Todd Rundgren: C or D

ok Todd rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rNliIpNtk

Guess who's coming to Sheboygan, Wisconsin tomorrow???

seein him on the 23rd

28th in Pasadena, I should go this time.

You should! I went with my Dad (who 15 years ago asked me, "you're on those Russian MP3 sites right? Can you get an album called A Wizard, a True Star?") and we had a pretty good time. In case you're wondering, the set list is almost all new stuff - like 80% of it was from Liars on, including what I gathered was a big chunk of his new album (which I have not heard). Even when he delves into his back catalogue it's for something like "Love Science", the Utopia single "Secret Society", or "No World Order" (!!!), it's like he's just trying to hit as many genres as possible in two hours. I think it wound up shocking the crowd a bit - this was at a classy theater in a town with a population of 50k, the audience was packed mostly with older locals...I heard a lot of comments like "well THAT was different", particularly on the heavy techno stuff and the songs where he starts rapping. But once it became clear that he wasn't going to play a Vegas-style classic rock show they got pretty into it. I mean...these songs were still pretty dang good, a lot of them felt on par with the stuff he was doing in the 70's. Anyway for the encore he finally threw the audience a bone, playing "One World", a loungey and kinda shit version of "Hello It's Me", then "Just One Victory" which brought the house down. My Dad said it was the weirdest show he's ever been to (for reference the last one he went to was The Eagles), and then said he actually loved the techno stuff and wished he'd done more. This was his third time seeing Todd, he mentioned that he saw Utopia at what must have been the height of their prog phase in like 1977, and that the audience hated it, at least until he started playing stuff like "Love of the Common Man" at the end. He also said that Todd's voice and stage presence were pretty much exactly the same as 40 years ago. Dude can still belt it out, I'm impressed. So yeah. Worth your time!

I like 'Something / Anything?' a lot but '...Wizard...' is one of the most annoying records I've ever heard. What's the best place to go next?

I'd try "Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren", it's heavier on the ballads but probably the closest thing to the SA sound.
Hermit of Mink Hollow might be up your alley too, but be sure to skip "onomatopoeia"

if you think Wizard is annoying then probably nowhere

yeah maybe just buy Tapestry or the first Laura Nyro album

That's a fair answer - my reaction to Wizard was probably coloured by my realisation that I was listening to Year Zero for everything I hate about brightly-coloured modern US indie, whatever his virtues as a songwriter, producer etc.

heh i had the opposite reaction, absolutely love the manic AWATS, bored by everything else he has done (especially the Utopia-era stuff)

You should! I went with my Dad (who 15 years ago asked me, "you're on those Russian MP3 sites right? Can you get an album called A Wizard, a True Star?") and we had a pretty good time. In case you're wondering, the set list is almost all new stuff - like 80% of it was from Liars on, including what I gathered was a big chunk of his new album (which I have not heard). Even when he delves into his back catalogue it's for something like "Love Science", the Utopia single "Secret Society", or "No World Order" (!!!), it's like he's just trying to hit as many genres as possible in two hours. I think it wound up shocking the crowd a bit - this was at a classy theater in a town with a population of 50k, the audience was packed mostly with older locals...I heard a lot of comments like "well THAT was different", particularly on the heavy techno stuff and the songs where he starts rapping. But once it became clear that he wasn't going to play a Vegas-style classic rock show they got pretty into it. I mean...these songs were still pretty dang good, a lot of them felt on par with the stuff he was doing in the 70's. Anyway for the encore he finally threw the audience a bone, playing "One World", a loungey and kinda shit version of "Hello It's Me", then "Just One Victory" which brought the house down. My Dad said it was the weirdest show he's ever been to (for reference the last one he went to was The Eagles), and then said he actually loved the techno stuff and wished he'd done more. This was his third time seeing Todd, he mentioned that he saw Utopia at what must have been the height of their prog phase in like 1977, and that the audience hated it, at least until he started playing stuff like "Love of the Common Man" at the end. He also said that Todd's voice and stage presence were pretty much exactly the same as 40 years ago. Dude can still belt it out, I'm impressed. So yeah. Worth your time!

This is completely different than the benefit show for his foundation that I saw last year -- which was absolutely a Vegas-style classic rock show (with Utopia backing him) and actually a terrific one. I love him for this.

hah I looked at some old setlists and apparently he was doing this all last year. bummer I couldn't take my Dad to that since those are the same songs I hear him play on the piano. he's definitely got a neat way of dealing with the whole "aging rock star" thing.

I was a bit disappointed that "Bang on the Drum All Day" wasn't played. I know it's lame as hell but that song in particular means a lot to us Wisconsinites :P

Yeah, I actually want a "run through of the hits" type show and should have gone last year.

To Matt DC: I love the first Runt album, more poppy, fewer ballads than the second one.

Just noticed this nugget of trivia in the Something/Anything liner notes: Edward James Olmos is a backup singer on "Slut".
Huh.

I have a colleague who’s an enormous Todd fan – like lifelong obsessed – has seen him numerous times, met him more than once, sends me (unsolicited) articles/reviews, etc.

I tried listening to a few early albums once, and they sort of sounded like weird demos to me; never got any further...

touring with Utopia now

been looking at the setlists and...whoa. I might have to go see this after all.

i'm going to see 'em at the Town Hall, a venue I have 0 interest in going to. Ralph Shuckett from the 1st, none-more-prog version of the band, was sposed to stand in for Roger Powell, who doesn't wanna tour anymore. Yet Shuckett can't do it for health reasons, so apparently Rebop, the third Rundgren son who does not play minor league baseball unlike the two older sons Todd had with karen "bean" darvin, found this guy from Argentina who while evidently had never heard of Utopia and Todd, got the gig.

Todd and Willie Wilcox could not stand each other for many many years but evidently have agreed to tolerate one another.

i guess willie wilcox does sound design for video games and stuff these days

wait Rundgren has two sons in the minors? that's pretty awesome

yeah, name of rex and randy. think one or both were but no longer in the minors.

Saw this thread, then a couple things on Twitter
(me:)
In radio interview on @BigStarBand's Live at Lafayette's Music Room, AC worries that forthcoming #1 Record is too much like Rundgren, reminding me not to overemph Beatles influences; also T.Rex v. favorably mentioned; both covered here, as on several other live recordings.

Underground Jukebox
‏@clevelandbeyond
Nazz seems to have had big impact on Birmingham: “Open My Eyes” and “Under The Ice” were covered by The Move and Nazz riffs turn up in Black Sabbath songs (ie “Under The Ice” in the chorus of “Rock N Roll Doctor”). And despite everything else Rundgren was one HELL of a guitarist.
Which was a response to this:
Johnnie Johnstone
‏@tnpcollection

Original nugget, Top Todd, extremely cool vid.
Nazz - Open My Eyes
https://youtu.be/PjKx-yLOGEY

Oh yeah, and The Bangles recorded a killer "Open My Eyes" a few years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctc0oMioqPA

I've always loved the brief diversion into sunshine-pop harmonies on the bridge of "Open My Eyes", which is played up even further in the Nazz video.

"Open My Eyes" b/w "Hello It's Me" is an all-time-great first single

"Forget All about It" is another great slammin Nazz rocker (1st cut on the 2nd lp iirc)

utopia was terrific at the town hall tonight. They shoulda acknowledged the guy who came in without knowing the band, much less the keyb parts, until a month ago…

Chiefly, i would like to say the following to all the todd people on ILM… I have every TR record from '70 to '91, Ra, oops, the first Utopia album (prog opus), disco jets, have seen him now 6 times, read the book by Mike Myers brother…

yet I never heard "rock love" until tonight. Its the platonic ideal of shit that I like, by one of my favorite artists. and I never heard it before, because I did not feel like listening to every album by the band that Albert/bearsville would have preferred that he discontinue, the band that jumped every white pee-poh music trend like prog, power-pop, new wave, corp-rock, mutt lange-style shit, etc

I love it.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/todd-rundgren/2018/kelburn-castle-largs-scotland-33ea405d.html

must admit I really hope there's a recording of this

There is video when you click the play button on the right, and some are live, though I don't know if it's from that show. I'm at work and can't play the sound. Some seem to be the album version.

he does basically this same set at every "an unpredictable night" show. it's so cringy when he does hash pipe and puffs away on his vape pen smh.

finally listened to the Runddans album and holy shit, it really is like Wizard/Initiation-era Todd in the 21st century

really starting to think that Todd's insistence on turning every album into a one-man band record deprived us of a lot of great stuff

Love that record

also wanna point out that my first listen to it was on LP and it took me a full side and a half to realize that the album was not actually supposed to be "kinda vaporwavey" but in fact was supposed to be played at 45

I had an odd urge to hear to Ra today, a record I haven't played since maybe 1980, and lo and behold this thread pops up! I still have a soft spot for side one, especially "Magic Dragon Theatre," but man the second side is pretty much unlistenable to me.

There's not much middle ground with Todd, is there? I'd say about 85% of his stuff is pure manna to me, the other 15% (Bang On The Drum, the Gilbert & Sullivan covers, the various prog odysseys, etc.) I skip over as fast as I can.

I definitely respect the fact that he did prog his way. personally I think both "The Ikon" and "Singring" are pretty great. the latter is pretty gimmicky but I like how it lampshades the whole "the point of this is for all of us to get bitchin' solos" thing

Gahhhh I love the first two Utopia records

I adore "Freak Parade"

the lyrics on this are pretty bad but man you could've fooled me into thinking this was a 40 year old outtake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dmUlUNh0zU

He sounds of reasonably good voice. Smart to put the vocals deeper into the mix. Not bad, TR.

I'm here waiting for the election to be called, listening to Todd Rundgren's Todd and feeling ready to cry. this album reminds me so much of my Dad. he's still alive by the way. but it reminds me of growing up with him. he used to play songs from this particular album on the piano all the time. I never knew what they were (as a kid, I assumed my Dad wrote them himself). many years later I find the album Todd and realize that I already know half of these songs well. particularly "Don't You Ever Learn?" which I LOVED, it was my favorite thing for him to play. gets me so emotional lately. "A Dream Goes On Forever"...what a fucking tune

I react that way in general to Rundgren's greatest songs; wish I could say the same of my dad, but he was a Chubby Checker guy.

Love the Todd album except for the synth stuff at the beginning of side 4. I even shot a video for An Elpee's Worth of Tunes in high school.

It's startling to realize he released this double album (his second in 3 years) and the hour-long Utopia debut all in 1974.

Just heard the Nazz version of 'Hello, It's Me' for the first time yesterday (didn't even know it existed until very recently). Quite different from the solo version but also great in its own way.

I've mentioned it elsewhere on the board but I sincerely can't get through 'Sometimes I Don't Know How to Feel' without starting to cry. Every damn time.

Frogs, I love reading your tales of your dad and his affinity for prog.

I would love to be in a crowded bar tonite, drunk, singing "Sons of 1984" at the top of my lungs with a bunch of strangers. That won't happen, obviously, because of the pandemic and because nobody outside this thread knows that song. But it's how I feel right now!

last time I saw my Dad when we got in the car he said "I gotta play this song for you...it's called Firth of Fifth" and I was like "Dad are you just finding out about this now?"

Todd has a few other songs from the mid-70s that fit the moment - Just One Victory and Freedom Fighters. His literal Trump song is Tin Foil Hat, from White Knight, with Donald Fagen singing.

Starting side 2 of A Wizard/A True Star with Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel and ending it with Just One Victory is a steep upward emotional trajectory!

I always thought that in a just world, fans of victorious sports teams would sing "Just One Victory" after the final game, rather than (or maybe included with) "We Are The Champions."

when he played here (in Sheboygan!!!) they played the video for Tin Foil Hat during one of the costume changes and maaan did it make some people uncomfortable

the Utopia album Swing to the Right has some pretty political themes but honestly I forget that album exists sometimes. between his solo career and Utopia he made like 10 albums between 77 and 84

I've always assumed "Heavy Metal Kids" was a parody song, along the lines of "Earache My Eye." The opening riff is basically "Cat Scratch Fever", though I'm not sure if Todd's song came before or after Ted's. I think before?

Todd's song was three years before the Nugent song. Chuck Eddy mentioned the coincidence that Todd and Ted were the two musicians on the Nuggets compilation who actually went on to become stars instead of one-hit wonders.

The philosophy of Heavy Metal Kids, such as it is, always seemed to owe more to (proto-)punk than what was known as metal in 1974. It's interesting that Todd had connections to punk (producing New York Dolls, dating Patti Smith) at the same time that he was exploring prog and MOR ballads, and was at least friendly with the rock aristocracy (if not a member).