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New Odds Bodkin Recordings

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NEW ODDS BODKIN RECORDINGS

From Odds Bodkin:

I’m in the studio next week to mix ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS, my best live show ever of Viking tales and lore. So surprising and wonderful was the audience’s reaction (it was recorded this year at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA–college students mostly) that we’re mixing the audience microphone in with the two stage mics to capture that magic. They laughed. They groaned. They even sang.

ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS will be available soon.

By the way, I’m doing a live version of this show at Nova Arts in Keene, NH on Sept. 24th, if you’d like to enjoy it in person. Music on Celtic harp and two 12-string guitars.

Tickets are $25:

https://www.novaarts.org/events/oddsbodkin924

Also being studio recorded next week, my latest original tale, VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD, which we’ll publish soon as well. A 70-minute adult pirate fantasy, it’s naughty but beautiful. Watch for it.

Plus more fresh recordings to follow! A new DARK TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL, which folks have been requesting for years. It’s going to be a busy few months!

–Odds Bodkin

TONIGHT AT 7 PM! HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN HORROR FOR ADULTS online concert with Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin!

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TONIGHT AT 7 PM! HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN HORROR FOR ADULTS online concert with Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin!

Join the crowd on Zoom tonight for an up-close evening of horror tales performed live by Odds Bodkin. With his two thundering 12-string guitars and his mellifluous Celtic harp providing background music, Odds will do his best to give you the willies.

BUY NOW

The Storm Breeder, a New England legend of the undead, and how a living man’s assumptions about life and death are shattered.

The Demon Heads, a samurai tale of the dark forest, and how nightfall brings out supernatural creatures that will suck out your soul in a second.

The Girl Who Danced with the Devil, a French Canadian tale of a beautiful young woman’s love of dancing, until, on the eve of Lent, she dances past midnight and into the arms of evil.

After the show on full screen, Odds will stay online in group chat to answer your questions about his art of storytelling.

A $25 ticket buys your url and password.

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm EST on Zoom

“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times

Grab Your Tickets for Odds Bodkin’s HEARTPOUNDERS Show on Zoom this Friday Night!

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Grab your tickets for Odds Bodkin’s HEARTPOUNDERS show on Zoom this Friday night and enjoy some adult storytelling! It’s live. It’s musical. It’s terrifying.

What are the stories?

THE STORM BREEDER

If you curse Nature, it curses you in return. Peter Rugg of Boston learns this immutable fact when he offends Nature. Now thunderstorms chase him. Is he alive or dead? And why has no one seen his ravaged face in fifty years, even though people see him often on old New England’s stormy roads? Only innocent Jonathan Dunwell, after chasing the Storm Breeder, sees the horrific face. Forever, his soul and body are scarred.

THE DEMON HEADS

After escaping a terrible massacre, a samurai buries his weapons forever and becomes an itinerant priest. His prayers are his only power. Yet in a battle with forest demons, he needs his old warrior skills. Whether he survives or not, after you hear the end of the story, is a matter of opinion.

THE GIRL WHO DANCED WITH THE DEVIL

Pierre sees the hooves of the stranger’s horse sunk into the melted snow, steam pouring up its shanks. Who is this handsome dancer who owns this horse and who is waltzing in the barn with Rose, Pierre’s fiancée? Even now, she’s fighting for her life as the stranger’s claws, hidden in his gloves, tighten around her.

Master Storyteller, Author and Musician Odds Bodkin invites you to enjoy these three supernatural tales with him as he tells them live with character voices, realistic vocal effects and full scores on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp.

Grab your tickets for tomorrow night’s show!

 

HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror

A Storytelling Event Live on Zoom


Friday Oct. 29, 2021 at 7 pm EST

Tickets: $25

90 Minutes of Horror Tales with Live Acoustic Music from Odds Bodkin

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Enjoy 90 minutes of Horror Tales with Live Acoustic Music from Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin this coming Friday, Oct. 29th at 7 pm EST. A Zoom performance.

Two 12-string guitars and a Celtic harp; those are Bodkin’s tools of the trade for HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Horror Tales.

A New England ghost legend. A Samurai tale of demons. A French Canadian tale of a girl and the devil. These tales are told with sound effects and vivid characters. Recommended for 12 and up. Don’t miss it!

HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween  Tales of Horror

Friday Oct. 29th, 2021 at 7 pm EST

Zoom Tickets: $25 per screen

Buy yours now and get a viewing party together! 90 minutes of horror tales.

THEY FLEW FROM VIRGINIA TO HEAR GHOST STORIES IN NH

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After my Heartpounders II Halloween Horror for Adults show at the Warner Town Hall in NH last Friday, two women in their late twenties came up to me.

“We flew up from Arlington Virginia for this,” one said.

Sometimes people travel distances to attend my shows, but that’s pretty far, I thought. “For this show?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard correctly.

“Yup. Two rental cars and an airplane,” said the other. “This is such a pretty area.”

I was still wondering if they were visiting local family or something and had heard about the show. “You’re saying you flew up from Virginia just to attend this performance. That’s it.”

“When we were kids, you came to a Zainy Brainy store in Arlington and did a show,” said the first. “Our moms bought your recordings. We grew up listening to them.”

Zainy Brainy was an upscale toy store chain back in the age of cassettes. I’d visited a few, but completely forgotten about it.

“We loved the story about the man chased by the thunderstorms.”

“The Storm Breeder. Wow, well, I’m moved,” I replied, wishing I’d told it that night. “Thanks for coming all this way. What are your names?” They introduced themselves and we shook hands and talked a little bit more.

“Do you live near here?” asked one.

“Next town over, in Bradford.”

“It’s really beautiful up here,” said one. “Well, thanks for the show. It was amazing.”

And after a few more words exchanged, they left.

Days later, I’m still impressed.

I have one more Halloween Horror Show for adults this season, a different one, coming up this Friday the 25th at 7:30 pm. at the Sweet Beet, 11 West Main Street in Bradford, NH. Hopefully you won’t need to come as far to see it. I’ll be telling The Storm Breeder, oddly enough.

It’s outdoors, so bundle up and bring chairs. BYOB. Hot chili, hot cider, donuts and apple crisp will be on sale before, during and after the show, all made by the wonder chefs at the Sweet Beet.

The show features horror tales from colonial America, old Russia, Confucian China and a new mystery story yet to be performed at any of my Heartpounders shows. Music on 12-string guitars, alto recorder and Celtic harp. They are not suitable for young children.

TICKETS ARE $20.

This is the third annual Halloween storytelling at the Sweet Beet. Hope to see you there!

 

A DEEPLY FRIGHTENING MYTH OF SURVIVAL

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In the sparse life of the ancient Eskimos, a daughter who will not marry is a death sentence.

Sedna is just such a girl. No suitor quite suits her, not even when a mysterious stranger pulls up his kayak onto the pebbly beach and brags of his staggering wealth.

Sedna’s angry, aging father insists she go with the man to become his wife. With no choice in the matter, she slides down into his kayak.

As events unfold, both father and daughter end up in a situation that is beyond horror, beyond betrayal.

A dark, elemental tale from the traditional Inuit of the Arctic Circle, Sedna the Ocean Mother is possibly the scariest, most unsettling story Odds Bodkin tells. Especially for women. It is not cultural appropriation. It is cultural reverence.

This tale is performed with 12-string guitar and a few character voices, plus vocal effects of sea birds, gales and frantic paddling.

To benefit the New Hampshire Telephone Museum, which is a must-see on its own, Odds Bodkin’s Heartpounders II tales are for an adult audience only. Please do not bring children. Original acoustic music–much of it created live, on Celtic harp, 6-string guitar, and 12-string guitars–accompanies the stories.

Friday Oct. 18, 2019 at 7 pm/Warner Town Hall, Warner NH

TICKETS $10 MEMBERS, $15 NON-MEMBERS

ADULT STORYTELLING for HALLOWEEN…TWO Odds Bodkin SHOWS

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HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN TALES OF HORROR is Odds Bodkin’s adult storytelling evening with live music for 2018. Two shows remain:

Plaistow, New Hampshire on Friday Oct. 26th at 7 p.m. FREE TO THE PUBLIC

Cambridge, Massachusetts on Sunday, Oct. 28th at 5 p.m. Tickets: $15

Friday Oct. 26th at the Plaistow Town Hall GET DETAILS

Sunday Oct. 28th at Grendel’s Den (RECORDING EVENT) GET DETAILS

GRENDEL’S DEN IN CAMBRIDGE: NEXT SUNDAY/Halloween Horror for Adults

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‘Tis the season for horror, just about everywhere. But you can refresh yourself with some fictional creepiness, replete with live music, with Odds Bodkin and his evening of tales, Heartpounders: Halloween Tales of Horror. A New England man chased by storms. Boys who turn to panthers. A Rocky Mountain ghost train nightmare. A tale from the angry serfs of Russia. And others. All with driving music.

Tickets are $15. Buy dinner and drinks at settle in for a fun evening!

A live recording event.

American Mythology: The Phantom Train of Marshall’s Pass

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During the late 1800’s in Colorado, narrow gauge railroads crossed the Great Divide of the Rockies heading for Sante Fe and other parts west. In those days, nothing facilitated the Westward Expansion and what Americans thought of as Manifest Destiny more than the invention of the steam locomotive. The Iron Horse, as it was known.

Various folklores grew up around the railroads, including those of ghostly trains. Much as in earlier seafaring times when folklores centered around phantom ships—the Flying Dutchman being the most famous—where dead souls seeking vengeance chased the living, so too in the early Industrial Age in America similar tales were handed down about the captains of the locomotives. The engineers.

Whether these frightening accounts were actual events or not remains open to debate. Still, they are a part of American mythology.

The attached early map from the Denver and Santa Fe Railroad shows Marshall Pass (in the story, Marshall’s Pass) the topmost rail crossing of the Great Divide. It is at this Rocky Mountain pass that one of the tales I’ll be telling this weekend takes place.

It’s accompanied with a flat-picked score on a Taylor 6-string guitar.

 

DARK TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL

Friday, October 19th at 8 p.m. at the Sweet Beet, Bradford, New Hampshire.

An outdoor event. Bring warm clothes, chairs and blankets.

Freshly made hot food and drinks available for purchase.

 

Tickets $13 in advance, $15 at the gate

Avoid the Jikininki, Eaters of the Slain

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Kairyo the samurai quickly left the slain on the battlefield. It was getting toward dark. Once night fell, the Jikininki would emerge from the forest to eat the dead.

It was best to not meet them. They were ghosts of the night woods.

That night he slept far enough away from the river not to hear the voice of the Kawa-Akago, the demon in the water. It used a baby’s cry to lure its unwitting victims to the shore as they searched for the lost child. It struck from just beneath the surface.

————–

A story excerpt from a Japanese tale of the supernatural.

Come hear it and three other chilling tales this coming Friday night, Oct. 19th, at 8 pm at the Sweet Beet Market in Bradford, New Hampshire. Music on two 12-string guitars, 6-string guitar and Celtic harp.

No children, please. An adult evening of storytelling with Odds Bodkin.

Special thanks to Hanna Koby, event producer.

Tickets $13 in advance, $15 at the gate.

FOREST DEMONS of JAPAN

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The Demon Heads is a new story I’ll be debuting this coming October 19th at an outdoor Dark Tales of the Supernatural show for adults. It’s about a samurai turned Shinto priest who encounters a group of Rokuro-Kubi, particularly nasty forest demons from Japanese folklore. Creating this tale has been fun. A new tuning on 12-string guitar, historical research into the Battle of Odaihara in 1546, new character voices and vocal effects, and most especially informative, learning about how the fear of night demons kept many Japanese out of their own forests after nightfall.

The tale is truly shocking and horrible, perfect for an adult evening of tale telling. Along with three others to round out the nightmare.

Dark Tales of the Supernatural/Info and Tickets