Todd Rundgren

I don't like the poster art very much, but I wish I had one - I was at that show!

A little story about it... I had been put in virtual Internet touch with a keyboard player... but I never knew where he lived. A mutual friend connected us to record a version of the song "After Life". He played all the keyboards, a friend of mine recorded the lead vocals, and I recorded the guitars and various incidental bits. An Internet collaboration.

I was invited to spend a week at a timeshare apartment in Orlando with my in-laws. By luck, Todd was playing at the House of Blues at the Disney complex, near where we were staying. Not only that, a friend offered me a "special" seat in the balcony box above the stage. It was actually an odd but cool vantage point - directly over the stage, and whenever Todd went backstage, say during an extended solo or to change costumes, we were hanging right over the backstage area to witness it all. I love that kind of theatrical business! Anyway, there were eight or ten other people in the box, and I fell in talking with them, in particular the guy sitting next to me. We chatted about this and that, but the show soon started and that was cut short. It was only after I got back to Boston that I discovered that the guy I spent so much time making fan talk with was THE VERY keyboard guy that I had been working with online for the past month! We never got past a first name basis that night and neither of us made the connection.

One world, indeed!

 

Interview with Todd in Variety about his upcoming autobiography:

Couldn’t He Just Tell-All? Todd Rundgren Reveals Enough in Candid, Funny New Memoir

 

If anybody needs this limited edition DVD from 2014, Toddstore has it back in stock. I just got mine and was very pleased for the most part. It's apparently sourced from the laserdisc because the concert intro and all non-song banter is accompanied by Japanese subtitles that I couldn't remove. That's a minor (and undisclosed) irritant, unlike the bonus radio interview with cackling hyenas 'Bob and Tom' which is unlistenable. But overall a worthwhile effort documenting a truly interactive project. When has another artist of Todd's stature involved the crowd to such an intimate extent?

 

I mastered that puppy - glad you’re enjoying it. The subtitles were embedded on the LD and there was no option to remove them.

 

All I have to do is change my perception of the subtitles from 'irritant' to 'extra feature' And I'm sure you included those radio guys just to make your interviews sound better . But I'm still trying to come to terms with Todd's sunglasses with the different shaped lenses. That never caught on.

 

Has anyone bought/read the autobio The Individualist - Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations?

 

It would have been nice to have gotten the original master, but there probably wasn't the money to do so. Given a choice between getting this DVD with Japanese subtitles or nothing, it's better than nothing.

I own this DVD and the VHS, and you've made me curious if it has Japanese subtitles on that one.

 

I've had it on pre-order with Amazon for a couple of months, but it still hasn't shipped.

 

I have it pre-ordered as well, from my friendly bookstore.
According to amazon dot com:
Usually ships within 1 to 2 months.

 

This reminds me of the release of the album "The Individualist" in 1995. It wasn't available in the US for months, supposedly because there was some issue with the CD's interactive features. It was only available as a pricey Japanese (non-interactive) import. Todd was touring the album, but there was no product to sell except a hastily-produced cassette version, and many people had not yet heard the music. Now Todd will be touring a book that may not be available.

 

Yep, typical Todd.

I saw that show in Tulsa. It was scheduled to play at Cain's Ballroom, but the venue's air conditioning wasn't working. So instead, they set it up outside, underneath a highway overpass so there were tractor trailers rumbling overhead throughout the show.

 

I've never heard of such a thing! But bravo to them for making the best of a bad situation.

It's like the shows I've seen at what was once called the Boston Bank Pavilion in South Boston. One of those shows was Hall and Oates plus Todd Rundgren. It's an outdoor tent right on the waterfront, and about a half-mile as the crow flies across the harbor from Logan Airport. Depending on time and weather, the flight path can be directly over the venue, and the planes can be low enough to drown out an arena rock band.

 

It was the most "Spinal Tap" moment in Todd's career.

 

Todd (or whoever maintains it for him) just Tweeted out Todd's appearance on a new hour long interview program featuring Chris Epting on a brand new show on Voice of America called The Moment:

The Moment - Episode 1 - Special Guest Todd Rundgren

It is available as a podcast as well, and I found it via PocketCast. The trick was searching for his last name "Epting".

 

I'm listening to it currently, and I mistakenly said it was Voice of America, but it's actually a network called Voice America.

 

The Morrows, Jeffrey and Thereza, my good friends at The Book Corner in Niagara Falls NY, tell me my copy of The Individualist - Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations has indeed arrived.
I'll be picking it up today.