| 23
Sept 07
A great farewell performance at the Otley Folk Festival
last night in front of an appreciative audience. It's been a
fantastic couple of years - a great little band. We shall miss
the playing, but we all have to move on. Beth is building her
teaching career in her new job teaching drama at "The Grammar
School at Leeds". Richard is now living and working in York,
and James is pursuing his solo singing and song writing as "Jimmy
Scissors".
Richard
and James are also working on their new joint project "Mixing
up the Medicine". This builds on a lot of Mulbery Blue ideas
(and even includes a few Mulberry Blue songs), but is less folky
and more blues/bluegrass in feel, with James and Richard sharing
the singing and the song writing. Well worth a listen!
Many thanks to all our fans and supporters!
All the best!
Richard, James and Beth
22
July 07
A licencing problem meant that the Abbey Festival -
which should have been the Mulberries' penultimate gig -
couldn't take place outdoors as planned. We were given the
option of pulling out, and decided
that that was the best option. Beth was not feeling well
at the end of a long term, and we felt it all risked being
a bit of an anticlimax.
James and
Richard took "Mixing
up the Medicine"
to Peter Abraham's new pub, "The Owl" in Rodley, where
some of the festival acts had moved, supporting Duncan MacFarlane.
We've started
work on a final CD, and will now spend more time recording, and preparing
for what will definitely be the last Mulberry Blue gig - in Otley
at the end of September.
22
June 07
James and Richard are about to launch their spin-off project "Mixing
up the Medicine". This is definitely NOT "Mulberry Blue without
Beth" but
a different style and a new direction. It still retains the acoustic sound
with harmony singing (albeit only two part harmonies), but the sound is
more country/blues, the feel is looser and more improvised, and the dominant
lead instrumental sound is the mandolin.
Mulberry
Blue now enters into a dormant phase, though we begin work on
the new CD next week, and will come out of hibernation at the end
of July for the Abbey Festival, and again in September for the Otley
Festival.
1 June 07
It's now definite that the current lineup of Mulberry Blue, including Beth on vocals, will be playing at Otley in September (probably 22nd or 23rd Sept). After that there may be other occasional gigs, but the band has essentially ceased regular playing. We will be making a CD - we're just about to start work on that - and we're hoping to have that ready for the Abbey festival at the end of July. We now think that it's going to be impossible to keep "Mulberry Blue" going as a concept without Beth, so James and I will probably try and put a different band together.
17 May 07
I like to try and keep everyone informed about the latest developments in the "is it on, is it off" saga. We now have a definite booking for the Otley Festival in September, having met Steve Fairholme, the festival organiser, a couple of times this week. I made the snap decision that we would perform as "Mulberry Blue" whatever, which puts the pressure on us to persist with the "Mulberry Blue" project. Beth says she may be prepared to play in September, depending on her work commitments at that time. I'm very keen to keep something going with the same sort of sound, and now have the names of several possible new vocalists. Just waiting to clarify the position with James. [Rich]
15 May 07
We played a nice gig at the Red Lion on Sunday night - good venue, enthusiastic landlord and bar staff, nice PA, pleasant surroundings, good audience. Thanks to Glen, Jamie, and of course Gerry for running the evening. The excellent Charlie Bath was also playing - see http://www.myspace.com/withoutword.
It feels a bit strange, knowing that we've only got a couple more gigs with this line-up: we seem to be just getting it all together, but then having to let it go. Anyway, the Abbey festival gig in July will be a good finale for Beth and the current band, as we've always had very close links to Wayne, Peter and the Abbey pub.
Still no clear idea of what will happen after that. There's bound to be some very significant change of direction, since Beth has been such an important part of the band sound. We can't even decide yet whether to try and "replace" Beth and keep the same sort of style of music and repertoire, or whether to move in a different direction. We're just keeping things going in a fairly low-key sort of way till these matters are resolved.
A final treat for Mulberry Blue fans - there will be one last CD featuring Beth's vocals, containing all the Mulberry Blue original songs that haven't been recorded so far. We will be recording that during June and July and it should be available later in the summer. Email "contactatmulberryblue.com" to request a copy. [Rich]
9
May 07
It looks as though Mulberry Blue, at least in the present line
up, is not going to survive past the summer. Beth has finally decided
that she doesn't want to do any more - she's been finding the commitment
difficult anyway, and now has a new job, from September. We're going
to complete the gigs we've got booked, up to the Abbey Festival in July,
and we're going to try and make another CD of all the current material,
but then apart from possible occasional gigs, that'll be that. James
and I are already working more as a duo - trying to build up a bigger
set - but we'll probably want to augment in some way. Whether it'll
still be "Mulberry Blue" will all depend on how it works out.
Watch this space for more news. [Rich]
1
May 07
We played the Mixing Tin in Leeds last night - a pretty low key
affair, with a PA as bad as any we've ever used. Don't people understand
that it's possible to use a mixing desk to make the sound clearer,
rather than just louder? We got the hang of playing by feel,
and it was OK in the end. And we managed to play "Birthright"
properly. A bit of a roller coaster 7 days, with the radio broadcast,
then the debacle at Otley, then Dave K's positive review, then another
less than satisfactory gig. [Richard]
26
April 07
Mulberry Blue in Shite Shocker!
You heard it here first folks (that is unless you were at Otley folk
club last night to witness a spectacular descent into chaos) - we fluffed
it big time last night. Started a 2 song set at the Otley singers night
with our new song 'Birthright'. I started off with the wrong harmonica
and as if it couldn't get worse, after 2 false starts I was playing
the wrong chords. Cue shame and an unprecedented level of ramshackleness.
That's what you get for being way too relaxed. One learns and one moves
on. Or one cries about it all night and the next morning and then purges
one's experiences through the medium of a semi-public bulletin. Next
time Gadget, next time. [James]
24
April 07
We had a good time on Tim Moon's radio show last night - it all
seemed to go well. Listen again by going to the GIGS page and downloading
the sections of the show we were on. We played "Next big thing",
"Oddball", and gave the first public airing to the new song
"Birthright". We're going to be dropping into Otley Folk Club
at Korks tomorrow (25th) - something we've been intending to do for
a while. [Richard].
16
March 07
A great gig at the Topic last night - we really enjoyed it. In the
end compere Simon opted to let Laura do her set first - she's a very
impressive young singer - and we rounded off the evening to a packed
"Cock and Bottle" concert room. We played a range of songs,
old and new, traditional and contemporary, and went down very well.
We've got nothing booked for a few weeks now: with the upheavals just
after Christmas, and James being unwell, we've not been very proactive.
We're going to put ourselves about a bit, again now, and we'll probably
drop in to a few singers nights.
As they cleared
away at the end of last night's concert, they showed us the repair they'd
had to make to the blocks they use as a stage - the repair to the hole
that Nick and Duncan Hall made when they went through the stage a couple
of weeks ago: well done lads!
13
March 07
We're pleased to be able to say that James is feeling a lot better,
and we're looking forward to playing the "Topic" this Thursday
as a full trio, something that seemed in doubt at one point. We've been
working on an interesting set: a mixture of some of the more folky songs
we were playing last year, and some of the very recent ones.
The Topic
is a fascinating place to play - it's both exciting and intimidating.
We'll be pretty well totally "acoustic" (I'll probably just
use a tiny "Microcube" combo for lead guitar and mandolin
on one or two songs), the acoustic is good, and the audience are always
very quiet and attentive. That really does up the stakes considerably
- playing in a noisy venue, or through a big PA, and you can get away
with murder, but for the Topic gigs you really do need to be note perfect.
We're sharing
the top spot with singer Laura Hockenhull, and expect to be playing
two twenty minute sets (with 5 or 6 songs per set), alternating with
Laura's sets, between maybe quarter to nine and eleven o'clock.
27
Feb 07
We played "live at the Abbey" again on Saturday, in front
of an enthusiastic and appreciative audience. Thanks to Mark for doing
wonders with the PA.
We're not taking on any more gigs at the moment, other than those already
booked. James continues to be unwell, so we're not quite sure what we're
going to be able to do over the next few weeks.
19
Feb 07
Mulberry Blue returned to gigging "in Style" last night,
with a 40 minute set at the Suburban Style Bar in Baildon, sharing the
bill with duo "Waterland".
It's always good to play the Sub-Bar, because of the warm welcome and
the good PA. We debuted several new songs: Beth's "Perfect World"
and "Little Runaway", and Joe Strummers "Clampdown",
our only cover of the evening. We feared we might be rusty, but we got
back up to speed very quickly and are really looking forward to our
gig at the Abbey next week
Ned came
along and took lots of pictures, and we were pleased to have Austin
making a video of the performance, so we may well get stills and video
clips of the gig on the website before long. .
It was also
nice to be on the bill with Waterland - Sam the bass player is an old
colleague of Richard's from his days as a teacher. (The best sentence
in the world: "I used to be a teacher"!)
14
Jan 07
Our "Christmas Break" is proving to be longer that expected,
with the cancellation of the Hunter's gig (now rearranged for May),
but Richard is moving house and is happy not to be gigging too much
just at the moment. We've not been idle, though, as we continue to rehearse
and write new material. We have half a dozen songs in rehearsal, including
a new one from Beth ("Little Runaway"), a couple of early
songs of ours that we've rearranged, and an interesting acoustic version
of Joe Strummer's "Clampdown"! We return to performing in
February.
1
Jan 07
We now have a "MySpace" site. Have a look and see what
you think - follow the link, left.
Be our "friend", if you have one as well!
And a Happy
New Year to you all. We're looking to move forward and make
as much progress this year as we did during 2006.
Richard |