer/songwriter, the soulful Jeremy Bradford, and the always excellent Gerry McNeice, who I've now seen twice this week. (Gerry: I still want the CD - bring it along to the Abbey next week!)

These sessions at Otley Courthouse are well worth a visit. The Courthouse is a very attractive venue, the sound quality is exceptional, the evenings are compered (and organised) by Nick in his inimitable friendly and enthusiastic way, and it makes a really good night out. Mulberry Blue will be playing one of these concerts in the autumn, date still to be fixed - keep checking our gigs page.


19 July 06
Abbey Inn Tuesday night sessions
We often go down to these sessions, not always as the full band, but one or more of us. They are fast becoming the best sessions anywhere in the region, pulling in top performers from a wide area; last night, for example, Gerry McNeice from Otley dropped in. The great thing about the Abbey sessions is that they are very eclectic and very inclusive - people who've just wandered in for a drink are often persuaded to do a turn, and some remarkable new talent emerges that way. You'll hear some first rate traditional folk music, but you'll also hear rock-and-roll, bluegrass, soul, show tunes, and last night, amazingly, Danny Boy played on a musical saw! The atmosphere is relaxed rather than reverential, no-one minds if you chat quietly during the music, but everything goes quiet when someone gives a really stunning performance.

All of this is down to Wayne and his group of regular performers who work hard at making everyone feel welcome, and, of course, to landlord "King of the Road" Peter, and his wonderful beers.


17 July 06
Mulberry Blue were featured on Tim Moon's B.C.B. radio programme this evening, playing Richard Thompson's "Outside of the Inside".


9 July 06
The Festival at the Abbey Inn was an excellent event, despite the drizzly rain that set in towards the end of Saturday's session. Many thanks to Peter and Alison, and Wayne and Jane, for organising what everyone hopes will be an annual event, thanks to all the performers who gave their services for free, and for the large numbers of people who came and drank Peter's  beer and gave lots for "St George's". Your were a great audience!

We played about half past nine, almost at the end of the event, when the rain was at its heaviest, but the audience stayed and responded positively. As we started playing the Incredible String Band's "Log Cabin" with water running all over the cables I was reminded of how they famously refused to go on stage at Woodstock in 1969 because of the rain.

It was probably the first time we've played to an audience that was both large and discerning (i.e. a substantial genuine "folk" audience), and although we didn't play any of our traditional songs we were very pleased by the response they gave us, and the very positive comments afterwards.

Julie Ellison, who followed us, was brilliant - check out her website.


8 July 06
Went to see the first night of the two day "Abbey Inn Festival" on Friday night, and it's going really well. There was a good crowd there, maybe 200 people, the organisation is good, and the music was excellent. It'll be well worth coming along to hear us playing, around 9 o'clock tonight - weather permitting (a bit of light rain, maybe?)

We've also agreed to do another gig before our summer break, in Dewsbury, on the 26th of July - see the gigs page.


29 June 06
The gig in Derby, at the Swarkestone Sailing Club, last weekend was a big success. We made a weekend of it, with family and friends coming along.

We're now working on preparation for our appearance at the Abbey Inn Festival on the 8 July. This promises to be a tremendous couple of days of music (and beer!) and we're really looking forward to it. If the weather's nice it's going to be a great event. We're on quite late, on the Saturday night - do come along and give us your support. It's the culmination of six months of hard work for the band, our last big event before we all go off for a summer break.


18 June 06
Thanks to all the people who came and heard us play in Bradford last night. We enjoyed the gig enormously, despite the heat, and the temperamental PA.


14 June 06
We've been preparing for some of the bigger concerts we've got coming up in the next few weeks by going into a proper rehearsal studio. We went back to Hall Place Studios, in Leeds, which we used to use a lot in the "Rattlebag" days, to get the feel of playing through a big PA again. It proved extremely useful, because, basically we were useless to begin with, but got better. There are a whole new set of problems, beyond the obvious ones of feeding seven instruments and three voices into a mixing desk: how close together do you need to stand, what do you need to hear through the monitors, how does James get close enough to the microphone with his harmonica rack in the way?!

After a couple of hours we'd sorted most of it out, though, and were very pleased with the sound that was coming out of the big speakers. Using microphones suits our vocal harmony sound; we can adjust the loudness of the voices to give a better balance so they sound more together, and you don't have to strain so much. It does reveal the inadequacies of some of our instruments, though: an investment needed there, at some point.

Hall Place is a great place to play. It's a big space, with nice equipment, and a good acoustic, and Julian and Dominique who run it are very helpful and encouraging. Lots of big names have worked there in the past. 


31 May 06
We're getting some very positive feedback on the new CD, and a lot of interest. We've already started working on new material and have a couple of very good songs already written: "In my bones", a very powerful song about Leeds and the pull of the North, lyrics by Janet Clay, and "Affluent Son", a dark piece about drug dealing, with lyrics by Paul Turner, both with music by Beth and Richard. Expect to hear these, and other new pieces on our next CD which we hope to be producing later in the year. We may even try them out at the Abbey before too long.


18 May 06

CD
Finally completed all the art work for the CD - "One time conversation" -  this week, and they are now available for sale - see the "CDs" page, from the main menu. We wanted to have them available for tonight's gig in Bradford, but it was touch and go. After a lot of failed attempts we arranged to get everyone together with Ned, our photographer, on Monday night this week, but then it poured with rain all day and it looked as though there was going to be no light at all. But it brightened up a bit, around 8 o'clock, and we managed about twenty minutes with enough light to get some half decent pictures, and you can see the results on the CD cover, and on the website home page. It's Calverley Park, in the main picture, and the front of Calverley Primitive Methodist chapel on the back of the CD, for anyone who's interested! And no, Beth hasn't taken up the mandolin, but she had nothing else to carry!

The CD is entirely home made - recorded and produced by the band, CD burnt, and sleeve notes printed, on a home PC - but we're very pleased with the overall quality. We're just going to make them as people ask for them, and will only get a big quantity made if we can't keep pace with the demand. This CD is primarily a promotional tool for us, so we can show concert promoters the sort of things we can do. Over the summer we're going to be working on new material, with the aim of making a professionally produced CD of our own songs sometime later in the autumn.


5 May 06

Recording
We're just doing the final mixes of the CD, and it's coming out very well. We''ve recorded guest appearances by Simon Kilner, ex Rattlebag, and Marjorie Paterson of Fyrish.

Gigs
We are beginning to get some good gigs coming along; for example we are going to be headlining in Derby next month.



24 April 06

Beth
Beth's been taking a bit of a break but is back rehearsing with the band this week and will be perfoming again with the full Mulberry Blue trio in Chapel Allerton a week on Friday.

Recording
We spent the whole of the week before Easter working on our Mulberry Blue CD, and the recording and mixing is nearly complete. We are very pleased with the results, which include a couple of new songs. We're in the process of adding a few surprise guests to some of the recordings, but we expect the finished CD to be available by the time of our support gig at the Topic on 18 May.

Mulberry Two
Richard and James have enjoyed their recent duo gigs so much that they are going to carry on doing them whenever they have the time and the opportunity. You can now keep track of their performances on their own web page. This spin-off has already begun to evolve into quite a different sort of thing - more of a country/blues feel.


14 April 06

Recording
We've spent a lot of time this week in our own home studio, getting some tracks down for a promotional CD. We've made excellent progress, though there is still a lot to do. (Listen to an outtake - sorry, Beth, but there were better/worse ones than that!)

When we get some tracks mixed down we'll replace the "clips" on the website with some of the new recordings. We're also working on getting some live recordings to put on the website as well.

Ned came and took some pictures of the recording in progress - have a look at them on the photos page.

Mulberry Two !!
James and Richard have played three gigs as a duo in the last week, and have gone down very well at the Grove, at Otley, and in Bradford, much better than we'd dared hope! We plan to do more like that, whenever Beth is unavailable.

Crossed paths with the band "Fyrish" in both Otley and Bradford: look out for them, and hear Dave Cowan's beautiful singing and Marjorie Paterson's exquisite cello playing (yes, cello!).


Mark Longster
I picked up a copy of Mark's new solo CD on Wednesday night at Korks, and it really is very impressive. Mark, if you don't know, has a beautiful deep "Johnny Cash" voice, and he's been superbly recorded on this CD of original songs. Check it out at the "Northern Lights" website.


7 April 06


Duo gigs
James and Richard are going to be trying out some duo gigs when Beth is committed elsewhere. It'll be an interesting experiment! See the gigs page for details.



3 April 06


News Page
We've been getting some very positive feedback about the website (and about the band too, but that's another matter!). We know a lot of people are now dipping in to the site regularly to see how things are going, so we're trying out this "news" page to keep everyone in touch.  We'll try and update it every few weeks, to let everyone know what's going on behind the scenes.


Recording
We go back into the studio next week, for a few days, to try and get some tracks down to make a demo CD. If this comes out well we hope to be able to make a version of it available for sale, through the website, and at gigs, though it is primarily to give to promoters.

We're still not quite sure whether to go for something that reproduces the sound and feel of our live performances, or whether to do something more "produced". We have been working on one track over the last couple of weeks ("Outside of the Inside") to see what we can do with a multi-layered recording, and have tried mixing it down in various ways. People we've played it to have liked the sound. We've put one version on the "LISTEN" page  - tell us what you think of the sound: (rich@mulberryblue.com, or put a comment in the "GUEST BOOK".)


Mid-week gigs
Those of you following the day-to-day developments of the band/website may have noticed that we've pulled out of a couple of appearances we had planned to make at open mic/singers nights. We've found it a bit of a problem coping with demanding "day jobs" (mainly teaching - that very unforgiving profession) whilst doing, especially, mid-week gigs. We've had to pull back the commitment a bit. It's been a case of "burning the candle at both ends", a dangerous activity likely to lead to serious health and safety issues.

We're just concentrating on weekend gigs for the next few months, though we will meet existing commitments, for example our support gig at the Topic in Bradford next month. And we can always do more in school holidays!


Ossett Pub Gigs
We continue with our sequence of performances for the Osset Brewery with a Sunday afternoon performance at the Three Pigeons in Halifax in three weeks time. Yesterday's gig  at the Travellers' Inn in Hipperholme - our second for Ossett Brewery - was our 10th performance as Mulberry Blue since we started in January, so a bit of a milestone.

These pub gigs are fascinating to play because, although people know we're coming, they've not on the whole gone to hear the music, and they're mostly not people who would go out of their way to hear the things we do. So, we have to win them over, and that's pretty tough going for the first twenty minutes or so. It does get better, though, and by the end we always have a big crowd listening and cheering. It's a tremendous learning experience for us. (Julia billed us as "...one of the best acoustic folk bands in West Yorkshire...": we don't believe the hype! In fact, we know it's not true, because we've heard some of the best folk bands in West Yorkshire and know just how good they are, but it's still nice to be appreciated.)
                                                                                                                                                         Richard