Todd Rundgren: C or D

I completely refuse to engage with this on any level although I'm getting an ulcer...

Ladies, ladies settle down like I said I'll keep at it

gym coach

Hit the showers champ

how the hell was this not a huge hit?

i like todd and i like "love of the common man," but it could've used a better singer tbh.

Utopia's "Freak Parade" is really great".

Still need quite a lot of his albums. Hermit Of Mink Hollow or Wizard A True Star are my favorites.

Black Mariah!

4 disc "at the bbc1972-1982" came out this week.

wonder if it has the old grey whistle test performance of "tiny demons", just vocals and guitar. it's good stuff.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the first ever official release of TODD RUNDGREN AT THE BBC. This four-disc collection comprises three CDs and a DVD (NTSC / Region Free) featuring all of the surviving radio and television broadcasts in the BBC archive transmitted on radio and television in the UK between 1972 and 1982. The set features on CD Todd's solo 1972 BBC Radio One ""In Concert"" performance, recorded soon after the release of his seminal album ""Something Anything"", the classic 1975 performance by Todd Rundgren and Utopia at Hammersmith Odeon, London, (including a previously unreleased track 'Something's Coming') - on the first ever UK concert tour of Todd Rundgren and Utopia, a 1977 performance at the Oxford Polytechnic by Todd Rundgren and Utopia (promoting the ""Ra"") album, and a DVD featuring three different performances for the classic ""Old Grey Whistle Test"" series; the 1975 Todd Rundgren and Utopia session, a film of Todd Rundgren & Utopia at the Bearsville Picnic in 1977 (performing 'Singring and the Glass Guitar') and the entire recordings made for a 1982 solo Todd Rundgren Whistle Test special (including two songs not featured on the original TV broadcast). This set is sure to delight the legions of Todd Rundgren fans and is a superb document of Todd's continuing development as both a solo artist and with his band Utopia between 1972 and 1982.

i think it's weird he's not mentioned more as a progenitor of electronic pop

$12.49 on Amazon MP3, price is certainly right

26 tracks of this on Spotify.

anything ever come of his collaboration between Lindstrom, Todd Rundgren, and Serena-Maneesh?

might have to go see this latest Todd tour, in which he's onstage with 2 female singers and a DJ/keyboardist who apparently will be Dam-Funk (!!?)

Highly recommended for all early-'70s Todd lovers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqW7EfA3VWE

might have to go see this latest Todd tour, in which he's onstage with 2 female singers and a DJ/keyboardist who apparently will be Dam-Funk (!!?)

I think I might take my Dad, who has been a fan of Todd for four decades now, but I agree, I kinda want to read a review or two first

the fact that it's Dam-Funk is sort of encouraging, because i still believe he can do something not-terrible with EDM/modern electronics, he's just really out of touch and needs a young person to steer him.

speaking of todd and electronics, has anybody heard the pure electronic "sequences" at the end of this disc? http://www.discogs.com/Todd-Rundgren-SomewhereAnywhere-Unreleased-Tracks/release/2414213
seriously insane proto-techno.

I've been listening a lot to Healing, maybe not exactly an "electronic" album but, I dunno, kinda ahead of the curve for 1981, using synths and drum machines in a different context than almost anyone else was back then

definitely want to track those S/A unreleased tracks. Todd's 70's electro stuff is really interesting in parts. That giant honker on the end of Initiation is a real snooze but there are some really crazy parts if you wanna wait for them

I wouldn't say Todd "needs" a younger, hipper guy. Liars is a pretty amazing album—I probably listen to it every year or so—and it's all electronic and all him.

As for Healing, for more discussion go here:

Here We Discuss Todd Rundgren's Bizarro "Healing"

Has anyone checked out Global yet?

Not a bad effort from the old fart but too heavy-handed musically - needs a way lighter touch imho. Also the lyrics often sound like they are lifted directly from late-90s techno records.

I was just listening to State last week. I would say the same about that. "Ping Me," yikes. But the tunes are good.

curious about this Runddans collabration with Lindstrom

The new album is on Spotify btw.

Re the Lindstrom thing, this has been out for a while:
https://soundcloud.com/smalltownsupersound/lindstrom-quiet-place-to-live

I don't see it on Spotify in the U.S.

curious about this Runddans collabration with Lindstrom

Out today I believe and on Spotify. Going to need to listen a bit more closely than I can when I'm in the car w my kids but at first blush it sounds like kind of a brilliant amalgam of Lindstrøm's thing and Todd's mid-70s Utopia sensibilities.

just FYI : long article/interview in the new mojo with Todd ..

Been listening to this a ton the last few days. I love it. It feels like classic Todd not only because it's catchy as all hell but also because it goes in a ton of bizarre directions including chopping up a phone conversation they have about (according to Pitchfork) how to end the album.

In some ways Todd is like Miles Davis – he'd rather fail miserably than get stuck doing the same thing over and over. Hard not to admire that and easy to when it produces collaborations like this.

Interesting to read Todd fan views and compare them with the shrugs on the Lindstrom thread. I do like the central melody ("Put Your Arms Around Me") but it's too flimsy to sustain a 38-minute album, and the other material just isn't strong enough. Basically, this could have been so much better with more focus and one more (good) musical idea.

Not sure what "other material" you're talking about. The whole thing is built around that "Put Your Arms Around Me" melody. I think the more interesting thing is how he, in classic Todd fashion, gets you to this unbelievable climax and proceeds to tear it apart with a crowbar for the next 15 minutes.

Bonus: lots of awesome squealy "Last Ride"-style guitar in this.

The "Think I'm going out of my head" section's an attempt at a second subject (it comes back later), but it's rubbish.

For those who like Todd's early 70s R&B phase, he recorded a series of tunes for Live from Daryl House in 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prOYxFPoKSM

The "Think I'm going out of my head" section's an attempt at a second subject (it comes back later), but it's rubbish.

Not sure that's a second theme – more a simple variation over the descending "Put Your Arms Around Me" chord progression. If there's anything that qualifies as a secondary theme it's the whole "Come awake, come awake, open up your eyes" rising sequence in "Ravende Gal" which I think is pretty terrific (and cosmic as fuck).

Todd must be amused at how closely most of the reviews read like befuddled mid-70s Utopia criticism:

"This stuff meanders!"
"Where's the climax?"
"Just as it sounds like it's going somewhere, they blow it up!"
"Where are all the beats?"

I think it's actually pretty fantastic that they didn't decide to just put Todd over some four-to-the-floor disco grooves and instead took this stuff in a purely progressive direction for three quarters of an hour. I mean, different strokes for different zygotes and all. But from some of the reactions, it seems some folks have a hard time lasting that long these days.

Don't you ever listen?
Don't you ever learn?
The hand may find you
It's time to take a turn
You think this life is something strange
You're ready for another change
But don't you ever learn?
Don't you ever learn?
Don't you ever listen?
Don't you ever learn?
The world is on fire
Your body doesn't burn
Kill yourself before receiving
Something out of all this breathing
Don't you ever learn?
Say don't you ever learn?
You ever learn?
Don't you ever learn?
Don't you ever learn?
Don't you ever learn?
...

listened to discs 1 through 3 of the bbc box. the first disc has some nice piano + voice renditions of his early ballads. interminable version of the worthless "piss aaron", however. the full band tracks towards the end sound kind of weak.

discs 2 and 3 are sick as hell explosive sloppy balls to the wall glistening gleaming heavy prog. just ridiculous.

Got into "A Wizard, A True Star" very heavily for a few months last year. My landlord found out and lent me his copy of the vinyl. Some incredible album art here.

Tried listening to his other albums and it may just be too prog for me at the moment. I do like his approach to one and two-minute long avant pop. Kind of a weird Guided By Voices vibe w the bite-sized song lineup AWATS. A very heavy Flaming Lips vibe to the drums.

This is one of those records that sort of made me go "Aha! So that's where they got it!" about indie rockers on just about every track.

Pretty sure Of Montreal would not exist at all without this record.

The last big track of Initiation and his stuff in Utopia seems to me the only thing more proggy than Wizard A True Star (of his work in the 70s)

I think _Todd_ is probably Todd at peak prog. Something like "In and out the chakras we go" is just prog to the wall. "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire", on the other hand, is just too much of a Tales from Topographic Oceans trip for me to listen to.

"A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" sounds like that to me in name only. I can't think of any big prog bands that have a track like that.

I like Todd (1974) by far the best. I do also like Something / Anything? and ...Wizard..., but for me it's like Goldilocks in reverse - those two are Mama Bear and Baby Bear's albums/songs, but Todd is Poppa Bear's and that one works best for me: less bitty / more fleshed out, even more varied - similar effect to Sign Of The Times.

something/anything is a masterpiece huh

like this is what i want from classic 70s studio rock

p much

give or take a few songs on the last side

yea

I'm going to his Brooklyn bowl show on Tuesday: the previous three I've seen ('91 for Nearly Human; '96 for the bullshit cocktail culture cash-in, 03-04 solo) were unsatisfying, but I have the notion looking at set lists and knowing that he's using Prairie, Kasim and Gress that I'll be pleased. Its $35 in that club, which is very good hang, and it seems like a steal for a guy who means so much to me, blah blah, see the giants while you can blah blah they might drop dead tmw blah blah.

Kinda wish I went to see the original utopia reunion or AWTATS or the Healer shows…

I regret missing him a month ago when he came through, only $30 in a club setting, but I just couldn't commit.

Buyer beware...Saw him a few years ago at Ronnie Scott's. It was on a greatest hits tour but Todd decides he's going to treat the crowd to his tribute to Robert Johnson. 2 interminable hours later I decide I shan't be spending £50 on Todd Rundgren tickets again. Even the band looked pissed...

I heard about that, and the EDM shows he did a few years ago. By all accounts he's doing a career-long "best of" this time around.

tracklisting for his new album, dunno whether or not to be excited for this - that's a hell of a guest list

1.Come
2.I Got Your Back (featuring KK Watson with Dam Funk)
3.Chance For Us (featuring Daryl Hall with Bobby Strickland)
4.Fiction
5.Beginning Of The End (featuring John Boutte)
6.Tin Foil Hat (featuring Donald Fagen)
7.Look At Me (featuring Michael Holman)
8.Let's Do This (with Moe Berg)
9.Sleep (with Joe Walsh)
10.That Could Have Been Me (featuring Robyn)
11.Deaf Ears (featuring Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
12.Naked & Afraid (featuring Bettye LaVette)
13.Buy My T
14.Wouldn't You Like To Know (featuring Rebop Rundgren)
15.This Is Not A Drill (featuring Joe Satriani with Prairie Prince & Kasim Sulton)