Nicholas Beggs (born 15 December 1961[1]) is a British musician, noted for playing the bass guitar and the Chapman Stick; he is a member of the Mute Gods and Kajagoogoo, formerly also a part of Iona and Ellis, Beggs & Howard and plays in the band of Steven Wilson. He is known for modifying a Chapman Stick into a fully MIDI-capable instrument triggering MIDI from both bass and melody strings; he calls it the Virtual Stick.[2]
Beggs was born on 15 December 1961 in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. His parents were Herby and Joan Beggs, and he has a younger sister, Jacqueline. His father left when he was young but came back into his life at a later age. In November 1979, Beggs' mother died of cancer, leaving him to care for his sister, who was then 15. He took a job as a dustman upon leaving school.
Career
Beggs' first band Johnny and the Martians (formed when he was 10) consisted of two friends on trumpet and acoustic guitar and Beggs on drums. He went to Linslade Secondary School. After attending art school, in 1978 Beggs formed the band Art Nouveau with Steve Askew, Stuart Croxford Neale and Jez Strode. Chris Hamill (Limahl) joined the band in 1981 and at Beggs' suggestion it was renamed Kajagoogoo. The release of the first single "Too Shy" in January 1983 saw the band on a promotional tour as the record reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart.[1] The band went on to have four more UK top 40 hits through 1983 and 1984.
After firing lead singer Limahl in 1983 and, following a split with Strode in 1985, the three remaining band members reformed as Kaja,[1] releasing the album Crazy Peoples Right to Speak and the single "Shouldn't Do That".
Between 1985 and 1987, Beggs concentrated on writing with various other songwriters and formed Ellis, Beggs & Howard in March 1987.[3] Ellis, Beggs and Howard split in 1989, and in 1990 Beggs joined the progressive folk band Iona.[1] He recorded two albums with them: The Book of Kells and Beyond These Shores.
Beggs worked as a manager for Phonogram Records for eight months. He later became a contributor to various guitar publications, and he is a staff writer for Bass Guitar magazine. He is also a patron of London-based guitar and bass school Guitar-X.
He has recorded and released Stick Insect (2002), The Maverick Helmsman (2004), and The Darkness Inside Mens Hearts.
Beggs and Askew have been heavily involved with a duo named Industrial Salt, which have been successful in Japan. They have written material for Claudia Mills, a finalist on the talent show Let Me Entertain You.
A reformed Kajagoogoo with Beggs, Askew and Croxford Neale toured in 2004. Limahl and Strode both rejoined in 2008, and the band toured extensively.[5] The band released an EP of new material in 2011. In an interview with Cherry Red TV in 2018, Beggs talked about the reunion, stating "we reformed and we toured and we recorded an EP and remastered the back catalogue...and at that point I felt that we had done it all. It was a nice way to tie it up, put a bow on it and leave it alone and move on."[citation needed]
In February 2013, Beggs's project Lifesigns, with John Young and Frosty Beedle, released a self-titled album.
Beggs also became a member of the Belgian prog band Fish on Friday, starting the collaboration with their third album named Godspeed at the end of 2014, marking the starting point of a series of successful albums, along a decade: Quiet Life (2017), Black Rain (2020), and the most recent creation, 8mm (2023).
He contributed to John Mitchell's solo project Lonely Robot, which released the album Please Come Home in February 2015.
"Big Bubbles No Troubles" remix (RCA, 1989) – # 41 UK
"Big Bubbles No Troubles" remix (RCA, 1989)
Albums
Homelands (RCA, 1988)
The Lost Years Volume One – available from Nick Beggs website
The Lost Years Volume Two – available from Nick Beggs website as of 2010
Lifesigns
Lifesigns (Esoteric Antenna, 2013)
Solo
Albums
Stick Insect (Stick Enterprises, 2002)
The Maverick Helmsman (Stick Enterprises, 2004)
The Darkness Inside Mens Hearts (Burning Shed, 2014) – a compilation of the solo Chapman Stick pieces from his albums Stick Insect (2002) and The Maverick Helmsman (2004)
Kajagoogoo were a British new wave band, best known for their 1983 hit single "Too Shy", which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, and the top 10 in numerous other countries.
Christopher Hamill, known professionally as Limahl, is a British pop singer. He was the lead singer of the pop group Kajagoogoo beginning in 1982, before embarking on a solo career, garnering the 1984 hit "The NeverEnding Story", the theme song for the film The NeverEnding Story.
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.
Anthony Frederick Levin is an American musician and composer specializing in electric bass guitars, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (1981–2021) and Peter Gabriel. He is also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment, Bruford Levin Upper Extremities (1998–2000) and HoBoLeMa (2008–2010). He has led his own band, Stick Men, since 2010.
Dave Bainbridge is an English guitarist and keyboard player who has played with The Strawbs since 2015 and Lifesigns since 2016. With Dave Fitzgerald, Dave co-founded the Christian progressive and Celtic folk themed band Iona.
Marco Minnemann is a German multi-instrumentalist and composer who primarily plays drums.
People is officially Howard Jones's seventh album, released in 1998. After the US release on Ark 21 Records, People was a global release via Jones' own record label dtox. The album is a reworked version of the 1997 Japanese-only release Angels & Lovers. The title track and "When Lovers Confess" were deleted and three new tracks added: "Tomorrow Is Now", "Everything", and "Let the People Have Their Say". The album did not chart in the UK. However, the single "Let the People Have Their Say" broke the top 100 barrier in the UK and received ample air play on BBC Radio 2. The tri-fold slip case version features the faces of 210 people, all friends, family and fans of Jones.
White Feathers is the debut album by English new wave band Kajagoogoo, released on 18 April 1983 by EMI Records. The album contains their most successful single, "Too Shy", a UK No. 1 hit in February 1983, as well as two other UK Top 20 hits: "Ooh to Be Ah" and "Hang on Now". It is the band's only album with Limahl as the lead vocalist.
John Young is a British rock musician hailing from Liverpool. He is currently the keyboardist and singer for the progressive rock band Lifesigns.
Islands is the second album by English new wave band Kajagoogoo, released on 21 May 1984 on the EMI label.
Crazy Peoples Right to Speak is the third album by English new wave band Kajagoogoo, released in 1985 by Parlophone. The album was not a commercial success and failed to make the UK Top 100. The only single from the album, "Shouldn't Do That", reached No. 63 in the UK.
"Big Apple" is a song written and performed by the British band Kajagoogoo. Released in September 1983, it was the first single to be taken from the band's second album Islands (1984), and their first song without lead singer Limahl, who had been fired from the band earlier that year. From this single onwards, lead vocals were performed by bassist Nick Beggs.
Gone to the Moon is the fourth and final album by British new wave band Kajagoogoo. It was recorded in 2007 and early 2008 shortly before the original band was officially reunited. The tour for the album featured the entire original band. The album was downloadable on MP3 format for free until February 2009 and released shortly after on CD-R. The song "Tears" was featured on the compilation album This Is Not Retro – This Is the Eighties Up to Date.
Love Is Blind is the third solo album by the English singer Limahl, released in 1992. The work was also released in other two German-speaking countries of central Europe, namely Austria and Switzerland.
Don't Suppose is the debut solo album by the English singer Limahl, formerly lead singer of the British band Kajagoogoo, released in 1984 by EMI Records.
Catalogue / Preserve / Amass is a live album released in 2012 by British musician and record producer Steven Wilson, known for being the founder and frontman of psychedelic/progressive rock band Porcupine Tree.
The Mute Gods are an English progressive rock supergroup uniting Nick Beggs, Marco Minnemann and Roger King. Beggs approached King—with whom he had worked as part of Steve Hackett's band—about a collaboration in 2014, and Minnemann was chosen as the drummer after Beggs had toured with him as part of Steven Wilson's band.
Do Nothing till You Hear from Me is the first studio album by the Mute Gods, the band formed by Nick Beggs, Roger King and Marco Minnemann. The album was released on 22 January 2016 through InsideOut.
Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall is the second live Blu-ray/DVD and third live album by progressive rock musician Steven Wilson, released on 2 November 2018. It was filmed on the final night of Wilson's three-night residency at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which was part of the To the Bone tour. A 5-LP Vinyl edition was released on March 29, 2019 with six extra tracks not present on the CD edition.
References
1 2 3 4 Larkin, Colin (1997) The Virgin Encyclopedia of Eighties Music, Virgin Books, ISBN0-7535-0159-7, p. 270-271
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