Now this song will be stuck in my head all day. That's what Todd does best. Very cool to see him with a Rick. When is this? Mid-Eighties? His camo period.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 6:19 pm
by jps
kiramdear wrote:Now this song will be stuck in my head all day. That's what Todd does best.
No Rick, but here is another one to get stuck in your head, Kira.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 7:20 pm
by kiramdear
Love the production style on that one - sort of Carole King meets Motown. What a genius!
I saw him do a solo show at the Old Waldorf way back when. Great charisma, great showman.
And Utopia was an awesome band. I saw them in Berkeley in 1980. They were over the top.
I saw Utopia in '75 at a concert a friend of mine back then produced, so I got to meet Todd. It was on July 4th ; Todd flew to the site (Nelson Ledges) in a helicopter and brought out a case full of fireworks that he proceeded to fire off. On the bill with Todd were Buzzy Lindhart, The Hello People, and Pure Prairie League. A great time was had by all.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:00 am
by indianation65
He produced The Lords of the New Church, XTC-Skylarking and The Psychedelic Furs-Forever Now...beyond greatness!
Addendum: The members of XTC weren't 100 % pleased with him, but the result, again, greatness...
...wisdom
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 1:58 pm
by miltric
The members of XTC weren't 100 % pleased with him, but the result, again, greatness...
Right. IIRC, though, later on Andy Partridge acknowledged that Todd's near-megalomaniacal approach resulted in a better record. There are, by the way, some nice Ric sounds on Skylarking, as there are on many XTC albums.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 2:13 pm
by kiramdear
"Wave" is one of my favorite records from the Seventies. Here's Patti Smith talking about "Wave" and Todd:
[Wave] was a difficult record to make because we were out of the city, in the middle of winter in Bearsville, pretty much snowed in and I thought it might be the last album I did. I felt it was time for me to evolve as a human being. I hadn't ever really planned to make records. I came to that organically, and I felt that I had really expressed everything that I knew how to express. So there I had a lot of thoughts doing that record: both joyful thoughts and….
Todd's an old friend of mine, I thought that it would be nice to work with a friend and also he's a great musician and I knew that he would contribute to the musical sense of the record. He was very good with using keyboards, he was a pianist himself and a lot of those songs evolved around that. It was not an easy record to make and Todd works very quickly - I work quickly too but not as quickly as Todd, but I think the sound of that record is beautiful.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 2:30 pm
by kiramdear
Oh, and here's an interesting review from Crawdaddy of The Tubes' "Remote Control", another favorite production from Todd:
So nice to see Todd with a Ric -and a three pickup model at that. Looks like the aforementioned p'ups are not stock though. Wonder what he has in place of the HGs? Or am I seeing it incorrectly?
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:49 pm
by kiramdear
longhouse wrote:So nice to see Todd with a Ric -and a three pickup model at that. Looks like the aforementioned p'ups are not stock though. Wonder what he has in place of the HGs? Or am I seeing it incorrectly?
Looks like Gibson chrome covered humbuckers to me (maybe minis?). This is the best grab I could get.
And that darn song is still stuck in my head. Now that is talent.
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 11:40 pm
by woodyng
todd is the greatest! i got to see the original "todd rundgren's utopia" featuring different players in the memphis auditorium south hall way back in the 70's-doing a little 20 minute long number called "the ikon" among other things-incredible! also his solo song,'don't you ever listen?" is still one of my favorite songs ever.....
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 11:50 pm
by kiramdear
Woody, let's start a Todd tribute band!
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 11:57 pm
by woodyng
i would do it! one of the guys i am playing with now is doing a really nice slower version of 'i saw the light". i have always wanted to play "when the sh*t hits the fan" with a band,i think that should be our theme song!
Re: Todd Rundgren
Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 1:40 pm
by atomic_punk
He also produced one of my favorite albums of the late 80's (and power pop miesterwerk), Love Junk by the Pursuit of Happiness. LOVE Todd.
Very cool to see him with a Rick. When is this? Mid-Eighties? His camo period.
What a genius!
Now that is talent. 