Staff See ALl Staff

Who is this Tom Mulhern guy anyway?

Writer, editor, technical writer, web developer, and user interface designer are among the many hats that I’ve worn, although I’m also a bassist, guitarist, and electronic musician who started playing guitar on my older brother’s amp-in-the-case Silvertone at age 14, around the time a big asteroid wiped out most of the dinosaurs. I majored in music composition and electronic music at Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University, where I spent more hours than I can remember working with a massive Moog modular synthesizer, creating strange, beautiful sounds that did nothing to allay my parents’ fears that I’d end up poor and homeless. An avid fan of electronic and mechanical technology, a ceaseless tinkerer, and a closet electronics and science geek, I’ve long enjoyed slaving over a hot soldering iron. I used to build PAIA Electronics synthesizer kits, serviced the often-broken Moog modules in the synth at school, and constantly modified effects pedals, all of which helped me to learn electronics.

I spent more than 13 years at Guitar Player magazine (1977 to 1990), reaching the position of Managing Editor before hitting the “eject” button. I was the luckiest person on earth, working with an astonishingly passionate bunch of guitarhead editors, including Don Menn, Tom Wheeler, Jas Obrecht, Dan Forte, Jim Schwartz, Jon Sievert, Jim Ferguson, and Joe Gore. Was the gig at GP the greatest thing on earth? Yep. Did I learn a ton about writing and music from these unimaginably gifted writers? Yep. Did I meet and interview my heroes and other important musicians and inventors? Oh, yeah. But GP was the only place I’d worked in my adult life. I realized it was time to do something else.

I branched out into writing marketing materials, product reviews, etc. Eventually, I was a regular columnist and contributor, and in some cases consulting or technical editor, to many magazines in the music industry, including Playback (the official magazine of the National Association of Music Merchants), Bass Frontiers, Bass Player, Guitar World, Guitar One, Guitar Shop, Musician, Home Recording, and Billboard.

As a result, I was able to interview even more inventors, company presidents, renowned musicians, and more of my heroes from my formative years. I edited a number of books, including Bass Heroes: Thirty Great Bass Players, Concert Photography: How To Shoot And Sell Music-Business Photographs, and I contributed chapters to The Gibson and 100 Years Of Gibson Guitars. In addition, I was given free reign at times to write columns on topics that interest me, so I focused on two things that I love: Music and the Web.

I also wrote a multitude of manuals and press materials for Fender, JBL, PRS, BBE Sound, Zon Guitars, BBE Sound, Santa Cruz Guitars, Dunlop, Seymour Duncan, Fishman, Taylor, Rane, TOA Electronics, Yamaha, Harman Kardon, Shure, Takamine, VHT, Lace Sensors, Martin Guitars, ART (Applied Research & Technology), Tech 21, and high-tech giants like Netscape, VR World Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Palm, and Xerox.

After browsing the then-new World Wide Web in 1994, using a program called Mosaic (the first browser), I was hooked on disseminating information online and learned how to design and code web pages. Beginning in mid-1995, I produced some of the music industry’s first web sites – for Rivera, Zon Guitars, Santa Cruz Guitar Company, and Yamaha Customer Service.

In 1997, I began working for a small Silicon Valley company that placed me at Netscape as a web developer in its Information Systems group, and I spent nearly three fascinating years with smart, fun people working on cutting-edge intranet design.

From late 1999 through the end of 2000, I was the manager of Support Systems Engineering at Logictier, an insanely well-funded startup company that rapidly grew to 250 employees in two locations before vanishing without a trace in the dot-com implosion. (Everything they say about startups is true; it’s the equivalent of George Jetson on the treadmill, but your brain also gets crushed by a million daily challenges.) After working at another startup that radically downsized in 2001, cutting me and a few dozen other folks loose, I went back to writing freelance articles for various publications and designing user interfaces for some cutting-edge companies in the software and Internet-related industries.

Since 2004, I’ve had a full-time gig as a technical writer, focusing on incredibly high-tech gas detectors and radiation monitors that are used to save lives all over the world. I should add that I’m also playing bass and guitar whenever I can, gravitating mostly to my 6-string basses (tuned EADGBE, like a guitar) and 6- and 12-string guitars (electric and acoustic). And, yes, I’m still writing about music, which is as good as it gets!