Stu Mahan at home in his Damariscotta studio where he produced and recorded Greens next album Speed of Trust. (Sherwood Olin photo)
Stu Mahan had an idea.
The Damariscotta-based musician/producer/promoter/songwriter/artist-of-many-hats saw an entertainment void in the Lincoln County area, and he moved to fill it.
Mahan’s idea was to bring top-shelf original Maine talent to a local stage, creating a venue for the artist and a premium concert experience for Midcoast residents. A formal business proposal followed a few exploratory Facebook posts and the concept attracted the support of Newcastle Publick House owners Alex and Rachel Nevens. The Nevenses made the Oysterhead Lounge, located above their restaurant at 52 Main St. in Newcastle, available for the purpose, and Mahan recruited the talent.
Starting with the first concert, Spencer Albee on Jan. 5, the series has done “phenomenally” well, Mahan said. He acknowledged the idea initially had some skeptics, but three months in the series has exceeded all expectations, increasingly attracting music fans from all over Lincoln County and beyond, like Brunswick, Bath, Rockland, and Warren.
“People interested in new, original Maine-based music have been coming and they have been floored by the talent coming in and word has been spreading,” Mahan said. “More and more people are hearing about this and making the trek down here and checking it out.”
For Mahan, producing a concert series is just another outgrowth of a busy music career.
Growing up in Pemaquid, Mahan took up the bass guitar when he was 15. He started playing trumpet and then percussion in the school band. After his family moved to Damariscotta when Stu was in the eighth grade, he sat out the school band for a year.
During that period, his father suggested Mahan give the bass a try.
“It never occurred to me,” Mahan said. “Then I started taking lessons here with Jack Tukey. I pretty much took like lessons every week for four years … I don’t know something about it just spoke back to me as soon as I started playing bass.”
After graduating from Lincoln Academy, Mahan went on to attend the University of Maine at Augusta, where he earned a degree in jazz performance and contemporary music and completed almost everything he needed for a composition degree.
“I took all the classes for the composition degree, but by the time I was into year five I was just so burned out from doing everything that I was like, I just got to get this one and then get out,” he said.
For Mahan, the benefit of attending UMA was not only the education he received, it was the community of musicians that he connected with, many of whom he continues to work with today.
Stu Mahan at work. (Courtesy photo)
During his final year in college, Mahan moved to Portland and commuted to Augusta for classes. Portland became his home base for the next seven years as he established himself in the city’s music scene and met the woman who became his wife, Jenny Gold.
Together the couple made the decision to move to New York City in 2010. Gold wanted to advance her career and Mahan wanted to take his career to another level.
“She wanted to get her master’s degree in education, and I wanted to go to New York and try it out,” he said. “So we decided to move down and she got her master’s at Hunter College and we ended up living down there for seven years.”
In New York, Mahan worked his way into the music scene, establishing himself as an in-demand bass player and touring heavily for five years. He also gained invaluable studio experience and made important professional connections.
“Again, I was super lucky and got into working with some phenomenal musicians who were patient with me and saw my eagerness,” Mahan said. “They just felt that energy and were stoked to kind of bring me in and more or less took me under their wing.”
Mahan and Gold eventually chose to leave New York City the same way they chose to move there, Mahan said: it felt like the right time.
The summer before their wedding, they were visiting Damariscotta when they found a house for sale on Elm Street. They weren’t particularly looking to buy a house and hadn’t even discussed leaving New York City at that point, but they were intrigued enough to tour the property and to keep the house on their radar, Mahan said.
“We were not talking about moving back and then we’ll keep an eye on it,” Mahan said. “Just see what happens. We got married, kept an eye on it. Price started going down. I started crunching numbers and it was like, you know, if it gets to this certain threshold, we could afford to live up there and then it got to that threshold in early 2017. As the price was going down our seriousness started going up and then we made an offer.”
Mahan said he loved his time in New York and he recommends people experience the big city for the vibrant mix of cultures and frenetic pace, but he is happy to be back in Lincoln County he said.
“We didn’t have access to nature,” he said. “We would have to drive.
Even in Central Park or Prospect Park, we would still see, you know, 2,000 people walking around, easy. Here we have access to nature … I mean, like multiple three mile hikes within a 10 or 15 minute drive from our home. We’re blessed. We’re really blessed.”
The couple’s son, Johnny, was born during the pandemic lockdown in May 2020. In addition to becoming a father, Mahan used the pandemic-related downtime to build out his music studio.
With a professional quality studio at home, Mahan has leaned into studio work in recent years, mixing, producing, and recording.
“I’ve been kind of off the road for a number of years now,” he said. “It’s kind of nice. I remember you know, it’s nice to be out on the road too, but it’s also, I’ve got a kid now and, you know, the stresses of being on the road are outweighed by the pleasures of being home.”
Among the projects Mahan has coming out this year is a record he has done with Bangor-area blues guitarist and singer Eric Green, tentatively titled “Speed of Trust.” Green and Mahan spent two years collaborating on the record, getting together every two or three weeks or so; writing and recording on their own schedule.
Mahan said he and Green connected during a series of shows Green was playing at Schooner Landing. Not only is Green a character with a great deal to offer musically, as a Native American artist, he provides interesting and underrepresented perspective, Mahan said.
At home in Damariscotta, Stu Mahan confers with a seemingly hard to please member of his fan base, the family cat Tom Jones. (Photo courtesy Stu Mahan)
“He is a great representation of true Maine music,” Mahan said. “The water of Maine flows through Eric Green. You talk about the Mississippi flowing through Muddy Waters and those blues legends. Well, the water of Maine flows through Eric Green. He is a state treasure. He really is.”
Mahan finished mixing the album in December sent the recording to an engineer he worked with in Brooklyn, Alex DeTurk, for the final mastering process.
“I mixed a record by this band Lettuce, this live record, and he mastered it and I really liked his work,” Mahan said. “Mastering is the final stage before you release a record, so you really want put your record in the ears of somebody you trust and having worked with Alex in the past, I fully trust his ears to pick up anything I may have missed in the mixing process.”
Other current projects for Mahan include mixing work for the Portland area big band The Fogcutters and collaborating with one time Maine resident Nigel Hall on his next record.
Seven years after coming home to Damariscotta, Mahan said he is busier and more professionally satisfied than ever.
“I’m kind of doing it all,” he said. “Recording, songwriting, promoting, you know, a little bit of everything. Now I’m booking and doing those sorts of things … It’s been a trip, man. It’s super, super fun. I love every minute of it.”
For more information, go to stumahan.com.
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