The "almost" official blog for everything Todd Rundgren Related........................................................................................................................................................................... Please visit the sister facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Ma4utopia?ref=hl
28 comments:
Because Todd has realized that not even his best friends are going to shell out hard-earned cash for this train-wreck, he`s going to get the disappointment over with as quickly as possible and move past it.
BTW, I`ve always wondered how Todd dealt with John Lennon`s murder, so inconsiderately occurring near the start of the Deface the Music tour. I saw it at Webster Hall (temporarily The Ritz) in October of `80 while the Beatle was still alive.
Did Todd pause the tour, stop playing the parodies, pretend that the whole thing was all just a love letter? Is anyone here as old as I with some recollection of that weird time?
The link doesn't go anywhere. April Fool?
I read the story a couple of years ago that Chapman was gunning for Todd, and Lennon got in the way?
RIP Cynthia Lennon BTW. Can't believe Yoko interjected herself into the tribute proceedings with photos of herself and stuff. Ugh what a lowlife.
Yeah guys, i'm just like you: fat, bald and needing gargantuan amounts of viagra to get it up.I also hoped Todd would remake Something / Anything? for the 60000th time, all the while proclaiming to love Rundgren's eclecticism and unpredictable artistic nature.I also end up whining about his new music which sounds modern, so i won't make an effort to understand albums like State and Global, which are typical Todd Rundgren efforts, disguised in a fresh context.(Yes, this is sarcastic and hearing the reactions of his tight ass 'hardcore fans'make me love Todd's new music even more).
Love your sarcasm! There's a whole load of back catalogue stuff to satisfy our addiction to Todd's melodic, blue eyed soul and rock delights, I love the fact that he just does what he does....Global isn't simply EDM, Techno or any one genre, it's a Todd album pure and simple, and after hearing the previewss available I look forward to it's release...the Runddans album makes for a double reason to celebrate!
Good for you Mr.Mrs.Ms. Anonymous!
Miserable ugly fucks like 23rd and Winston must truly live to spread their cancerous black vibes.
I've seen one of these bitches say "hey lighten up" more than once.
Who the fucking are you kidding you sick, withering sad old sack of shit. If ANYONE needs to lighten up it's you and the black cloud that follows you.
You just can't wait to send your next message of hate...it's what you live for (if your life is very sad for reasons we don't know...sorry; maybe you should worry about taking care of your illnesses, be they physical or mental)
Get a life and find some music you like...start off with the Tibetan monks to cleanse your acrimony, and your need to feel superior by being a coward.
You're sad and pathetic.
Other than that, have a nice day.
PS ...Perhaps YOU should hang it up. Stop spreading your constant ugliness.
Fuck Winston, Fuck 23rd
Yes, how fortunate we all are that Todd has lost his ear for melody and hooks. We can all glory in his fresh new approach, which consists of banal lyrics, cheap production values, tours with a C list DJ rather than a band....oh how fortunate we all are. We should rejoice in the chance to see Todd cover Muskrat Love while sitting on a stool, fat bloated and drunk. It is our duty to blindly accept the tuneless shit that is Global, rather than risk being called reactionary for pining for a good old fashioned Todd tune. Yes, these are the glory days of TR. Perish the thought of another I Don't Want to Tie You Down when our man can produce a modern ditty like Party Liquor. More techno, more Ringo! All good!
Jimmy2Times seems to be the most unhinged Todd fan since Mark David Chapman. He must have been sweating all over the public library computer he was using when he made that nasty post. I guess anybody fired from Taco Bell for a second positive meth test has a right to be in a bad mood, but another game of Dungeons and Dragons in mom's basement will put you in a better mood. I would never tell you to lighten up, because we must rise or we will fall. Jimmy2Times, tough guy of the Arena Blog. LOL.
Indeed, the "Hater" haters seem to becoming more hateful every day (or should I write "evry" day?)
Yeah, that`s much more cool.
How did it all come to this?
In a way this bantering is kind of entertaining, but can't we just get along?
Some people send daily messages that Todd now sucks.
Some people are getting pissed off because of the daily bashing.
I agree with 23rd...how did it come to this?
The whole idea of a communication between Todd fans in this blog seemed cool.
Maybe the haters should relax a bit and not sound so angry, and the people reacting can just take it in stride.
Jimmy2Times sounds like someone who finally got tired of the negativity and went a little "off"...you know...just like Norman Bates...I get the passion, but come on guys, let's have more fun here!
It's getting too mean spirited.
And kind of boring.
Hilarious
I understand what`s going on here but in his effort to be contemporary, Todd has made himself indistinguishable from the sludge already out there.
It`s just repetitious and instantly forgettable. Old people (like me,too) should not try to be "hip" (or whatever the current term is).He won`t gather any new fans and will only alienate old ones.
Hey, even Burt Bacharach lost his touch in the `80s in a lame attempt to "get with the times".
Every dog has his day and Todd has had his.
There`s more to life than trying to hold on to youth.
This is the first TR album I will neither buy nor listen to again.
I doubt EVRYBODY will agree with you, but you have a good point. Btw, the sample of Earth Mother is some of the worst shit my ears have EVR heard. Pure musical shit.
The Burt Bacharach stuff with Elvis Costello was actually pretty good, imho. Bacharach had an uncanny gift for catchy pop that few others have ever had. Todd had a few songs that reminded me of BB - Useless Begging for 1.
Somebody just compared Soothe to Don't Hurt Yourself, a really gorgeous song, but I just don't get it. Soothe is just fair, but I'll admit sounds good by comparison with the lameness of the other songs we're heard so far off Global.
I doubt Todd has attracted a new fan since A Capella, but is doing a great job running off his dwindling fan base. As long as he can support himself with his 3 songs a night clown act with Ringo, the original rock clown, I guess he can afford the coach airfare back to Kauai. I have spent a fortunate, happily, on Todd's music and concerts, but won't pay a cent to support his current pathetic and tired projects. I will wait for the Utopia reunion and hope for the best, and expect the worst.
You`re right about Painted From Memory. It was superb. If you can still snag a copy of the soundtrack for Isn`t She Great, you`ll be equally delighted.
It was "lights out" after that, `though.
I met Elvis Costello twice; once he interrupted his dinner to sign an autograph for a friend of mine, and included a little drawing and the next time was a big event where instead of hiding backstage and schmoozing, he stood out front with everyone else waiting for his cab and chatted and was nice as could be to everyone. Like a regular human. There was no pretense.
Everyone I know who ever worked with him confirms that, but they say the exact opposite about his wife, who they say treats everyone like "the help". Just a little gossip for y'all. :)
Wow-amazing how perceptions differ!
If I understood the comment, is Winston Smith saying the last good album was "A Capella?"
I think "Nearly Human" is his best, and loved "Arena."
I'm not pushing the electonica phase. I thought (re)Production was horrible (right down to the label-the owner was pretty unprofessional in an exchange I had with him), only liked a few tracks on State, and so far only one of the Global songs I have heard.
But I thought there were some pretty great things done between 1985 and 2008. Some not-so-great (One Long Year comes to mind), but every album had at least a couple (again, in my opinion) great songs.
There are a lot of artists who've never done much better than that.
And including the State tour, I have never seen a TR live performance I did not enjoy.
I guess I'm willing to risk the ten bucks on the new album.
I obviously can't speak for Winston Smith but maybe he means A Capella was the last really original, ground-breaking, all-Todd all the time recording TR did. I would agree with that. If he had performed it live the way he made the album everyone would have thought he was just doing karaoke though it would have been interesting to see. The whole selling point of it being it was made, even the musical sounds, by a single person, not 11 people.
Nearly Human was "nice" but it seemed sort of muffled or over-produced; it worked better as a live show (which makes sense as it was a sort of "live" recording) and 2nd Wind really seemed like more angry songs that got left off of Nearly Human. 2nd Wind was really grandstanding. But the concept of live recording and a large group was exactly the same as Nearly Human. I think of those two as a double album really they are so much the same.
From time to time there have been tracks from new albums that I like very much but in terms of a whole package, I don't think there has been anything at all as exciting as A Capella in terms of sound or concept.
Is he still capable of setting up a groove that takes you away? Yes he is. But that's a different thing, like Side 2 of Healing.
As an old-timer, I can report seeing Todd performing songs from A Capella live using a modem a couple years before it was released. Bearsville refused to issue it and held it back until Todd signed a new deal with Warners (the distributing conglomerate) stipulating that he would make albums the company deemed commercial. In return for this they had to release whatever he gave them until they had their quota of "deal" albums.
Hence the cover of Tortured Artist, showing Todd in a Bear trap.
Parenthetically, I doubt that a Utopia reunion would be any more interesting now than the next Rolling Stones tour/album will be and for the same reason: They (we) are just too fucking old to care.
from 23rd, I sure hope you are wrong about the Utopia reunion but I wouldn't bet any money against you. The 3/4 Utopia reunion I saw in Akron (prior to the AWATS show) was weak and ill-rehearsed. Prarie can't sing, and while a tehnically proficient drummer during his younger days, couldn't fill in for Willie on harmony. The AWATS show itself was a blast, ambitious as hell, but the Utopia opening act wasn't too hot and does not bode well.
The Stones tours have sucked since the early '80s. They all look like hammered shit, although I certainly hope to have Mick Jagger's get up and go if I live to be as old. I'm kind of glad the Kinks, a band I like more, never got back together for the same reasons.
Todd is impervious to criticism, both a good and bad thing. He is truly currently too fucking old to care, judging by this Global shit he is trying to sell his dwindling fan base, but my hope is that he has old good tour left with Willie, Roger and Kaz. Maybe if he gets his dance on during the coming tour he can work off that double chin and pot gut, hardly Runt-like or Wizardly qualities.
A Capella not commercial? Lockjaw and Johnny Jingo are 70 times catchier than any of the material since....ok, ok, Parallel Lines and Waiting Game are wonderful.
More interesting trivia about A Capella:
The show was scheduled for a Saturday night in Boston at the Orpheum, a mid-sized theater Todd had no trouble filling before, but couldn`t this time. It had to be re-located the following Sunday at what was normally a gay disco (obviously vacant on The Lord`s day.)
Anyway, the singers assembled were a group of physically deformed individuals (burn victims, dwarves...) who could, nonetheless, sing like angels.
I assumed that these people had been on the entire tour until I heard recordings backed by Utopia.
To this day, I`m perplexed as to how Todd employed singers for this tour. As perplexed as I still am about how he handled the Deface tour after Lennon`s death.
Wow that is an interesting story.
I did get to see the Utopia redux show in the 90s and it was fabulous.They played for something like 3 hours and the crowd was jumping. But I later heard there was fighting. Willie was late for the sound check which put Todd in a terrible mood. You couldn't tell on stage though. Even though they had broken up almost a decade earlier, they were great and the audience was over the moon to see them. I don't know why they weren't more famous than they were.
I do.
They were purveying what was essentially `6os pop-rock in a punk and post-punk era.
No one - particularly the typical post-adolescent rock fan - would have been caught dead having anything to do with them. "Hipness" is/was everything at that age.
Todd`s reputation now has developed over the decades since the Utopia era. I was there. The crowds grew sparser with each tour.
In a weird way, there has never been anything as fascist as pop music tastes.
From what I have seen of this new show he was just jumping up & down and singing Party Liquor.Party Liquor has dumb lyrics and it is misogynist so why is it in this show? I don't understand why he gave such a fabulous show to the Denver University and then we the fans get jumping jacks. Does he hate us or something?
The backup singers were fine vocally (I guess - it's hard to tell what's double-tracked) but the dancing was not impressive in any way. The video screens looked very small. The lights are pretty but he has this thing about the color orange. Everything looks orange. I could not even see dam Funk in the photos. Is he in the back somewhere? They could at least put him up on a platform.
Party liquor is a total piece of shit song. The back up dancers have choreography like strippers that work the day shift swaying back and forth. This is about par for the course with our hero these days.
Yeah. My work schedule forces me to have the bed-time of an 8-year-old leukemia victim, so I`ll miss the live webcast.
Actually, I won`t "miss" it at all. I saw pudgy dance (in the dark) during the State show; I don`t need to see it again.
On a positive note, I actually like the melody to "Terra Firma". Now if something can be done about all these four-on-the-floor disco beats....
Terra Firma is gorgeous.....wonderful chorus, catchy as hell.
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