Stu “The Still Owl” Blagden was No-Man’s original guitar player. He is present on the title track of The Girl From Missouri and on the 1989 Band search competition footage.
How did you get involved with No-Man in the first place?
Me and Tim were in a short-lived band called Still formed in 1983 with a keyboard player called Tony Cotterall. This was in Sale Cheshire. Tim used to get the train from Stockton Heath where he’s from to rehearse with us at Tony’s house. We wrote a lot of songs in a very short period some of which we sent to a young Mark Ratcliffe who played them on his BBC Radio Manchester programme and who considered us the most important band since Joy Division. Various ego problems cropped up (mainly, it has to be said, from me) and the band split up. Me and Tim had a band after that called Always A Stranger which staggered a long for a brief time after that. I was also in a Folk Prog band at the same time called Life After Life (who released a now much sought after privately released LP called Life After Life) and because of this commitment I left Tim to his own devices. I also was working at this same time with ex-Twelfth Night singer Geoff Mann on his first solo album I May Sing Grace (Food For Thought Label) in August 1984. Also on that album was a very very talented guy called Keith Gould who played Chapman Stick – and me and Keith worked a lot together in a band called A Cast Of Thousands. Tim was also a big fan of Keith Gould and worked with him separately a little later.
For three years me and Tim didn’t work together (I think this was the period he first got in touch with Steve Wilson)
In 1988 I moved down to London and starting working in music shops as well as playing bebop on the London jazz scene.
Whilst hunting for vinyl in a legendary Soho record shop called Cheapo Cheapo records, I very surprisingly bumped into Tim who told me that he was working in a new band called No-Man Is An Island with a young keyboard player called Steve Wilson. At this time Steve was almost exclusively a keyboardist and was already a real whizz in the studio; remarkably precocious in fact. I agreed to meet Steve (who wrote a sweet little letter which I think I still have saying how much he was looking forward to working with me) and we met up at Steve’s parents house in Hemel Hempstead (where Steve had his studio) a little later.
I thought it worth mentioning that in Still we did almost exclusively original material but we did cover Leonard Cohen’s ”Suzanne” — so I think this gave Tim the idea to try that song later with Steve.
How would you describe Steven Wilson at that point?
Steve was obviously destined for great things but at that point he was learning his trade – he was younger than me and Tim and I was aware of the age difference. My main memory of Steve was that he was really VERY heavily into Prince at that time particularly the Sign o’ the Times album. He didn’t mention Prog that much at that time but I think Pink Floyd were his number one Prog influence. He was also a fan of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett’s recorded reverb heavy piano sound and used it a lot at that time. He wasn’t much of a player on keyboards but he was able to express himself sufficiently on keyboard to convey his ideas.
I do remember introducing the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt to both Steve and Tim – I remember taking the vinyl copy of Part’s ECM album Tabula Rasa to Steves home in Hemel Hempstead. One other abiding memory was that both Tim and Steve were huge fans of Strawberry yogurt drinks at that time!
What memories do you have of the Hemel Hemstead Bandsearch gig?
I don’t remember much about the band-search but I do remember thinking (and the video reminded me) that the hall it was held in was pretty seedy and depressing like the inside of a Soho porn cinema. Apart from that all I remember is how superior we all felt to the rest of the competition entrants.
What’s the story behind “The Hidden Art of Man Ray”
Well it was just one of the tracks we were working on in 1988- I do remember we were trying to play as little as possible–the ‘less is more’ doctrine etc. – of course I recorded quite a lot of songs like Days In The Trees and Bleed for instance that weren’t used until much later (though of course I’m not on the later released versions of those tracks) — I am on the Girl From Missouri EP of course — on the title track. Overall, I would say that the apparently tiny discography I have with the group doesn’t really reflect the amount of time I was working in the group I’m sure Tim and Steve would agree with that.
What were the early No-Man gigs like?
I only remember the 100-club gig which I enjoyed because it was quite a prestigious place to play in those days — I can’t remember whether David Cross of King Crimson was on that gig but I have a vague memory of seeing him live there with Tim at that point. On the whole I have barely any memory of playing live with the group
What caused you to leave the band?
There were quite a few reasons I left the group — happily none of them were because i ever fell out with Tim or Steve. It was completely amicable. I felt musically very restricted in the confines of the group — I was and still am a real ‘Progger’ and was always into groups like Yes or King Crimson who laid great emphasis on instrumental dexterity, technical ability at the service of broad musical expression. I would really argue that No-Man were never Prog–for me they were really Art Rock if we have to give labels to the music. The ethos in the group wasn’t really about great musicianship. In 1988 I was technically very advanced on the guitar and listening more and more to guys like Allan Holdsworth at that particular time — I was getting more and more into Jazz and Fusion so obviously the No-Man aesthetic of ‘less is more’ didn’t really fit in with how I wanted to express myself. Sometimes ‘Less is More’ but sometimes it’s true to say ‘Less is Less’ too and really, I didn’t see how I could fit in with No-Man’s approach to music at that time. On top of that Ben on violin was really taking the role of lead guitarist in the band.
Ironically, now I would be far more at home with what Steve is doing musically–using guys like Paul Stacey and Chad Wackerman I would be really at home in that context.
I also composed and didn’t see that I could get my material played by the group.
On top of that I was very unhappy in my personal life dealing with issues that I’m still having to deal with today. That’s all i’m saying about that!!
Since then what have you been up to?
I turned professional in 1999 and have performed countless corporate gigs and concerts including at the Barbican and the Sounth Bank Centre. In 1999 I formed a guitar duo with Tim Panting. We played festivals in France and in 2000 we toured Argentina as part of the World Guitar Festival directed by Juan Falu. At that time I was playing Brazilian and South American classical guitar music both classical and popular and that obsession lasted about 10 years.till about 3 years ago I had my own band playing the music of Django Reinhardt (ie: Gypsy Jazz Manouche.)
The last 3 years I have been working as a solo guitarist playing contemporary fingerstyle guitar inspired by John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Michael Hedges and Pierre Bensusan. I’m currently involved in a Prog Folk project which sounds a little like Nick Drake accompanying an English church boys choir with elements of ECM jazz. I hope to release it later this year but of course everything is up in the air at the moment with the COVID-19 nightmare.
Are you still in contact with Steven, Tim or Ben?
I’ve been in touch with Tim intermittently over the years and have been very impressed with some of his solo work. I’m sure our paths will cross again sooner or later.
Stu has a Youtube channel that can be found here.
All The Blue Changes 