Todd Mauldin : Don't Shoot The Messenger

Todd Mauldin profiled by Good Men Project (click here to read)

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:26:17 -0800

Todd Mauldin profiled by Good Men Project (click here to read): Ain’t that something…

HAVE YOU EVER GOT CAUGHT? I can’t quite believe it’s...

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:17:00 -0800

HAVE YOU EVER GOT CAUGHT?

I can’t quite believe it’s been so long since I posted something here. Where’d we leave off? That ukulele photo was from this summer, when the Hellbusters were out at Taylorsville CA… that was what, July?

I did a recap of 2009 over at hellbusters.net, so I won’t repeat that here… and this morning I’m thinking about the emails I get sometimes about the song “Guilty Blues”, the title cut from our 2007 record.

Most people who know me and our music know that the songs on “Guilty” were written when I was still an active alcoholic. We recorded it shortly after I sobered up, and I’ve remained a sober alcoholic since, and plan on staying so. Life is better.

Somebody sent me the above picture the other day and I had to laugh, to keep from crying.

uke

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:54:13 -0700

uke

DDO Podcast Picks Up My DDO Song

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:38:24 -0700

DDO Podcast Picks Up My DDO Song: Hey, Jerry at DDOCast heard my little DDO song and is including it...

KILL TO LIVE ON DDO by Todd Mauldin copyright 2009, Carriebear...

Sun, 31 May 2009 21:39:56 -0700

KILL TO LIVE ON DDO by Todd Mauldin

A little shout out to my DDO guildmates, who liked my “Cast Stoneskin” song so much. :) Click black bar above to play.

“BOOTS” poem by Rudyard Kipling, music and...

Sun, 17 May 2009 23:38:00 -0700

“BOOTS” poem by Rudyard Kipling, music and narration by Todd Mauldin

I got the strangest email a few weeks ago. A gentelman said he was searching the Internet for a spoken-word version of “Boots”, a poem by Rudyard Kipling, and my name came up on Google as having once produced a version. He went on to say that the file couldn’t be downloaded, and asked if I had another copy.

I did indeed have a copy, after a little looking. I did this “Boots” around 1999 or so, again back in the mp3.com days. It tuned out pretty good, I can’t remember if I ever released it on CD. But I must have posted it somwhere… so I went ahead and emailed him the file with my compliments. It was kind of flattering, after all.

He wrote back and said, while my verson was good, it wasn’t the one he was looking for. He said they used a spoken version of it, looped over and over, as psychological “torture” in a military training program he went through, and that’s what he was looking for.

So I guess we can infer from this that Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots (Infantry Columns)” is regarded as a form of torture, and that my version is a slight improvement on torture. Click the black box above, and see what you think.

CAST STONESKIN Here’s one from the...

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:21:24 -0700

CAST STONESKIN

Here’s one from the “archives”… meaning from a time I refer to as the “mp3.com days”. Once a long time ago I was a electronic/spoken word performer and had a little success on mp3.com. One of the “songs” on one of the cds I released back then (can’t remember which one) was “Cast Stoneskin”. Remember when the internet meme was going around in the mid 90s that Kurt Vonnegut had given this cool commencement address, which turned out to not be Kurt Vonnegut but rather a Chicago newspaper columnist, and that it was never actually given as a speech at all but as a column? And then remember how Baz Lurhman had a minor radio hit by taking that speech/column and having a guy read it over a cool semi-techno beat? Remember?

Ok, so there was this other version that started making the rounds on the internet shortly thereafter, a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) version. A friend of mine (the Briguy) found it and suggested I make a song similar to the Baz Lurhman one using the D&D version of the speech that wasn’t a speech and that was also not written or delivered by Kurt Vonnegut.

Everybody with me so far?

Ok, so I recently found it again… and I’m posting it here. For my friend Briguy, and my friends in Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO)… my Kill To Live guildmates.

Yeah, I’m 42 and I play Dungeons & Dragons Online. Go ahead and riot, I can take it.

The (in)Complete History of the Hellbusters in Photos

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:48:00 -0800

The (in)Complete History of the Hellbusters in Photos: *Hi* So for those of you who are interested...

List of weapons that shoot other weapons that don't exist, but should

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:30:00 -0800

List of weapons that shoot other weapons that don't exist, but should: We here at Todd Mauldin...

The Moth Podcast

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:19:00 -0800

The Moth Podcast: PREACHING ABOUT STORYTELLING Look, I love telling stories. I love to do it on...

I'm Really Gonna Miss Systematically Destroying This Place | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:34:00 -0800

I'm Really Gonna Miss Systematically Destroying This Place | The Onion - America's Finest News...

Here’s another one of us playing the Douglas County...

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:07:00 -0800

Here’s another one of us playing the Douglas County Democrats picnic, this time doing “Skinny Woman”.

Couple of interesting notes here. First of all, we did kind of an experimental stage rig at the picnic. Rather than use a PA we tried out our ultralight performance rig. I’m singing, playing guitar and working that porchboard all through the guitar amp… which is a Vox battery-powered DA20. Its about the handiest amp I own. I use it all the time now. You can plug a guitar into it, also a mic and one other sound source (in this case the porchboard). Jack played his box without amplification, and used his little Epiphone Valve Junior. I thought it sounded pretty good. This is the way we play small gigs now, and also when we play on the street.

Now the other interesting note about this gig was, during this song, I was amost killed by that juggler.

At about 2:15 of that video, he spun around real fast and threw a damn juggling pin at me. It happens fast cause he was a sneaky bastard, but he missed, he only hit my porchboard and the mic stand. He disappeared before I could settle up with him after the set. He was obviously an undercover Republican operative, an assassin posing as a juggler, but the plot failed.

Also, an old dog named Barlow, who had been getting fed BBQ all day, wandered by later and pooped on the grass in front of Jack.

Quite an afternoon. :)

“Tube Top”, Solo Show, Reno Music Project...

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:13:00 -0800

So, in October of this year, I went out and played a solo set at the Reno Music Project for my good friend Todd South. I had a great time. I was in a preachy mood, and delivered many messages through the course of the night. However, the most well-received message was on the subject of the tube top. Do give it a listen, won’t you? And please consider becoming part of the cause, friends. Especially you ladies… real change begins with you. :)

In July, me and Jack went down to Minden, Nevada to play a set...

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:19:00 -0800

In July, me and Jack went down to Minden, Nevada to play a set along with some others at the Douglas County Democrats annual picnic. It’s always a good time. This year they shot some video and lookit what I found the other day… it’s on youtube under the title “You Cheated Baby”… the song is “Jumper On The Line”, not “You Cheated Baby” (which, given the way I mumbled the line in the song that goes “when you see that, baby…” is an understandable mistake, and which is also a great title I think I’ll use someday). I like playing this song. It’s our own arrangement, and I think the video is pretty cool. I like the outdoor setting. Do enjoy, please.

"I’m a blues man. A blues man is a prisoner of hope. Hope wrestles with despair, but it..."

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:08:00 -0800

“I’m a blues man. A blues man is a prisoner of hope. Hope wrestles with despair, but it...