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Saturday, July 10, 2010
review: beatles celebrations hollywood bowl
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/07/beatles-celebration-hollywood-bowl.html
Pop & Hiss
The L.A. Times music blog
Live review: 'Beatles Celebration' at Hollywood Bowl
July 10, 2010 | 11:22 am
The music of the Beatles, a summer night and the Hollywood Bowl: a can’t-miss recipe, right?
As things turned out Friday, at the opening of a three-night “Beatles Celebration“ marking roughly the 45th anniversary of the Fab Four’s final Bowl appearances, this stuff isn’t remotely as easy as it may look, or sound.
There was no dearth of sweet memory, evocative melodies, poignant lyrics or variety of stylistic interpretation of the group’s catalog from soloists Patti Austin, Todd Rundgren, Bettye LaVette, Rob Laufer and Brian Stokes Mitchell.
But the music truly came alive only sporadically, primarily in the 2-1/2-hour show’s second half with Lavette’s dynamic, soul-searing set and Rundgren’s appearance that finally acknowledged the fun that was central to what the Beatles were about.
Until then, it was more of a Beatles appreciation than celebration, containing little of the youthful exuberance of the band’s early songs, or the anything-goes experimental glee of its latter years. Too often the songs on the first half approached the “Rockabye Baby” series of albums that transform music of the rock era into soothing children’s lullabies.
Things began promisingly with a perky instrumental arrangement of “Yellow Submarine” that showcased the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and conductor Thomas Wilkins, who revealed his own memory of first being captivated, like millions of other Americans, by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr during their Feb. 9, 1964, U.S. TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Austin was first up in the show, structured to give each soloist a mini-set of his or her own. The jazz-soul singer brought her deep burnished voice first to a bouncy run-through of “I’m Looking Through You,” surprisingly the earliest number from the group’s catalog offered all evening. No doubt the heavy emphasis on songs from “Sgt. Pepper” and beyond was given to allow the orchestra room to work on more expansive numbers most suited to the sonic enhancement.
She delivered a dreamy reading of “She’s Leaving Home” that brought more attention to the intricacies of the swooping melody than McCartney’s effortless original vocal, and she hit her stride with a jazzy look at “Penny Lane.” Her utterly Americanized treatment cast a perspective of wonderment on the many British colloquialisms in the musical sketch McCartney created of his boyhood days in Liverpool.
Her “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” jettisoned the waltz tempo verses that Lennon smartly juxtaposed to 4/4 tempo chorus, draining the song of some of its impact from the flip-flopping time signatures. The final verse gave a nod to Elton John’s reggae-ized hit version from 1973, one of several arrangements that tacitly saluted famous Beatles covers.
Laufer followed, representing the Beatles re-creationist camp from his experience portraying Harrison in the “Beatlemania” musical. His pair of songs -- Harrison’s “Something” and Lennon’s “Across the Universe” -- meant to address the band’s lyrcis at their most eloquent, but the presentations were more respectful than inspired.
Broadway singer Mitchell tapped his musical theater background in ultra-dramatic performances of “Fool on the Hill” and “Yesterday” that, discounting the richness of the 88-member orchestra behind him, sounded much like what you can hear in piano bars anywhere. His insertion of melodica solos into both was at least one too many.
Following intermission, the orchestra again took the spotlight with an arrangement of “Eleanor Rigby” in which McCartney’s lonely spinster took a musical meeting with Richard Strauss’ Zarathustra. After that, you wished the orchestra had been given the chance to interpret a few more songs.
But then LaVette showed up and suddenly the music sizzled as it should. She funkified “We Can Work It Out” along the lines of Ray Charles’ long-ago reworking, and modeled her “Here, There and Everywhere” on Frank Sinatra’s interpretation, which is the one she said she heard first.
On “Blackbird,” which McCartney in recent years has described as his elegy to the civil rights movement, LaVette took it into a universe of her own, her shredded sandpaper voice wringing every drop of struggle in this trenchant ode to anyone who has slain demons, within or without. And Lennon surely would have delighted in her sassy take on “Come Together,” for which she challenged anyone in the audience to explain his stream-of-consciousness lyrics.
With Rundgren at last came some larger-than-life rock ‘n’ roll. He strolled grandly onstage as the band cranked up the calliope-inspired sounds of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” the singer outfitted in an appropriately outsized top hat, fake walrus (nice allusion, Todd) mustache, black waistcoat, white gloves and white spats.
He helped the dutiful rock band that supplemented the orchestra amp up the show’s electricity quotient with “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey,” and served as the Eric Clapton surrogate in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which he preceded with a nod to Ringo Starr’s momentous 70th birthday -- a Beatle is 70?-- just two nights earlier.
His performance of “A Day in the Life” was the night’s most faithful to the original, the orchestra delighting in swirling to the massive climax that producer George Martin cooked up for the conclusion of the “Sgt. Pepper’s” album backing 1967.
A predictable all-star finale paved the way for audience sing-alongs on “Hey Jude” and “All You Need Is Love.” Fans in their 50s, 60s and 70s, many of them with children and even grandchildren in tow, waved arms, fired up lighters and cellphone screens ceremonially while beaming smiles and shedding the occasional tear.
Given this was the Hollywood Bowl, where the Fab Four had torn things up so raucously nearly a half century ago, at least one fan wished this celebration had traded some of the earnest camaraderie for more of the freewheeling spirit that has endeared the Beatles and their music to generation after generation.
Perhaps they figured, possibly correctly, that since McCartney did just that so well a couple of months ago under the very same orchestra shell, why try to compete? But a Hollywood Bowl celebration for the Beatles with no “Twist and Shout”? No “She Loves You”? No “Can’t Buy Me Love”? A hard day’s night, indeed.
Pop & Hiss
The L.A. Times music blog
Live review: 'Beatles Celebration' at Hollywood Bowl
July 10, 2010 | 11:22 am
The music of the Beatles, a summer night and the Hollywood Bowl: a can’t-miss recipe, right?
As things turned out Friday, at the opening of a three-night “Beatles Celebration“ marking roughly the 45th anniversary of the Fab Four’s final Bowl appearances, this stuff isn’t remotely as easy as it may look, or sound.
There was no dearth of sweet memory, evocative melodies, poignant lyrics or variety of stylistic interpretation of the group’s catalog from soloists Patti Austin, Todd Rundgren, Bettye LaVette, Rob Laufer and Brian Stokes Mitchell.
But the music truly came alive only sporadically, primarily in the 2-1/2-hour show’s second half with Lavette’s dynamic, soul-searing set and Rundgren’s appearance that finally acknowledged the fun that was central to what the Beatles were about.
Until then, it was more of a Beatles appreciation than celebration, containing little of the youthful exuberance of the band’s early songs, or the anything-goes experimental glee of its latter years. Too often the songs on the first half approached the “Rockabye Baby” series of albums that transform music of the rock era into soothing children’s lullabies.
Things began promisingly with a perky instrumental arrangement of “Yellow Submarine” that showcased the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and conductor Thomas Wilkins, who revealed his own memory of first being captivated, like millions of other Americans, by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr during their Feb. 9, 1964, U.S. TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Austin was first up in the show, structured to give each soloist a mini-set of his or her own. The jazz-soul singer brought her deep burnished voice first to a bouncy run-through of “I’m Looking Through You,” surprisingly the earliest number from the group’s catalog offered all evening. No doubt the heavy emphasis on songs from “Sgt. Pepper” and beyond was given to allow the orchestra room to work on more expansive numbers most suited to the sonic enhancement.
She delivered a dreamy reading of “She’s Leaving Home” that brought more attention to the intricacies of the swooping melody than McCartney’s effortless original vocal, and she hit her stride with a jazzy look at “Penny Lane.” Her utterly Americanized treatment cast a perspective of wonderment on the many British colloquialisms in the musical sketch McCartney created of his boyhood days in Liverpool.
Her “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” jettisoned the waltz tempo verses that Lennon smartly juxtaposed to 4/4 tempo chorus, draining the song of some of its impact from the flip-flopping time signatures. The final verse gave a nod to Elton John’s reggae-ized hit version from 1973, one of several arrangements that tacitly saluted famous Beatles covers.
Laufer followed, representing the Beatles re-creationist camp from his experience portraying Harrison in the “Beatlemania” musical. His pair of songs -- Harrison’s “Something” and Lennon’s “Across the Universe” -- meant to address the band’s lyrcis at their most eloquent, but the presentations were more respectful than inspired.
Broadway singer Mitchell tapped his musical theater background in ultra-dramatic performances of “Fool on the Hill” and “Yesterday” that, discounting the richness of the 88-member orchestra behind him, sounded much like what you can hear in piano bars anywhere. His insertion of melodica solos into both was at least one too many.
Following intermission, the orchestra again took the spotlight with an arrangement of “Eleanor Rigby” in which McCartney’s lonely spinster took a musical meeting with Richard Strauss’ Zarathustra. After that, you wished the orchestra had been given the chance to interpret a few more songs.
But then LaVette showed up and suddenly the music sizzled as it should. She funkified “We Can Work It Out” along the lines of Ray Charles’ long-ago reworking, and modeled her “Here, There and Everywhere” on Frank Sinatra’s interpretation, which is the one she said she heard first.
On “Blackbird,” which McCartney in recent years has described as his elegy to the civil rights movement, LaVette took it into a universe of her own, her shredded sandpaper voice wringing every drop of struggle in this trenchant ode to anyone who has slain demons, within or without. And Lennon surely would have delighted in her sassy take on “Come Together,” for which she challenged anyone in the audience to explain his stream-of-consciousness lyrics.
With Rundgren at last came some larger-than-life rock ‘n’ roll. He strolled grandly onstage as the band cranked up the calliope-inspired sounds of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” the singer outfitted in an appropriately outsized top hat, fake walrus (nice allusion, Todd) mustache, black waistcoat, white gloves and white spats.
He helped the dutiful rock band that supplemented the orchestra amp up the show’s electricity quotient with “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey,” and served as the Eric Clapton surrogate in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which he preceded with a nod to Ringo Starr’s momentous 70th birthday -- a Beatle is 70?-- just two nights earlier.
His performance of “A Day in the Life” was the night’s most faithful to the original, the orchestra delighting in swirling to the massive climax that producer George Martin cooked up for the conclusion of the “Sgt. Pepper’s” album backing 1967.
A predictable all-star finale paved the way for audience sing-alongs on “Hey Jude” and “All You Need Is Love.” Fans in their 50s, 60s and 70s, many of them with children and even grandchildren in tow, waved arms, fired up lighters and cellphone screens ceremonially while beaming smiles and shedding the occasional tear.
Given this was the Hollywood Bowl, where the Fab Four had torn things up so raucously nearly a half century ago, at least one fan wished this celebration had traded some of the earnest camaraderie for more of the freewheeling spirit that has endeared the Beatles and their music to generation after generation.
Perhaps they figured, possibly correctly, that since McCartney did just that so well a couple of months ago under the very same orchestra shell, why try to compete? But a Hollywood Bowl celebration for the Beatles with no “Twist and Shout”? No “She Loves You”? No “Can’t Buy Me Love”? A hard day’s night, indeed.
Friday, July 9, 2010
DONT MISS OUT ON THESE SHOWS
GO TO WWW.SONSOF1984.COM TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT THE TODD HEALING TOUR IN SEPT OF THIS YEAR.
Interview: "expect the unexpected" from CantoRep.com
Expect the unexpected from Todd Rundgren
http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1876486273/Expect-the-unexpected-from-Todd-Rundgren
By Dan Kane
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Jul 09, 2010 @ 07:00 AM
Why is it not so surprising that Todd Rundgren's latest tour and recording project is a salute to blues pioneer Robert Johnson?
After all, Rundgren has been confounding fans and critics since the late '60s with his kaleidoscopic and deeply eclectic talents and tastes.
Best known as a keyboard-based pop-rock tunesmith with a string of breezy hits — "Hello It's Me," "We Gotta Get You a Woman," "I Saw the Light," "Can We Still Be Friends," "Bang the Drum All Day" — Rundgren has at various points explored electronics, R&B, progressive rock, hard rock, bossa nova, Beatles homages, show tunes, outright silliness and Eastern spirituality.
And now, Robert Johnson's Mississippi Delta blues of the 1930s. Rundgren's upcoming tribute album is titled "Todd Rundgren's Johnson."
A longtime Northeast Ohio favorite who has played three sold-out shows at Canton's Palace Theatre, Rundgren will appear in concert July 16 at Clay's Park Resort in Lawrence Township, headlining the Rock N Resort Music Festival.
Joining Rundgren, on guitar and vocals, will be bassist Kasim Sulton, guitarist Jesse Gress and drummer Prairie Prince. Recent shows have alternated Johnson standards, such as "Sweet Home Chicago," "Love in Vain" and "Crossroads," with such Rundgren diversities as "Black Maria," "Unloved Children" and "No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator."
I phoned Rundgren, 62, at his home in Hawaii for an expansive interview. He was great to talk to — funny, thoughtful and still very engaged in his career. Highlights follow.
Q. Can you give me a preview of your upcoming show here?
A. We usually play two hours. We'll do the 12 songs from the Robert Johnson record, then the rest will be more or less blues-influenced songs from my own career. Which sounds strange, but as it turns out, my first job as a professional player was in a blues band, which is a little-known fact, and that's what gave me the gumption to undertake this blues project. It's a very bluesy evening featuring Robert Johnson, but not exclusively. I don't want people to think this is some type of Library of Congress presentation. (Laughs)
Q. I'm very curious — why Robert Johnson and why now?
A. I finished an album called "Arena" about two years ago and we needed distribution for it, which is the nature of the music business these days with many artists trying to figure out how to get their records into stores. So we shopped it around and found a company that was interested in the record, but they had an additional clause in the contract that I would also record an album's worth of Robert Johnson songs, because they had acquired the administrative rights to Robert Johnson's songwriting. So they convinced me to do it. It took me about a year to get (the album) done. I soon found out after I agreed to do it that Eric Clapton has made a second career out of tributing Robert Johnson. (Laughs)
Q. Well, you've just got to outdo him!
A. I was kind of thrown into a tizzy at that point trying to figure out what my approach would be. I finally came to the conclusion that this actually did have something to do with Eric Clapton and all of the other white blues guitar players in England in the mid-'60s, who were essentially a more direct influence on me than Robert Johnson was. The English had such a leg up on us American guys. We were playing the Ventures and surf guitar and along come the Yardbirds and all these other British bands who'd been listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.
Q. Does your Robert Johnson album sound like a Todd Rundgren album?
A. I never thought doing something very authentic or Robert Johnson-like was going to be the approach. There's a difference in the way you approach blues as opposed to R&B. I have experience with both, but as a singer I have more experience as an R&B stylist. The blues takes a certain other discipline. It's supposed to be more simple and it does have an improvisational aspect about it. I wasn't trying to mimic Robert Johnson. I was still trying to sound like myself in a sense. It's more about a feeling and trying to give voice to that feeling.
Q. The last couple of times I've seen you in concert, you have been very guitar-oriented and very rocking, versus playing piano and singing. It must be great to play something like "Black Maria" and let it wail.
A. I like to wail, yes. (Chuckles) We get a little crazy with the guitar. I started out in music as a guitar player, then I got into the piano because it was a good songwriting tool. And writing songs on the piano naturally led to having to perform them on the piano. Then I discovered that I was never going to be very good at singing and playing the piano together. Some people are very good at it, but for some reason, whenever I start to get into the singing, I forget that I'm playing the piano and make a mistake and it's all downhill from there. (Laughs) It was something I could get away with in front of my fans. But then I went out on tour with Joe Jackson, who is a real piano player, and I came to the conclusion that I have no business singing and playing the piano live. I'm just not good enough at it. That's when I made the decision to migrate back to the guitar and, thankfully, it has come back to me. If you don't play the guitar all the time, you can lose your edge.
Q. It's fun to watch you play guitar. You seem very into the moment and into the musicianship of it.
A. It's a quality that goes back to the start of my musical career, when I wanted to be the gunslinging guitar player. I wanted to be mentioned in the same breath with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and all that.
Q. You're playing a show in September in Akron, where you are doing the "Todd" and "Healing" albums in their entirety. So I guess you're going to be doing that insane Gilbert and Sullivan song ("Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song")?
A. (Laughs) I'm doing that song, yes. Gilbert and Sullivan was one of my refuges from the travails of my teenage years. I had a friend who was a very smart guy and I did very poorly in school, so the way I would prove that I was smart was I would memorize all these Gilbert and Sullivan songs. I'd go to the library and get the full libretto in the bathtub for hours memorizing all the lyrics, then I'd come out with this stream of Victorian English. ("Nightmare Song") is still somewhere in my brain. It just needs dusting off. I've often thought it would be fun to do a stage musical like "Pirates of Penzance" or something like that.
Q. When you listen to the "Todd" album 36 years later, are you impressed with what you concocted? Some of that stuff is visionary.
A. Actually, I built my own studio during "A Wizard, A True Star" and that kind of set things off. We were no longer operating in a world of rules. (Laughs) We could do anything at any time. We had pretty much thrown off the yoke of the clock and whatever the studio owner might have told us about not plugging box A into box B. (Laughs) We could essentially do any nasty thing that we wanted. But that resulted in sounds that are difficult or impossible to reproduce later. The equipment doesn't exist anymore, or we just can't remember what order we plugged the things in.
Q. You have been adored in the Cleveland area for as long as I can remember. Any theories about this?
A. It just goes back a very long way, I think. Ohio was one of the first places that accepted the Nazz (Rundgren's late-'60s band), and for some reason that just continued. As soon as I began to play solo, Cleveland was one of those places we'd always go back to. We got good airplay. It's one of those mysteries I can't fully explain.
Q. Would you say you are happy with your place in the scheme of things? Many less talented than you have gone much further.
A. I probably could have managed my finances better, but at least I have finances to manage. (Chuckles) No, it's been great. I get just enough fame that I get a little consideration in restaurants sometimes, but at the same time I can eat that meal in that restaurant without getting pestered all through by people wanting attention for themselves from me. I've toured with Ringo, and I know the option is often just a really cloistered lifestyle and I don't like to live like that. I like to go out and walk around and see things. I'm totally satisfied.
Q. And you're going to keep performing forever?
A. Just like Tony Bennett and B.B. King. (Laughs)
Copyright 2010 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved
Source and to add commentary:
http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1876486273/Expect-the-unexpected-from-Todd-Rundgren
http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1876486273/Expect-the-unexpected-from-Todd-Rundgren
By Dan Kane
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Jul 09, 2010 @ 07:00 AM
Why is it not so surprising that Todd Rundgren's latest tour and recording project is a salute to blues pioneer Robert Johnson?
After all, Rundgren has been confounding fans and critics since the late '60s with his kaleidoscopic and deeply eclectic talents and tastes.
Best known as a keyboard-based pop-rock tunesmith with a string of breezy hits — "Hello It's Me," "We Gotta Get You a Woman," "I Saw the Light," "Can We Still Be Friends," "Bang the Drum All Day" — Rundgren has at various points explored electronics, R&B, progressive rock, hard rock, bossa nova, Beatles homages, show tunes, outright silliness and Eastern spirituality.
And now, Robert Johnson's Mississippi Delta blues of the 1930s. Rundgren's upcoming tribute album is titled "Todd Rundgren's Johnson."
A longtime Northeast Ohio favorite who has played three sold-out shows at Canton's Palace Theatre, Rundgren will appear in concert July 16 at Clay's Park Resort in Lawrence Township, headlining the Rock N Resort Music Festival.
Joining Rundgren, on guitar and vocals, will be bassist Kasim Sulton, guitarist Jesse Gress and drummer Prairie Prince. Recent shows have alternated Johnson standards, such as "Sweet Home Chicago," "Love in Vain" and "Crossroads," with such Rundgren diversities as "Black Maria," "Unloved Children" and "No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator."
I phoned Rundgren, 62, at his home in Hawaii for an expansive interview. He was great to talk to — funny, thoughtful and still very engaged in his career. Highlights follow.
Q. Can you give me a preview of your upcoming show here?
A. We usually play two hours. We'll do the 12 songs from the Robert Johnson record, then the rest will be more or less blues-influenced songs from my own career. Which sounds strange, but as it turns out, my first job as a professional player was in a blues band, which is a little-known fact, and that's what gave me the gumption to undertake this blues project. It's a very bluesy evening featuring Robert Johnson, but not exclusively. I don't want people to think this is some type of Library of Congress presentation. (Laughs)
Q. I'm very curious — why Robert Johnson and why now?
A. I finished an album called "Arena" about two years ago and we needed distribution for it, which is the nature of the music business these days with many artists trying to figure out how to get their records into stores. So we shopped it around and found a company that was interested in the record, but they had an additional clause in the contract that I would also record an album's worth of Robert Johnson songs, because they had acquired the administrative rights to Robert Johnson's songwriting. So they convinced me to do it. It took me about a year to get (the album) done. I soon found out after I agreed to do it that Eric Clapton has made a second career out of tributing Robert Johnson. (Laughs)
Q. Well, you've just got to outdo him!
A. I was kind of thrown into a tizzy at that point trying to figure out what my approach would be. I finally came to the conclusion that this actually did have something to do with Eric Clapton and all of the other white blues guitar players in England in the mid-'60s, who were essentially a more direct influence on me than Robert Johnson was. The English had such a leg up on us American guys. We were playing the Ventures and surf guitar and along come the Yardbirds and all these other British bands who'd been listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.
Q. Does your Robert Johnson album sound like a Todd Rundgren album?
A. I never thought doing something very authentic or Robert Johnson-like was going to be the approach. There's a difference in the way you approach blues as opposed to R&B. I have experience with both, but as a singer I have more experience as an R&B stylist. The blues takes a certain other discipline. It's supposed to be more simple and it does have an improvisational aspect about it. I wasn't trying to mimic Robert Johnson. I was still trying to sound like myself in a sense. It's more about a feeling and trying to give voice to that feeling.
Q. The last couple of times I've seen you in concert, you have been very guitar-oriented and very rocking, versus playing piano and singing. It must be great to play something like "Black Maria" and let it wail.
A. I like to wail, yes. (Chuckles) We get a little crazy with the guitar. I started out in music as a guitar player, then I got into the piano because it was a good songwriting tool. And writing songs on the piano naturally led to having to perform them on the piano. Then I discovered that I was never going to be very good at singing and playing the piano together. Some people are very good at it, but for some reason, whenever I start to get into the singing, I forget that I'm playing the piano and make a mistake and it's all downhill from there. (Laughs) It was something I could get away with in front of my fans. But then I went out on tour with Joe Jackson, who is a real piano player, and I came to the conclusion that I have no business singing and playing the piano live. I'm just not good enough at it. That's when I made the decision to migrate back to the guitar and, thankfully, it has come back to me. If you don't play the guitar all the time, you can lose your edge.
Q. It's fun to watch you play guitar. You seem very into the moment and into the musicianship of it.
A. It's a quality that goes back to the start of my musical career, when I wanted to be the gunslinging guitar player. I wanted to be mentioned in the same breath with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and all that.
Q. You're playing a show in September in Akron, where you are doing the "Todd" and "Healing" albums in their entirety. So I guess you're going to be doing that insane Gilbert and Sullivan song ("Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song")?
A. (Laughs) I'm doing that song, yes. Gilbert and Sullivan was one of my refuges from the travails of my teenage years. I had a friend who was a very smart guy and I did very poorly in school, so the way I would prove that I was smart was I would memorize all these Gilbert and Sullivan songs. I'd go to the library and get the full libretto in the bathtub for hours memorizing all the lyrics, then I'd come out with this stream of Victorian English. ("Nightmare Song") is still somewhere in my brain. It just needs dusting off. I've often thought it would be fun to do a stage musical like "Pirates of Penzance" or something like that.
Q. When you listen to the "Todd" album 36 years later, are you impressed with what you concocted? Some of that stuff is visionary.
A. Actually, I built my own studio during "A Wizard, A True Star" and that kind of set things off. We were no longer operating in a world of rules. (Laughs) We could do anything at any time. We had pretty much thrown off the yoke of the clock and whatever the studio owner might have told us about not plugging box A into box B. (Laughs) We could essentially do any nasty thing that we wanted. But that resulted in sounds that are difficult or impossible to reproduce later. The equipment doesn't exist anymore, or we just can't remember what order we plugged the things in.
Q. You have been adored in the Cleveland area for as long as I can remember. Any theories about this?
A. It just goes back a very long way, I think. Ohio was one of the first places that accepted the Nazz (Rundgren's late-'60s band), and for some reason that just continued. As soon as I began to play solo, Cleveland was one of those places we'd always go back to. We got good airplay. It's one of those mysteries I can't fully explain.
Q. Would you say you are happy with your place in the scheme of things? Many less talented than you have gone much further.
A. I probably could have managed my finances better, but at least I have finances to manage. (Chuckles) No, it's been great. I get just enough fame that I get a little consideration in restaurants sometimes, but at the same time I can eat that meal in that restaurant without getting pestered all through by people wanting attention for themselves from me. I've toured with Ringo, and I know the option is often just a really cloistered lifestyle and I don't like to live like that. I like to go out and walk around and see things. I'm totally satisfied.
Q. And you're going to keep performing forever?
A. Just like Tony Bennett and B.B. King. (Laughs)
Copyright 2010 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved
Source and to add commentary:
http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1876486273/Expect-the-unexpected-from-Todd-Rundgren
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Tye Dye TODD / HEALING shirts
You say you are trying to figure out what to wear at the Akron Todd/Healing show? (Or maybe at the Rundgren Radio Birthday Bash?)
How about a limited edition tie-dye shirt, featuring the concert poster I created?
Accepting pre-orders up until July 31 (must pre-pay). I'm not making any money on these, just charging my cost - $35 for kid's to X-large size, $38 for 2X and 3X. $3 more if you want the shirt mailed to you instead of being delivered in Akron. They are summerweight cotton t-shirts.
Send me a message if you are interested!
mjbphotos@yahoo.com mike birch
TELL HIM MIKE A SENT YOU !!!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Interview: "Elsewhere" TODD RUNDGREN INTERVIEWED (2010): Getting out his Johnson for you
http://www.elsewhere.co.nz/absoluteelsewhere/3309/todd-rundgren-interviewed-2010-getting-out-his-johnson-for-you/
Todd Rundgren laughs as he predicts the end the current model of on-line music sales which will disappear like the Sony Walkman and vinyl singles: “Because some songs are priceless, some songs are worthless . . . and some songs are worth exactly 99 cents”.
He should know. In a 40-plus year career he's made songs, and whole albums, in each category.
However although he has appeared on over 40 albums under his own name or that of his bands (the Nazz in the 60s, Utopia from the mid 70s), been producer for everyone from the New York Dolls and Patti Smith to Meat Loaf (Bat Out of Hell), Shaun Cassidy and the Psychedelic Furs, Rundgren allows himself another dry laugh as he describes his position in the marketplace of music.
“I'm a fringe artist.”
Given his long career – which admittedly has only troubled the American top 20 singles charts with I Saw the Light and Hello It's Me in the early 70s – you'd think this innovative musician who was also in the vanguard of video and internet technology would be a household name.
But if he's known for anything today it's as the man who acted as father for actress Liv Tyler – daughter of Aerosmith's Steve Tyler – when she was a child.
An amusing and almost detached observer of his own career, he notes a rare experience when he fronted the New Cars in 06 – the old Cars with him in for lead singer Ric Ocasek – and discovered a very different audience response from what he was use to. He admits people come to his shows expecting and wanting Hello It's Me “and I mostly don't play it because it's too out of context of what I'm doing at the time”.
Rundgren's wayward career has taken him from soul-pop through expansive prog-rock, from guitar hero to abandoning the guitar entirely. Yet he is currently out playing a programme of blues by the legendary Robert Johnson (1911-38) delivered in the style of the late 60s power-rock bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. His new album is Todd Rundgren's Johnson – a title more risque to an American audience.
And he picks up a local rhythm section players when he comes to Australia and New Zealand later this year – and his visit is a surprise, even to him.
Just like the traveling bluesmen of old, just being a troubadour?
(Laughs) There has certainly been no up-tick in my record sales that would cause me to be popular Down Under, but my association with Hal Wilner brought me to Australia in January to do a Sydney summer festival and this was a fairly significant event, so I got a lot of direct exposure and coverage by the press. That was the necessary foot in the door to try and pursue some sort of tour.
The record only requires a quartet and a lot of people are familiar with the material, so it is plausible to pick up a rhythm section: my principal guitarist will rehearse the rhythm section before I get there.
And why versions of Robert Johnson at this time?
I went through an era where I almost eschewed electric guitar, my focus went elsewhere and I wanted to become a better singer and performer. So for a number of years I would front a large band and never play the guitar, never play any instrument, just dance around and sing.
I got back into the guitar some years ago and in a big way. I wanted to do an arena rock-style record – the record was Arena – but like so many artists of my generation – and maybe everyone these days – you get your material distributed independently. No one I know has any major company, five-record deal.
So it came time to do distribution for Arena and the company that made the deal also happened to administer the Robert Johnson music publishing. They made as a requirement to distributing Arena that I record an album of Robert Johnson tunes as well. They claimed to me that they were getting many requests for Johnson songs to be used in films and tv shows, essentially the mechanical license.
While they had the publishing they had no recorded versions so they required I make a record. I agreed to do it mostly because I wanted to get my record out and thought I would figure out how to deal with this later.
To my chagrin when I got around to doing it, it turns out Eric Clapton had been making a second career out of tributing Robert Johnson. After U2 did a song I was crestfallen, what was I going to do?
One of my heroes [Clapton] has already done it so anything I did would pale by comparison if nothing else. And the whole process will be creepy for me, constantly trying to outdo Eric Clapton.
It took a year and I came to the conclusion I was not directly influenced by Johnson, Eric Clapton was – and I was influenced by Clapton.
So I am not attempting to compete in my authenticity.
Another fortuitous coincidence was that my first gig as a professional was in a blues band so I understand the idiom. It wasn't a ridiculous leap to deconstruct and reconstruct this material into a way I was comfortable with.
But it is no way “a tribute”, you won't see those words anywhere there.
The entirety of Johnson is 40 - 45 minutes and that's an opening act. My shows are usually two to two and half hours, so of necessity I'm going to have to fill it out. The blues guy I know best is myself. My big initial influence was electric blues – and English people who did their own version of that. So all throughout my career are examples of my modernised or twisted take on the blues idiom.
My first band the Nazz, whose career was done by 69, and on the second record we rip off John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton.
In concert we may play a few songs people are actually familiar with.
In many ways the diversity of your career allows you to do pretty much what you like these days.
I don't believe I have much in the way of radio success, that is a great advantage to me because people send me notes saying, 'This show will be total shit unless you play this song'. This is helpful.
You've been quite good about revisiting your earlier work and playing albums in their entirety: you're soon doing The Healing and Todd albums.
I have a devoted audience because through this process of not playing what people expect me to play I have weeded out all the dilettantes. So now the audience I have is particularly devoted and will come to see anything I have to present. And if it is in package form will purchase anything I have to present. But a lot of it depends on a certain recognition that they need to get every once in a while and deeply desire.
They come about through Rundgrenradio . . . the guy who runs it plays the music and does interviews with anyone even tangentially related to my career, and it has a substantial hardcore following and go to for information. They decided they wanted to dabble in promotion and polled their audience and they [The Healing and Todd] were the records they wanted to hear.
No one was expecting the level of production that went into the first one, it is more a theatrical representation of the record . . . so now the expectation is high.
I'm interest in the fact that you also do what we might call re-creations of music – for example the Beatles on Deface the Music, the covers on Faithful and your own music in With A Twist . . . why??
The Nazz's first song was Open My Eyes – which was the Who and Beach Boys mashed together – and on the B-side was Hello It's Me, it was a dirgy version where I played vibes, and for some reason the record got flipped and it became a minor hit.
Years later when I wasn't a radio staple I was doing the Something/Anything album and the album consisted of me playing most of the instruments. It turned into a double album and by the last side there was enough of me playing by myself and wanted to do live-in-the-studio performances with no overdubs.
So I did half a dozen songs and one was a reworking of Hello It's Me with a more modern groove, background chorusses and a horn section. I did it because I thought it was a different way to do it, I was in a singer-songwriter phase.
In never thought about radio play but the biggest single became Hello It's Me and other bands covered it, like the Isley Brothers.
That's the song that if I don't play we have people walking out – and I mostly don't play it because it is too out of context of what it is I'm doing. If there was a context then I'd play it.
So I just thought I heard it in a more personal way and that's why I redid.
The moral of the story is I not only improved it in how the song could be interpreted, but it turned out to be a gigantic financial boon.
The New Cars must have been a different experience again?
Yeah, the thing that hit me the first time we played in front of an audience, we were eight songs in and people were still singing along. Which is completely different from my shows. If there are people at my shows who haven't fully kept up they are going to be stumped at several points in the show trying to remember where, if ever, they have heard this song. Plus I have this nasty habit lately of whatever my newest record is, I play the whole thing. And then give them the crumbs of older material.
That [New Cars] was an experience I haven't had on stage, that power of familiarity. You are not trying to sell anything, when they hear the first note they are fully committed and the song is sold.
It's part of your performers tool kit, you want to get the audience going and you are going to over indulge yourself and play some old jam . . . but you know at the end you have to play something they are familiar with, and it doesn't matter if it is Louie Louie.
You have had a long and diverse career in production. What attracts you to a project?
It's the material – which I think goes along with the priorities of most listeners. The thing they care most about is a decent song. They don't want to hear the most incredible version of the world's crappiest song. They would rather hear a half-assed version of the world's best song.
You are always striving to hear what it is in the material that might be attractive to a listener, and that's the most time-consuming aspect for me of the process.
Early in my production career I didn't vet the material too much, I figured we'd get in the studio and the combined talents would work out the problems. And for a lot of things that did work.
I had overconfidence in my own songwriting and if people didn't produce the goods I would just take over.
But if you develop some recognisable style, if you apply that to production you put your paw prints on everything you do, instead of letting the act put on their display, warts and all if necessary.
If their songwriting is weak and some label has decided to put the record out anyway then they are just going to have to live with the weak songwriting.
In the Seventies a review in Rolling Stone could make or break you, but you can't second-guess the taste of a critic let alone the buying audience, you have to have another vision of what you are trying to accomplish. I consider more timeless aspects of music . . . it's the phenomenon that gets Sinatra's Capitol recordings of Fifties rediscovered.
Some records don't get recognition but grow in stature.
You have to think like a musician – which can be hard if you are working with people who got paid a whole lot of money before they did anything which became the model. 'Here's the seven-figure advance, now make a record'.
But what did musicians do before we had a record industry, which is only about 100 years old? How did they live?
First, they were probably better musicians than today – but you got you paid for your performance so you had to hone that and be sharp -- today we are getting back to that – and the material had to stick in people's head somehow.
If they could just forget about you, you'd have no follow-up business.
The problem happened when the music industry discovered that music could be commoditised and success was no longer measured in the size of the audience you paid for or even, go forbid, how the local critics responded.
It became about figuring out what the buying patterns were, and it was all the Arbitron rating system, people in a room with a dial and an aggregate score.
If a number went below a certain point the record would never get released.
But most people are so unsophisticated they don't now what a chorus is (Laughs)
So basically you still listen for a good song?
The material doesn't have to be super-confident, it just has to be done with brio or some perceptible emotion. It also doesn't have to be technically perfect.
The thing people care the least about – which is the thing some artists, to my mystification are most obsessed with – is the actual sound quality.
Most people don't have studio-referenced sound quality. Since people started listening with earbuds, how can anybody figure out how to mix? There is no uniformity to how people listen.
Most sound systems come with distortion, like superbass, which most musicians try to keep out of their records. If there is any muddiness in the bottom end of the mix you've made you will rattle the walls and will sound horrible.
Is music still important? It seems like just another entertainment thing in the marketplace today.
As it became portable it became just a lifestyle accessory. It always has been in some aspects, there are always bands or acts meant for the musically naïve, like Taylor Swift. As people get older their experience grows, and seeing it performed live they realise that human beings do this, it's not all machines.
Like when you listen Sinatra's Capitol albums, they were mostly all one take, no overdubs, a 50 piece orchestra and the singer all locked in – and it is the performance they will strive to perform live from there on.
The Sony Walkman changed everything: random access, skipping over songs, that ate away at the album being principle form.
This is why the Internet model for selling music will eventually fail . . . people will realise that some songs are priceless, some songs are worthless and some songs are worth exactly 99 cents.
There is another new model out of Disneyworld: the new Mickey Mouse club singers who grow up with their audience. For some artists that is a close link with their audience for an album, and a guaranteed sales figure.
I used to do two solo albums, Utopia and three production jobs every year. Then variety and eclecticism was a selling point, now it seems there are too many artists are trying to cram into the same space, all of the Linkin Parks . . .
Some of what you have done is very amusing – I'm thinking of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell – but humour and wit seems to be missing in music these days.
Yeah, it is pretty humourless, although it is there in some aspects of hip-hop – Flavour Flav is a pretty funny guy. But I'd like make a record like Absolutely Free, just a pastiche of guys musically goofing in the studio.
Of course Zappa asked 'Does humour belong in music?' Like Led Zeppelin said, 'Does anybody remember laughter?'
They do, the audience is prepared for it, comedians are filling sports arena now. If you have a choice of going into comedy or music these days I'd say your odds are 50:50.
Of course, if you are in a band you have to develop a sense of humour as a survival mechanism.
It's pretty deadly if you wind up in a situation with someone who has no sense of humour. It can make for some long and uncomfortable bus rides.
You've got to have a sense of humour in this day and age, it's too easy to f
Todd Rundgren laughs as he predicts the end the current model of on-line music sales which will disappear like the Sony Walkman and vinyl singles: “Because some songs are priceless, some songs are worthless . . . and some songs are worth exactly 99 cents”.
He should know. In a 40-plus year career he's made songs, and whole albums, in each category.
However although he has appeared on over 40 albums under his own name or that of his bands (the Nazz in the 60s, Utopia from the mid 70s), been producer for everyone from the New York Dolls and Patti Smith to Meat Loaf (Bat Out of Hell), Shaun Cassidy and the Psychedelic Furs, Rundgren allows himself another dry laugh as he describes his position in the marketplace of music.
“I'm a fringe artist.”
Given his long career – which admittedly has only troubled the American top 20 singles charts with I Saw the Light and Hello It's Me in the early 70s – you'd think this innovative musician who was also in the vanguard of video and internet technology would be a household name.
But if he's known for anything today it's as the man who acted as father for actress Liv Tyler – daughter of Aerosmith's Steve Tyler – when she was a child.
An amusing and almost detached observer of his own career, he notes a rare experience when he fronted the New Cars in 06 – the old Cars with him in for lead singer Ric Ocasek – and discovered a very different audience response from what he was use to. He admits people come to his shows expecting and wanting Hello It's Me “and I mostly don't play it because it's too out of context of what I'm doing at the time”.
Rundgren's wayward career has taken him from soul-pop through expansive prog-rock, from guitar hero to abandoning the guitar entirely. Yet he is currently out playing a programme of blues by the legendary Robert Johnson (1911-38) delivered in the style of the late 60s power-rock bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. His new album is Todd Rundgren's Johnson – a title more risque to an American audience.
And he picks up a local rhythm section players when he comes to Australia and New Zealand later this year – and his visit is a surprise, even to him.
Just like the traveling bluesmen of old, just being a troubadour?
(Laughs) There has certainly been no up-tick in my record sales that would cause me to be popular Down Under, but my association with Hal Wilner brought me to Australia in January to do a Sydney summer festival and this was a fairly significant event, so I got a lot of direct exposure and coverage by the press. That was the necessary foot in the door to try and pursue some sort of tour.
The record only requires a quartet and a lot of people are familiar with the material, so it is plausible to pick up a rhythm section: my principal guitarist will rehearse the rhythm section before I get there.
And why versions of Robert Johnson at this time?
I went through an era where I almost eschewed electric guitar, my focus went elsewhere and I wanted to become a better singer and performer. So for a number of years I would front a large band and never play the guitar, never play any instrument, just dance around and sing.
I got back into the guitar some years ago and in a big way. I wanted to do an arena rock-style record – the record was Arena – but like so many artists of my generation – and maybe everyone these days – you get your material distributed independently. No one I know has any major company, five-record deal.
So it came time to do distribution for Arena and the company that made the deal also happened to administer the Robert Johnson music publishing. They made as a requirement to distributing Arena that I record an album of Robert Johnson tunes as well. They claimed to me that they were getting many requests for Johnson songs to be used in films and tv shows, essentially the mechanical license.
While they had the publishing they had no recorded versions so they required I make a record. I agreed to do it mostly because I wanted to get my record out and thought I would figure out how to deal with this later.
To my chagrin when I got around to doing it, it turns out Eric Clapton had been making a second career out of tributing Robert Johnson. After U2 did a song I was crestfallen, what was I going to do?
One of my heroes [Clapton] has already done it so anything I did would pale by comparison if nothing else. And the whole process will be creepy for me, constantly trying to outdo Eric Clapton.
It took a year and I came to the conclusion I was not directly influenced by Johnson, Eric Clapton was – and I was influenced by Clapton.
So I am not attempting to compete in my authenticity.
Another fortuitous coincidence was that my first gig as a professional was in a blues band so I understand the idiom. It wasn't a ridiculous leap to deconstruct and reconstruct this material into a way I was comfortable with.
But it is no way “a tribute”, you won't see those words anywhere there.
The entirety of Johnson is 40 - 45 minutes and that's an opening act. My shows are usually two to two and half hours, so of necessity I'm going to have to fill it out. The blues guy I know best is myself. My big initial influence was electric blues – and English people who did their own version of that. So all throughout my career are examples of my modernised or twisted take on the blues idiom.
My first band the Nazz, whose career was done by 69, and on the second record we rip off John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton.
In concert we may play a few songs people are actually familiar with.
In many ways the diversity of your career allows you to do pretty much what you like these days.
I don't believe I have much in the way of radio success, that is a great advantage to me because people send me notes saying, 'This show will be total shit unless you play this song'. This is helpful.
You've been quite good about revisiting your earlier work and playing albums in their entirety: you're soon doing The Healing and Todd albums.
I have a devoted audience because through this process of not playing what people expect me to play I have weeded out all the dilettantes. So now the audience I have is particularly devoted and will come to see anything I have to present. And if it is in package form will purchase anything I have to present. But a lot of it depends on a certain recognition that they need to get every once in a while and deeply desire.
They come about through Rundgrenradio . . . the guy who runs it plays the music and does interviews with anyone even tangentially related to my career, and it has a substantial hardcore following and go to for information. They decided they wanted to dabble in promotion and polled their audience and they [The Healing and Todd] were the records they wanted to hear.
No one was expecting the level of production that went into the first one, it is more a theatrical representation of the record . . . so now the expectation is high.
I'm interest in the fact that you also do what we might call re-creations of music – for example the Beatles on Deface the Music, the covers on Faithful and your own music in With A Twist . . . why??
The Nazz's first song was Open My Eyes – which was the Who and Beach Boys mashed together – and on the B-side was Hello It's Me, it was a dirgy version where I played vibes, and for some reason the record got flipped and it became a minor hit.
Years later when I wasn't a radio staple I was doing the Something/Anything album and the album consisted of me playing most of the instruments. It turned into a double album and by the last side there was enough of me playing by myself and wanted to do live-in-the-studio performances with no overdubs.
So I did half a dozen songs and one was a reworking of Hello It's Me with a more modern groove, background chorusses and a horn section. I did it because I thought it was a different way to do it, I was in a singer-songwriter phase.
In never thought about radio play but the biggest single became Hello It's Me and other bands covered it, like the Isley Brothers.
That's the song that if I don't play we have people walking out – and I mostly don't play it because it is too out of context of what it is I'm doing. If there was a context then I'd play it.
So I just thought I heard it in a more personal way and that's why I redid.
The moral of the story is I not only improved it in how the song could be interpreted, but it turned out to be a gigantic financial boon.
The New Cars must have been a different experience again?
Yeah, the thing that hit me the first time we played in front of an audience, we were eight songs in and people were still singing along. Which is completely different from my shows. If there are people at my shows who haven't fully kept up they are going to be stumped at several points in the show trying to remember where, if ever, they have heard this song. Plus I have this nasty habit lately of whatever my newest record is, I play the whole thing. And then give them the crumbs of older material.
That [New Cars] was an experience I haven't had on stage, that power of familiarity. You are not trying to sell anything, when they hear the first note they are fully committed and the song is sold.
It's part of your performers tool kit, you want to get the audience going and you are going to over indulge yourself and play some old jam . . . but you know at the end you have to play something they are familiar with, and it doesn't matter if it is Louie Louie.
You have had a long and diverse career in production. What attracts you to a project?
It's the material – which I think goes along with the priorities of most listeners. The thing they care most about is a decent song. They don't want to hear the most incredible version of the world's crappiest song. They would rather hear a half-assed version of the world's best song.
You are always striving to hear what it is in the material that might be attractive to a listener, and that's the most time-consuming aspect for me of the process.
Early in my production career I didn't vet the material too much, I figured we'd get in the studio and the combined talents would work out the problems. And for a lot of things that did work.
I had overconfidence in my own songwriting and if people didn't produce the goods I would just take over.
But if you develop some recognisable style, if you apply that to production you put your paw prints on everything you do, instead of letting the act put on their display, warts and all if necessary.
If their songwriting is weak and some label has decided to put the record out anyway then they are just going to have to live with the weak songwriting.
In the Seventies a review in Rolling Stone could make or break you, but you can't second-guess the taste of a critic let alone the buying audience, you have to have another vision of what you are trying to accomplish. I consider more timeless aspects of music . . . it's the phenomenon that gets Sinatra's Capitol recordings of Fifties rediscovered.
Some records don't get recognition but grow in stature.
You have to think like a musician – which can be hard if you are working with people who got paid a whole lot of money before they did anything which became the model. 'Here's the seven-figure advance, now make a record'.
But what did musicians do before we had a record industry, which is only about 100 years old? How did they live?
First, they were probably better musicians than today – but you got you paid for your performance so you had to hone that and be sharp -- today we are getting back to that – and the material had to stick in people's head somehow.
If they could just forget about you, you'd have no follow-up business.
The problem happened when the music industry discovered that music could be commoditised and success was no longer measured in the size of the audience you paid for or even, go forbid, how the local critics responded.
It became about figuring out what the buying patterns were, and it was all the Arbitron rating system, people in a room with a dial and an aggregate score.
If a number went below a certain point the record would never get released.
But most people are so unsophisticated they don't now what a chorus is (Laughs)
So basically you still listen for a good song?
The material doesn't have to be super-confident, it just has to be done with brio or some perceptible emotion. It also doesn't have to be technically perfect.
The thing people care the least about – which is the thing some artists, to my mystification are most obsessed with – is the actual sound quality.
Most people don't have studio-referenced sound quality. Since people started listening with earbuds, how can anybody figure out how to mix? There is no uniformity to how people listen.
Most sound systems come with distortion, like superbass, which most musicians try to keep out of their records. If there is any muddiness in the bottom end of the mix you've made you will rattle the walls and will sound horrible.
Is music still important? It seems like just another entertainment thing in the marketplace today.
As it became portable it became just a lifestyle accessory. It always has been in some aspects, there are always bands or acts meant for the musically naïve, like Taylor Swift. As people get older their experience grows, and seeing it performed live they realise that human beings do this, it's not all machines.
Like when you listen Sinatra's Capitol albums, they were mostly all one take, no overdubs, a 50 piece orchestra and the singer all locked in – and it is the performance they will strive to perform live from there on.
The Sony Walkman changed everything: random access, skipping over songs, that ate away at the album being principle form.
This is why the Internet model for selling music will eventually fail . . . people will realise that some songs are priceless, some songs are worthless and some songs are worth exactly 99 cents.
There is another new model out of Disneyworld: the new Mickey Mouse club singers who grow up with their audience. For some artists that is a close link with their audience for an album, and a guaranteed sales figure.
I used to do two solo albums, Utopia and three production jobs every year. Then variety and eclecticism was a selling point, now it seems there are too many artists are trying to cram into the same space, all of the Linkin Parks . . .
Some of what you have done is very amusing – I'm thinking of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell – but humour and wit seems to be missing in music these days.
Yeah, it is pretty humourless, although it is there in some aspects of hip-hop – Flavour Flav is a pretty funny guy. But I'd like make a record like Absolutely Free, just a pastiche of guys musically goofing in the studio.
Of course Zappa asked 'Does humour belong in music?' Like Led Zeppelin said, 'Does anybody remember laughter?'
They do, the audience is prepared for it, comedians are filling sports arena now. If you have a choice of going into comedy or music these days I'd say your odds are 50:50.
Of course, if you are in a band you have to develop a sense of humour as a survival mechanism.
It's pretty deadly if you wind up in a situation with someone who has no sense of humour. It can make for some long and uncomfortable bus rides.
You've got to have a sense of humour in this day and age, it's too easy to f
Chef jam video's
64SWAMPRAT | July 06, 2010
Todd Rundgren:guitar, Mark Hart:guitar, Donnie DeCarlo:guitar, Jim Ennis:bass, Neehar Menon: keys, percussion, Steve Schimoler: drums, Dave Lowe: drums, Billy Cokely: drums
broke down and busted
Todd Rundgren:guitar, Mark Hart:guitar, Donnie DeCarlo:guitar, Jim Ennis:bass, Neehar Menon: keys, percussion, Steve Schimoler: drums, Dave Lowe: drums, Billy Cokely: drums
broke down and busted
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
RundgrenRadio tonight
RundgrenRadio.com airs TONIGHT Tuesday July 6th beginning at 8:30pm ET. Tonight's show will feature "Healing" and "Todd" covers songs from fans and professionals! Oh yeah, some of our usual banter will be included and the chat room open
Monday, July 5, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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