5 August 08
The Red Lion gig this Sunday has, unfortunately, been cancelled because Glen the landlord is leaving the pub - the whole series has been cancelled. Our next gig is at the Owl Festival in a fortnight's time: we have the 7pm slot on the Sunday night and we're very much looking forward to that. Our last gig, at the Topic, has shown us that our future is definitely not in traditional folk clubs. We felt we played well and we had some very positive feedback, but it's not the place for us. (A lot of the folk scene seems to be in its death throws, to be perfectly honest.) We're looking forward to playing big gigs at the Owl and the Abbey in the autumn, and to headlining at the Chemic where we went down a storm at a recent open-mic night.

We're also intending to stick with the duo format - the 4-piece band was an interesting diversion, but we lost sight of the essential "Medicine". We've been a bit erratic over this year, to say the least, but we've had a couple of incredibly positive performances that give us a lot of hope for the future. We're both continuing to develop other interests outside the Medicine, and they all give new energy, ideas and skills to feed back into the band. Catch us if you can, in the autumn... Whatever it is, it won't be boring!

27 May 08
First outing for the duo in a couple of months in a gig as part of the Abbey Festival. Very positive - playing well and looking forward to several gigs over the summer.

10 March 08
Exhilarating and well received debut for the "4-piece" big band version of "Mixing up the Medicine" at the Owl last Friday. A lot of people had come to hear us just on the basis of seeing the name on a board and checking out the website.

James and I played a duo set of mainly our own songs, then a blue-grass set with Mat Clay added on bass, and finally a set of blues and country-rock pieces with Mat on bass, and Al Roberto on drums. It was brilliant to play and surprisingly tight considering the tiny amount of rehearsal we'd been able to get in. (Al rehearsed with us for the first time only the night before - and we had time for just one run through of the set.)

It was the longest gig we've played to date - we did well over 2 hours of music - and Pete immediately booked us back for later in the year, so it can't have been that bad.

11 Feb 08
We played at the "Dylan Night" at Otley folk club recently - described susequently (by reviewer - and compere - Dave Kidman) as "inspired", and by the organiser Mike Wood as "folk punk". Not sure if that is a compliment or not. Otley Festival organiser Steve Fairholme heard us and offered us a slot at this year's festival - are we still folky enough?

We're working on our long set for the Owl in three weeks time, and hope to be playing with bass and drums.

17 Jan 08
Rehearsing, writing, and playing short sets at a lot of our regular haunts round north Leeds. We're planning to add bass and drums for our March set at the Owl - watch this space.

12 Nov 07
Prestigious support gig at the Grove in Leeds this last weekend, supporting amazing US singer/songwriter Tom Pacheco. Not only is he a tremendous songwriter (of mostly political songs) and powerful performer, but he's a very down to earth guy.

James and I did an 8 song/40 minute set of all original material which went down well. We recorded the session, so now have a live CD available.

23 Sept 07
Now that our "other band" (Mulberry Blue) has played its final gig, we're putting all our energies into "Mixing up the Medicine". James continues to produce excellent new material, and we are adding several classic blues/rock songs to our repertoire. Mixing up the Medicine is definitely not a folk band! We're regularly trying out new material at singers nights in our old haunts around North Leeds, and hope to be ready with our full headlining act in the next month or so.

22 July 07
For our second gig in two days, the "Medicine" headlined at Otley Red Lion's "Chill out Sunday".

21 July 07
We made our debut performance as "Mixing up the Medicine" at the "Abbey Folk Festival" in Leeds. Problems at the Abbey venue meant Mulberry Blue couldn't perform, so we took a slot at the Owl in Rodley, on the bill with blues singer Sam Payne, and the Duncan MacFarlane folk rock band.

July 07
Starting gigging this month.

June 07
Currently rehearsing and recording.

Richard