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Concert Review: Rundgren pulls together Rockford Symphony, rock | The Rock River Times

Concert Review: Rundgren pulls together Rockford Symphony, rock | The Rock River Times

Wednesday Jun 06th, 2012              

 

 

Wednesday Jun 06th, 2012 Concert Review: Rundgren pulls together Rockford Symphony, rock Todd Rundgren performed a two-night concert special with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra June 1-2 at the Coronado Performing Arts Center in Rockford. (Photo by Richard S. Gubbe) By Richard S. Gubbe Contributing Writer The Rockford Symphony Orchestra (RSO) had a mere week to prepare for a two-night concert special with Todd Rundgren at the Coronado Performing Arts Center June 1-2. The RSO received the sheet music just a week before the show and had just one rehearsal with the accomplished rocker before showtime. And while most RSO members were enthused to play with the 1970s and 1980s rock icon, not all embraced the gig as life-changing, some members said afterward. After all, symphonic collaborations rarely work, and classical musicians often feel above simple rock ’n’ roll. What transpired, however, was a gentle blend of Rundgren’s timeless pieces mixed with the classical structure to create a concoction of memories with pleasant results. The infusion of rock with a symphony worked for Emerson, Lake and Palmer in the 1970s when the group combined with an 86-piece orchestra for a blockbuster tour. Rundgren’s idea wasn’t as grand, but the Coronado’s audience of gray beards and grandmothers was quite enthused. Rundgren said his promotion team went around to various orchestras to “explore who might have some interest, and lo and behold, the Rockford Symphony had the interest, so here we go!” He kept to his original charts, not expanding any songs for orchestral elaborations. The 63-year-old has plenty to choose from with more than 30 albums since 1970. He pulled together his longtime concert standards along with one song he rarely plays live — “We Got to Get You A Woman.” “That’s the third time I’ve done that song in the last 40 years,” Rundgren told the Friday crowd. He also performed “Bag Lady,” “God Said,” “The Wailing Wall,” “Flamingo,” “Hello, It’s Me,” “Can We Still Be Friends,” “Property,” “Onomatopoeia” and “I See The Light.” Rundgren came prepared for the music mix as he threw on a white tie-dye full tuxedo with his long, multi-colored hair and tinted glasses. Although he concentrated on delivering vocals back and forth, he played guitar on a few songs, including “Flamingo,” which easily lent itself for an orchestra to perform. Near the end of the Saturday night performance, women threw roses on the stage, and he responded by accepting them with warmth. A limited number of pieces were on the playlist. He ran out of songs from the main show, so he did a second helping of “We Got To Get You A Woman” on Saturday night. Twice the treat for a number he rarely takes out of the bag, and no one minded a bit. Some RSO members responded to the appreciation with meeting the crowd at the stage on Saturday night, shaking hands with the satisfied group that didn’t want to leave. Despite the lack of rehearsal time, the symphonic fusion worked well, at least for Rundgren fans

Todd Rundgren & Rockford Orchestra 2012-06.01 - Coronado - Rockford, IL - Flamingo + Property

Special Edition RR: Todd Rundgren & RSO Concerts Post Show

Listen to internet radio with Rundgren Radio on Blog Talk Radio

photo: gloves

RundgrenRadio special show tuesday 6/5

June 5.
RundgrenRa​dio.com 8:30pm ET
www.rundgrenradio.com
Discussion about the two Todd Rundgren and Rockford Symphony Orchestra concerts last weekend at the Coronado PAC in Rockford, IL and of course the RR Family Reunion Party!
We are working on getting RSO Conductor Steve Larsen to join us.

Todd Rundgren brings orchestral sound to Rockford

 

Enlarge image

Rundgren conducting the Metropole Orchestra

Todd Rundgren Metropole Facebook /

By Mike Moen

• Listen

The legendary rocker takes a step back from rock shows to perform with RSO June 1 and 2.
Before Rundgren discusses his latest venture, WNIJ's Eric Hradecky gives you a pop quiz on some of the singer's earlier work. Click on the audio link to see if you can identify the hits!
Rundgren then goes on to explain how plans came together for him to perform with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra last year. The collaboration allowed Rundgren to find another orchestra willing work on this type of project. Lucky for fans in northern Illinois, the RSO stepped up to the challenge!

download : June 2 2012 Todd and RSO

http://www.mediafire.com/?jm85q3adjm9ef#myfiles

thanks to Jon B for the recording and sharing it so quickly..

punkglobe interview

http://punkglobe.com/toddrundgreninterview0612.php

Todd Rundgren

By: Gus Bernadicou

To list the number of albums Todd Rundgren has been on is almost impossible. Producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and a wizard, a true star Todd Rundgren has done it all. Producing hits for Meatloaf, XTC, Cheap Trick, Grand Funk Railroad, and numerous others, as well as having a solid solo carreer, Todd Rundgren has earned a high reputation that goes a long with his high standards.

Punk Globe: How would you describe yourself in three words? Todd Rundgren: Open to suggestions. [Laughs]. Punk Globe: After your music gained notoriety you started, in a sense, creating genres of music. Now, however, your music seems like it can be defined. Do you believe every genre has been captured or are there new sounds still yet to be discovered? Todd Rundgren: I’ll tell you I was doing a little research, (even yesterday, in various styles in just one corner of music, the electronica/dance/club/hip-hop whatever) I was looking for some sounds on a site that sells sounds and I was mystified at the vast number of categories and equally mystified at what made up the categories, it would be something like an instrument being left out or that you didn’t have a bass or something like that created the categories. One less chords qualifies a different genre in modern music, so I think it’s certainly possible for people to continue to invent genres of music, but I think the intent of your question, “Could there be a genre that is completely different than the ones we are experiencing now?” there is certainty isn’t a reason regarding why not. We could all develop a taste for Arabic Scales. Punk Globe: With such a diverse back catalog do your regret mainly being labeled as “power-pop?” Todd Rundgren: Well I have never really seen to some particular genre oriented niche. In other words, many people may study to be, and be happy as a jazz musician. Well I always thought I could play Jazz if I feel like it but I don’t have to be a jazz musician- I’m still basically a musician. I think most musicians, if they end up making a life out of it, like I have, eventually don’t see themselves as part of a particular genre, you want to be free to play what you want and be taken seriously as you do it. It’s not like, “Oh he plays that kind of music, and he could never play this kind of music…” I take specific umbrage to that, often it causes me to absorb musical styles that I might not otherwise. Punk Globe: What is the relationship between the Nazz and Cheap Trick? Todd Rundgren: Well I left in the Nazz, I think, about 18 months after I formed it. They went through a serious of replacements and also for a while they moved to Texas. At some point the Nazz, Robin Zander, and Rick Nielsen somehow collided for a period of time as a band, I recall named, The Sick Men of Europe. I don’t know how long it lasted, but there is that connection. Of course years later, I became a fan of them and produced them. Punk Globe: Looking back, were the Nazz an accurate representation of your sound? Todd Rundgren: Um, I left because of internal acrimony and because I was evolving as a musician to a point that was incompatible to what the band was doing. I never saw the band as a lost cause, musically. I do see them as having a certain limit, a certain cap that we weren’t going to be able to go beyond. Part of it was the skill of the various players and the inclination of the various players but more importantly we weren’t enjoying the process any longer and a lot of that came about because we became a studio band, we hardly ever played live. That was the same kind of the thing that broke up the Beatles, that cajolery. That all sort of disintegrated. Punk Globe: Speaking of the Beatles, what’s the scoop on your tiff with John Lennon? Todd Rundgren: It really wasn’t anything. It was a comment I made to an English music journal, and if you know anything about music journalist in general- if there is no news they make news. So they decided to exert something I had said about John Lennon. It was during his wild days with Harry Nilsson in LA and Yoko had kicked him out of the house and he was kind of sulking and getting drunk all the time and making a reputation as a bad boy, for himself. At the time everyone had seen him as an idealist of sort and writing these child-like anthems and I just had made some comment to the effect he was “misbehaving and was a bad boy.” [Laughs]. That was all I talked about and John Lennon responded with an open letter to the same publication, I’m not sure whether I responded or that was it. But before it got too far we were on the phone and defused the whole thing. We were fighting over nothing; the magazine trapped us. Punk Globe: So “We Gotta Get You A Woman” is always mentioned in the liner notes for being a big hit, but it wasn’t, right? Todd Rundgren: Well it had the potential to be a hit and it taught the record label that I was more than just the house producer, but, um, there was some controversy at the time. It was getting heavy airplay in some markets- but, because at the time there was heavy feminism going on and because some people misinterpreted part of the lyrics of the song, radio stations were getting bomb threats if they played the record. While it got the record a lot of attention it kind of made it a less desirable record to play, I guess. Punk Globe: Your first mainstream success album, “Something/ Anything” features you playing all of the instruments on a majority of the tracks. What does that try to accomplish? Todd Rundgren: It’s not that I am more confident than another player to do the performance. I realized at a certain point, though, that I had big ideas about how things should be arranged. So I would find myself often describing in great detail to another individual so I began to realize that not being classically trained that I don’t really imagine parts for people to play to be that complicated, anyway. It’s more in the way that the dove tail with each other. So I would end up kind of cutting out the middleman. In other words, if you have tubular bells on something, how do you play the tubular bells? You take a hammer and hit one of them, suddenly I am a percussionist! [Laughs]. In some cases I would learn more or less about an instrument because of my fascination with that instrument, I’d fancy myself to be a sax player for a while but I never stuck with it and couldn’t be very good today. Same thing with the drums. I pretty much know enough about the drums to accompany myself on the drums, but that’s it. Punk Globe: But you did play the drums in some Utopia gigs, right? Todd Rundgren: Yeah, well I was as good a drummer as Willie [Wilcox, drummer for Utopia] was a bass player! [Laughs]. Everyone would swap everything around just for fun. But, again, it’s a fairly straightforward tune and doesn’t require a whole lot of finesse. I am conformable to do that. I don’t think I have the stamina to play a gig as a drummer, anyway. Punk Globe: What is the motivation behind “Hermit of Mink Hollow?” Todd Rundgren: I, probably for the first time, had a situation where I could enter into complete solitude for as much as I could stand, when I moved to New York. And I didn’t realize how much I was learning to enjoy my own company. I eventually came to a realization that I am perfectly happy entertaining myself, and being away from other people. Essentially, the recognition of that thing in me and the record that came out, again, is a record where I played everything on the record. So it really did represent this creativity that came about when I was in solitude. And to this day I’ve discovered that the thing to put me in the most creative mood, is to be alone and unbothered by other people. Punk Globe: Before you were motivated by your own presence, what was the motivation behind your earlier albums? Todd Rundgren: Some people are wired or born, I suppose, to be certain things. That’s what they are going to be best at and that’s what they will be happiest doing. For me it was music, since I understood what music was . . .it was the thing that transported me and it was also something I was able to understand in a way other people weren’t able to. So it wasn’t necessary a question of having to find a single inspiration, it was just that I knew I wanted to be in music. Now a day people desire success, and learn just enough music to justify that success, but for me I have a belief that even if I didn’t become a successful artist, there would be still a few people who knew about me and I would be involved in music somehow. Punk Globe: What is with the guitar sound on Next Position Please and The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect? Todd Rundgren: Uh, the guitar sound? Well I had, at the time, an Alembic Guitar that I used extensively. It had a magnetic pickups, and a PA-Zone electric pickup in the bridge. And that created a natural sounding high end, which was the guitar sound. Um, so I used to use that a lot. I think the guitar was still around when I worked with Cheap Trick, so I think we used it then. Um, sometimes you can create that sound by splitting the guitar signal and compressing and equalizing it with the signal that is coming out of the amp. So there is a number of ways to make the guitar sound a little more naturally high end. You can emphasize it in different ways… Punk Globe: Would you say you are a heavy handed producer? Todd Rundgren: I know a lot about making records. [Laughs]. The thing that makes me a successful producer is that I have always had an ear for the material. As time as gone on, I have always made sure the material is going to result in a good record. I don’t get a lot of calls from country artists, but, ironically enough, I was recently contacted by the Mexican KISS, they just hired me to produce a record for them. Must have had something to do with Grand Funk Railroad. Punk Globe: What do you try to capture when you are producing and how do you not let your personal preferences take over the album? Todd Rundgren: Well you have to consider it’s something of experience- I only work with artists that already understand and appreciate what I appreciate. I’m always looking for something new and I’ll often be working with an artist that I didn’t discover an A &R person from some record label discovered, that are completely new to the audience and have to create their identity. I enjoy those projects because I think the artist and me are on the same page. Punk Globe: One act you did discover was Sparks, do you think you captured them correctly or that their sound just developed throughout the years. . .? Todd Rundgren: Uh, they changed they as time went along. Their personal changed as well. They had two sets of brothers, originally. It was originally a collision of two ideas, but the end result was being like purposely crazy to me. I thought you don’t get an opportunity to work with something that unique and original, and as time went on they decided they wanted to be more of a straight a head pop band. While there was a still an element of the crazy in there, they did less of the really wacky kind of sound effects and driven songs that were on the first record when they were Half Nelson. Punk Globe: Yeah, I interviewed James Mankey and he said he loved working with you. . . Todd Rundgren: He must be still in LA… Punk Globe: Working with the New York Dolls in the early 70’s and then again in the late 2000’s, what is the main contrast between the coming together of songs and the creative process as a whole. Todd Rundgren: Well David Jo…I don’t think the Dolls could have existed without him; he has his voice and also his worldview. Um, the songs were pretty much… They had been preforming live for a year or two and when they got to the studio the issue wasn’t really over the material it was in getting them to get to the same place to play it with enthusiasm, but without sounding like total chaos or they didn’t know how to play their instruments. Certainly there were limitations in what they could play. The biggest challenge was trying to; it was like crowd control, trying to keep the band focus. They saw themselves as the Rolling Stones and they kept themselves on drugs to confirm that. Punk Globe: I read an interview recently, where Jack Douglas says that he was “technically the producer,” is that true? Todd Rundgren: No that is not true. [Laughs]. Technically he was the engineer, and why is because I needed all hands to keep everything under control. How he came up with that, I had no idea. He wasn’t even there when we mixed the record, so there! Punk Globe: You have also worked with Tom Robinson, do you think you de-punked him or did he de-punk himself? Todd Rundgren: I didn’t write a song on that record, put it that way. And truth be told when we finished that record everyone was pretty happy with it, it was that he did it instead of everyone looking for the next punky-grungy thing, so the idea of him actually singing took some people back. The fact that Peter Gabriel, he was collaborating with people like Peter Gabriel, who was not a punk he was an alternative artist or something like that. We had no issues when we were making the record; it’s just that when the record came out the punk press, who were the only ones that mattered at the time, panned it. Punk Globe: Have there been any other punk acts from New York or LA that have caught your eye? Todd Rundgren: No, not really punk acts… I had an opportunity, early, to work with the Talking Heads record- but, I had a conflict, I was working on a Tubes record. So I couldn’t do it. I sort of regret that the opportunity never happened. But I did the New York Dolls sort of as a swan song, as a tribute to New York City. I paid little or no time to the New York City after that. By the way, it was not called “punk” at that time. Punk Globe: But you were at Max’s Kansas City in the late 70’s all the time, right? Todd Rundgren: I saw all of them, all of the New York bands at one point or another. But most of them were just untalented guys in drag. Punk Globe: What’s the story on your work with XTC? Todd Rundgren: Well, I was a fan of the band and knew how difficult it was to work with them in the studio and probably got away with more than any other of their producers did, because their label threatened to drop them if they did not come out with a record that change their fortune somehow and so I was determined to make that record, despite any push back from Andy or any members of the band. Andy, at first disowned that album and me but when it sold he then came back to it… Punk Globe: Is there anyone you wished you could have produced but never got the chance to? Todd Rundgren: Well, there are all those projects that you hear were rumored possibilities that never happen. I had a relationship with Pete Thomson and was on the list to produce, what would be, the Elvis & The Attractions reunion record. That project didn’t happen, and I was disappointed. I was, apparently, also considered to produce the Who, but that didn’t happen. I have no explanation why it didn’t happen, but there were several opportunities that depreciated. But a lot of times the producer artist’s relationship is, I’m like the Daddy and a lot of those artists were like my peers. Punk Globe: Is it true your next album will be featuring YouTube stars? Todd Rundgren: Oh that is a possibility, yes. But that project in it’s beginning stage. I’m only just now figuring out what the music will be like and the potential collaborators. Punk Globe: What advice can you give the aspiring producers out there? Todd Rundgren: [Laughs]. Much of the guys who grew up with this techno know much more than me! There is only certain window where you can absorb a body of knowledge… It’s always great to have a great song… Punk Globe would like to thank Todd Rundgren for the interview.....