The Auld Spice Band is one of many bands encouraged out of the Adult Learning Programme Scots Music Group to form their own performing groups. Among these an assorted bunch of recently retired or otherwise at a loose end individuals, many of them lapsed musicians, fiddlers Dick Rutter, Alex Souter, Jim Coutts, Ann Cannon, and Anna McFadden, with multi-instrumentalist Peter Williams, drummer John Scott, pianist and keyboard player Margaret Ramsay, and a lady known as Elizabeth on whistles, all found a new enthusiasm to practise and perform and formed a group which went on to play its first live gig in 1997. Other performances soon followed that first one in 1997 and, largely by word of mouth a reputation was established for good well-organized music, cheerfully presented, and successful in getting people onto the dance floor.
In a very short time the Band had reached a manageable rate of thirty to forty gigs a year with much repeat business. With the recruitment of Allan Gray on Accordion, Donald Easton on flute, Ted Tracey-Bower on concertina, fiddler Kate Meek, Tom Bullimore on drums, Jim Buchanan on small pipes, oboe, various whistles, and anything he could blow through that made a noise, Trish Santer on keyboard, and fiddlers John Robertson and Claire Murdoch (also whistle), a distinctive sound and style evolved which has served us, and many audiences well over the years in hundreds of gigs. From time to time the Band has benefited from the input of guest musicians such as Nigel Gatherer, Dave Gifford and Seonaid Lynn and we have been fortunate also to have been able to enlist the aid of some excellent callers including John and Ruby Wilkinson, Janet Johnston, Aileen McRae, John Watkins, and Christine McIntosh.