Getting into Todd Rundgren - where to next?

Here's a recent quickie interview with Todd while he breaks from his tour with Ringo.

"It's often assumed that when an audience lost interest in what you were doing way back when, they think you didn't do anything after that. Just because they lost interest doesn't mean I did. "I'm still very much interested in contemporary music, and sometimes you have to struggle to find things that are worthwhile. But as much as that old trope exists that as you get older, you complain about modern music, you have to bite your tongue before you start saying it,"

"There's a distinction between being a musician and being an entertainer. You can do anything to entertain. You can run around naked with a paper bag over your head and people will find that entertaining. It takes more skill to develop a performance, but it doesn't necessarily make you a creative person. It just means you can play well and deliver that quality performance when somebody demands it. To create something out of nothing is a whole other thing. From my standpoint, I need constant fuel for that process. New music is that fuel."

Todd Rundgren talks greatest hits, new music before Northampton performance

Hearing the old songs is nice, but I'm so glad he's not just another old fogie, resting on his laurels and deaf to any new sounds.

 

It was seeing Todd decked out in the Egyptian gear with his Ankh guitar in a 1978 High Fidelity feature that made me want to check him out. I was in junior high at the time. However, the RA album has ultimately turned out to be my least favorite. I still like it overall, and Communion With the Sun is undeniable, but I like his and Utopia's other albums (to varying degrees) much better. That said I wouldn't walk out of a show where he was featuring that music.

A possibly odd comparison: I see Todd as Stravinsky-like in his genre morphing. Both constantly move(d) through different phases. Stravinsky from Russian romanticism to "primitivism" to neo-classical to serial all the while maintaining an essential Stravinskian sound, along with a certain artifice. Todd does the same thing and it always sounds like him and I don't mean just the voice. It's probably the Philly-soul background that is always lurking. And he incorporates the various genres as an more or less and outsider, doing it almost as commentary on the different styles. And I don't mean that as a bad thing.

That said, I think the OP has received great advice from all quarters. I am one who keeps following TR through all his permutations because he is always interesting, and I love White Knight. I am also looking forward to seeing him play here in Sacramento next month. My GF - who I haven't managed to really convert yet - nevertheless insisted we spring for the meet and greet so I am pretty stoked to finally shake the man's hand.

 

Just to be clear, I said I thought he was either ADD or ADHD - based on nothing more than my own opinion and the fact that his most productive period was when he was using a bottle of Ritalin. As far as I know, he has never been diagnosed by anyone who knows what they are talking about.

There was a show at the Oak Theater in Chicago that was downright cringe-worthy, and had me nearly swearing off shows until he got it together.

Too true.

 

I am not sure someone with ADHD would be able to complete an entire record consistently year after year for almost 45 years straight. That's what differentiates Rundgren from other producers and technically inclined engineers. Thats what makes him a music artist first and foremost because he is actually able to create a full record with a complete vision behind it consistently. I am not aware of any other producer/engineers who do that consistently year after year. People like Nile Rogers made two records in his own his entire career. Narada Michael Walden made a bunch in late 70s and early 80s and then stopped. Jerry Harrison made one or two. Lanois made three or four. Rundgren has been making them consistently every other year almost. I don't this you can do that if you have ADHD.

 

I don't know what the hell I just watched, but that flip off the pyramid was the greatest thing I've ever seen.

 

Ooooh...how to explain this...

Singring and the Glass Guitar was apparently written to have a huge centerpiece of the show, with solos by all four band members. Each had to "battle an element." Willie Wilcox, the drummer, had to battle water, and had all these jets of water around his drum kit. Kasim Sulton, the bassist, had to battle wind , with huge fans and a whole bunch of fog machines. Roger Powell, the keyboard player had to battle fire, and a dragon with jets of flame jumping up from the front of the stage. And Todd had to "battle earth", climb that pyramid, and get the "glass guitar" (actually ice) and smash it.

Look, 40 years on this is all kind of embarrassing, but it was a hell of a show. It makes no more or less sense than any of the storylines of any prog rock album (or opera for that matter.) Imagine the impact on a theater full of stoned hippies, many of whom have never recovered.

 

I showed the Singring clip to my wife, who said "Hey, I was a fan of a band whose lead singer dressed like this..."



She became a Genesis fan because of Todd being on the Midnight Special. Which led her to Kate Bush, and us meeting, falling in love and still being together 34 years later.

 

I think, but am not sure, he was a Line6 endorser at one point. I do know on the tour with Joe Jackson and the string quartet Ethel, he was running an acoustic through an emulator to get electric sounds.

 

Interesting take on why Todd always sounds like Todd, no matter what genre he's dabbling in. I'd always put it down to the harmonies, those signature chords with the non-roots in the bass which give rise to a rich soup of suspensions, sixths, major and minor ninths, and more.

Ancient newsgroup discussion of 'The Todd Chord'

 

Just remembered this clip - one of the best overviews of Todd's career, being given the Les Paul Innovator's award by his peers at the NAMM show

 

Oh, and that clip reminds me to very highly recommend the 4 disc (3 cd, 1 dvd) "At the BBC 72-82" set!

 

Yes, definitely his chord voicings are very distinctive. I think those are, at least somewhat, hallmarks of Philly Soul too. I love the idea of the "Todd Chord"

 

To put it more simply, he is a natural pop songwriter with a great gift for melody. That comes out in everything he's done-- "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" is full of melodies, so is the recent EDM stuff he's done. In that respect he's not any more of a chameleon than say, McCartney.

 

He did a lecture on that at DePauw University arranged by forum member LaserKen

 

True, but he combines that gift with a relentless need to explore new styles, presumably to keep himself from getting bored. I haven't kept up with Paul's later career, but Todd seems more like Neil Young during his Trans and Everybody's Rocking period.

 

That is the most stereotypically "prog" thing I've ever seen/heard.

 

Very true. At least it wasn't based on Tolkien.

 

Listening to the Todd album as I write this. The synthesizer experiments are somewhat dated, but there are several fantastic pop/rock songs on this album ("A Dream Goes On Forever", "Izzat Love?" and even "Don't You Ever Learn" and "Useless Begging".) I would recommend S/A? and Hermit to the Todd newbie, but there are so many more fantastic albums among his work! Although I have never seen Todd in concert or met him in person, I feel I am still one of his biggest fans on this forum.

 

Hey! I wrote that! Yikes - 2002 seems like yesterday.

 

Astoundingly, they were produced on an EMS Putney, one of the smallest and cheapest analog synthesizers ever sold, much less powerful than a Minimoog or Arp Odyssey.

How has this song not been a huge hit for someone? It's one of the most beautiful and heartfelt ballads ever written, and I don't think I'm some babbling fan boy when I say that. There is a top ten hit there that someone could have with that song even now.

 

Just hearing Nearly Human for the first time - this is great stuff! The production isn't perfect (reverb, much?!) but the quality of the material far outweighs any production qualms.

 

It was an amazing stage show as well, with a huge band, a horn section and a trio of backup singers.

 

Yea, I was gonna say I really dig the horns and singers. Todd goes soul as someone put it a while back.

 

Nearly Human and the tour for Second Wind were amazing performances, a high water mark for his career, IMHO.

 

IMO. Great record. Great songs. Rundgren at the top of his vocal game. But not very good mastering. At least my CD. Very trebbly.

You may want to dig up a release by Bougios Tagg. The 2 main players on NH were Lyle Workman and Larry Tagg who came from that band that Rundgren produced around that time. If you are a guitar guy.. you will like Workman's stuff.