Rundgren Radio B'day Bash II featuring:
TODD RUNDGREN performing the entire A Wizard, A True Star album!
Date: 09/06/09
Where: Akron OH
Time: 8pm ET
Tickets go on sale May 4 (subject to change)
Prices range from $50 to $200
Public event
Reserved seating
The contract has been signed, sealed, and delivered! Feel free to spread the word to your Todd friends now and it's cool to post it online anywhere like forums, myspace, facebook, twitter, etc.
The website is ...
http://www.AWATSlive.com
It will be given a new look sometime in the next few days --- more AWATS appropriate.
The venue is the Akron Civic Center in Akron, OH. Their website is www.akroncivic.com and they do have a seating chart on their site. 2580 capacity!
Here are some tidbits of info for you:
*Todd will be playing this gig with a band. More info on who, etc. when we get that information.
*There will be a minimum 30 minute performance by the band of non-AWATS material followed by a 20 minute or so intermission and then THE ENTIRE AWATS ALBUM WILL BE PERFORMED LIVE BY TODD RUNDGREN and his hand picked band!!!!!!!!
*Tickets can be hard tickets or print at home and Will Call is available too. They will be barcoded and then scanned the night of the show. Vendors will be www.Tix.com and www.Ticketmaster.com.
*We were approved to make and sell an event t-shirt and poster! We're not sure what the designs will be yet but we're working on it. Ideas welcomed. We have reached out to the artist for the AWATS album FYI -- worth a shot.
*It is doubtful this show will be shot professionally by video or professionally audio taped.
*We will do our best to get a generous camera policy but haven't gone down that road yet. We can tell you now there is now way professional grade video cameras will be allowed.
No, you are not dreaming!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's pack the house for this unique Todd show!
The "almost" official blog for everything Todd Rundgren Related........................................................................................................................................................................... Please visit the sister facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Ma4utopia?ref=hl
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
NY DOLLS pollstar article
Cause The New York Dolls Sez So
Posted on Thursday April 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM Add |
David Johansen says he doesn’t care where his band’s upcoming tour takes him, as long as the weather’s nice.
Johansen and the rest of the New York Dolls spent most of January at producer Todd Rundgren’s Kauai home recording the band’s fourth studio album, Cause I Sez So, and the Hawaiian influence was apparent when the frontman spoke to Pollstar about the record and upcoming tour.
New York Dolls"So we do what we do. A record is really just like a moment, a postcard for some place at some time.”
|
With the release of dates for the Dolls’ spring North American tour, save for an East Coast string of dates soon to be announced, it looks like Johansen gets his wish.
The Dolls hit the road May 20 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, Calif., before moving up the West Coast through Anaheim, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
They’ll veer east to cities including Denver, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans before hitting the Florida sunshine for at least three dates including Orlando’s House of Blues June 11.
The tour comes hot on the heels of the May 5 release of Cause I Sez So, the record that reunites the Dolls and Rundgren, who produced the seminal New York City punk legends’ eponymous debut album in 1973. Tapping Rundgren to produce wasn’t so much about coming full circle as it was simply being an uncomplicated choice to make.
“We were informed we had to make an album and then we started to talk about who was available to produce,” Johansen told Pollstar. “A couple of days later it turned out that Todd was available in January, which was our timeline, in Hawaii. We said ‘OK!’ There wasn’t a lot of discussion – it was pretty instantaneous.”
“I think it was one of those kind of back alley things,” Rundgren joked to Pollstar. “It was one of those brainstorms somebody had come up with when they realized it was time for the band to make another record.
“Somebody called me and I figured, what the heck? Fewer and fewer records are getting made nowadays so when somebody gives you an opportunity to do one, you don’t get coy about it. [I thought] it would be fun for me because I’ll be home. And fun for the band because it’s Hawaii,” Rundgren continued.
“They don’t all live in New York anymore. There’s only two original members left. David Johansen, of course, does live in New York but he travels extensively. Sylvain Sylvain is the other original member, and he lives in Atlanta. So it doesn’t really make any difference where we work, somebody’s going to be traveling. I figure, why don’t I get myself off the hook?” Rundgren said, laughing.
Longtime fans needn’t worry about too much Hawaiian sun permeating the Dolls’ signature style, which has influenced black-clad rockers everywhere from the Ramones to Blondie to R.E.M. But fans should be prepared for some, in keeping with the protean artistic vision of Johansen, who has also been known to dive into tropical soundscapes in the guise of alter ego Buster Poindexter.
David Johansen"I don’t really think about any kind of unrequited fulfillment or anything. We’re very much in the present and where it’s at and what’s happening."
For instance, the Dolls and Rundgren revisit the classic “Trash” from the 1973 debut album, and give the gritty number a reggae twist.
“One day, we were recording from noon until 6 p.m. or something. Usually you just start by playing a couple of songs to get your limbs to move. Syl [Sylvain] started playing that groove and we just kind of fell in. Todd came in and taped it. We thought, ‘that sounds good,’ and decided to hang on to it.”
But if Dolls purists are discomfited by the new take on the punk anthem, or Rundgren’s production flourishes on new songs like “Making Rain,” Johansen’s not bothered.
“Do they still have opinions?” Johansen rhetorically asked. “Our attitude is: We are who we are and we do what we do. If we were trying to fit into some kind of limited, preconceived notion of something, we might as well have a job, because we wouldn’t be playin’ what we want to play.
“Our philosophy is we play just what we want to play at this moment in time. So we don’t really consider stuff like that.”
And in an era when an artist can take months – even years – to write, record, dub tracks and mix a record before it drops, Johansen said part of the appeal of working with Rundgren was the knowledge that Cause I Sez So wouldn’t happen that way.
“With Todd, of course, we’re gonna have a record in our hands one month from now. That’s gonna happen. You’re not gonna go off on tangents. You’re gonna do what you’ve gotta do and get the fuck out,” Johansen said.
Todd Rundgren and the Dolls“We got there and Todd was like, ‘Man, I didn’t think you guys were gonna be here until like next week.’"
“We got there and Todd was like, ‘Man, I didn’t think you guys were gonna be here until like next week,’ but there we were. We had some snippets of ideas and stuff so we sat down for a week and kind of worked them out, and the second we rehearsed them. The third week we did the tracks and the fourth week we did the vocals and the overdubs,” Johansen continued.
“Then he mixed it at his leisure – in other words, we were gone when he mixed it. And he has expertise with all those cool little gizmos, anyway,” referring to Rundgren’s well-known interest in technology.
Johansen says the Dolls don’t worry too much about the expectations of fans looking for ’70s punk nostalgia. For one thing, the New York Dolls is, literally, not the same band. Original bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane died shortly after the Dolls’ 2004 reunion. And Johnny Thunders died of a drug overdose in 1991.
Johansen and Sylvain are joined now by guitarist Steve Conte, bassist Sami Yaffa and drummer Brian Delaney. He finds that the Dolls’ audiences trend young, “but there’s some old heads in there as well.”
Though he knows there are plenty of artists who made their bones during that decade who rake in the cash now by playing their old hits for older audiences, that’s just not in the Dolls’ DNA.
“That’s probably because they look at it like it’s a business. But if you look at it as an artist, then you want to be creative, and that’s the most important thing to us,” Johansen says of the Dolls’ approach. “If we were raking in millions of dollars, my attitude would maybe not be so cavalier.
“I wouldn’t know unless it happened, but this way we are we are free to do whatever we want to do. So we do what we do. A record is really just like a moment, a postcard for some place at some time.”
But don’t think the Dolls are depending on just a record and tour for income – the band has made some savvy moves in the media and video game arenas, too. There’s that ubiquitous iPod commercial, and a cover of “Personality Crisis” is included as a playable track on the video game “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.”
Between the commercial and video game ventures, a South by Southwest showcase appearance with Rachael Ray and a recent taping of the popular “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, the Dolls could be said to be getting their due. (“I did not know about Bourdain and Rachael’s little contretemps at the time,” Johansen snickers of the celeb foodies’ much-publicized rivalry.)
“I don’t really think about any kind of unrequited fulfillment or anything. We’re very much in the present and where it’s at and what’s happening. Let’s play. We get a genuine satisfaction from that and it’s the thing we like to do most.
New York Dolls"Syl started playing that groove and we just kind of fell in. Todd came in and taped it. We thought ‘that sounds good,’ and decided to hang on to it.”
On tour, Johansen said fans can look forward to “really, really good rock ‘n’ roll music from a good rock ‘n’ roll band. As far as how it’s perceived, I don’t really know. We’ll get together and play and hopefully everybody levitates a little bit.”
--Deborah Speer
Posted on Thursday April 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM Add |
David Johansen says he doesn’t care where his band’s upcoming tour takes him, as long as the weather’s nice.
Johansen and the rest of the New York Dolls spent most of January at producer Todd Rundgren’s Kauai home recording the band’s fourth studio album, Cause I Sez So, and the Hawaiian influence was apparent when the frontman spoke to Pollstar about the record and upcoming tour.
New York Dolls"So we do what we do. A record is really just like a moment, a postcard for some place at some time.”
|
With the release of dates for the Dolls’ spring North American tour, save for an East Coast string of dates soon to be announced, it looks like Johansen gets his wish.
The Dolls hit the road May 20 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, Calif., before moving up the West Coast through Anaheim, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
They’ll veer east to cities including Denver, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans before hitting the Florida sunshine for at least three dates including Orlando’s House of Blues June 11.
The tour comes hot on the heels of the May 5 release of Cause I Sez So, the record that reunites the Dolls and Rundgren, who produced the seminal New York City punk legends’ eponymous debut album in 1973. Tapping Rundgren to produce wasn’t so much about coming full circle as it was simply being an uncomplicated choice to make.
“We were informed we had to make an album and then we started to talk about who was available to produce,” Johansen told Pollstar. “A couple of days later it turned out that Todd was available in January, which was our timeline, in Hawaii. We said ‘OK!’ There wasn’t a lot of discussion – it was pretty instantaneous.”
“I think it was one of those kind of back alley things,” Rundgren joked to Pollstar. “It was one of those brainstorms somebody had come up with when they realized it was time for the band to make another record.
“Somebody called me and I figured, what the heck? Fewer and fewer records are getting made nowadays so when somebody gives you an opportunity to do one, you don’t get coy about it. [I thought] it would be fun for me because I’ll be home. And fun for the band because it’s Hawaii,” Rundgren continued.
“They don’t all live in New York anymore. There’s only two original members left. David Johansen, of course, does live in New York but he travels extensively. Sylvain Sylvain is the other original member, and he lives in Atlanta. So it doesn’t really make any difference where we work, somebody’s going to be traveling. I figure, why don’t I get myself off the hook?” Rundgren said, laughing.
Longtime fans needn’t worry about too much Hawaiian sun permeating the Dolls’ signature style, which has influenced black-clad rockers everywhere from the Ramones to Blondie to R.E.M. But fans should be prepared for some, in keeping with the protean artistic vision of Johansen, who has also been known to dive into tropical soundscapes in the guise of alter ego Buster Poindexter.
David Johansen"I don’t really think about any kind of unrequited fulfillment or anything. We’re very much in the present and where it’s at and what’s happening."
For instance, the Dolls and Rundgren revisit the classic “Trash” from the 1973 debut album, and give the gritty number a reggae twist.
“One day, we were recording from noon until 6 p.m. or something. Usually you just start by playing a couple of songs to get your limbs to move. Syl [Sylvain] started playing that groove and we just kind of fell in. Todd came in and taped it. We thought, ‘that sounds good,’ and decided to hang on to it.”
But if Dolls purists are discomfited by the new take on the punk anthem, or Rundgren’s production flourishes on new songs like “Making Rain,” Johansen’s not bothered.
“Do they still have opinions?” Johansen rhetorically asked. “Our attitude is: We are who we are and we do what we do. If we were trying to fit into some kind of limited, preconceived notion of something, we might as well have a job, because we wouldn’t be playin’ what we want to play.
“Our philosophy is we play just what we want to play at this moment in time. So we don’t really consider stuff like that.”
And in an era when an artist can take months – even years – to write, record, dub tracks and mix a record before it drops, Johansen said part of the appeal of working with Rundgren was the knowledge that Cause I Sez So wouldn’t happen that way.
“With Todd, of course, we’re gonna have a record in our hands one month from now. That’s gonna happen. You’re not gonna go off on tangents. You’re gonna do what you’ve gotta do and get the fuck out,” Johansen said.
Todd Rundgren and the Dolls“We got there and Todd was like, ‘Man, I didn’t think you guys were gonna be here until like next week.’"
“We got there and Todd was like, ‘Man, I didn’t think you guys were gonna be here until like next week,’ but there we were. We had some snippets of ideas and stuff so we sat down for a week and kind of worked them out, and the second we rehearsed them. The third week we did the tracks and the fourth week we did the vocals and the overdubs,” Johansen continued.
“Then he mixed it at his leisure – in other words, we were gone when he mixed it. And he has expertise with all those cool little gizmos, anyway,” referring to Rundgren’s well-known interest in technology.
Johansen says the Dolls don’t worry too much about the expectations of fans looking for ’70s punk nostalgia. For one thing, the New York Dolls is, literally, not the same band. Original bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane died shortly after the Dolls’ 2004 reunion. And Johnny Thunders died of a drug overdose in 1991.
Johansen and Sylvain are joined now by guitarist Steve Conte, bassist Sami Yaffa and drummer Brian Delaney. He finds that the Dolls’ audiences trend young, “but there’s some old heads in there as well.”
Though he knows there are plenty of artists who made their bones during that decade who rake in the cash now by playing their old hits for older audiences, that’s just not in the Dolls’ DNA.
“That’s probably because they look at it like it’s a business. But if you look at it as an artist, then you want to be creative, and that’s the most important thing to us,” Johansen says of the Dolls’ approach. “If we were raking in millions of dollars, my attitude would maybe not be so cavalier.
“I wouldn’t know unless it happened, but this way we are we are free to do whatever we want to do. So we do what we do. A record is really just like a moment, a postcard for some place at some time.”
But don’t think the Dolls are depending on just a record and tour for income – the band has made some savvy moves in the media and video game arenas, too. There’s that ubiquitous iPod commercial, and a cover of “Personality Crisis” is included as a playable track on the video game “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.”
Between the commercial and video game ventures, a South by Southwest showcase appearance with Rachael Ray and a recent taping of the popular “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, the Dolls could be said to be getting their due. (“I did not know about Bourdain and Rachael’s little contretemps at the time,” Johansen snickers of the celeb foodies’ much-publicized rivalry.)
“I don’t really think about any kind of unrequited fulfillment or anything. We’re very much in the present and where it’s at and what’s happening. Let’s play. We get a genuine satisfaction from that and it’s the thing we like to do most.
New York Dolls"Syl started playing that groove and we just kind of fell in. Todd came in and taped it. We thought ‘that sounds good,’ and decided to hang on to it.”
On tour, Johansen said fans can look forward to “really, really good rock ‘n’ roll music from a good rock ‘n’ roll band. As far as how it’s perceived, I don’t really know. We’ll get together and play and hopefully everybody levitates a little bit.”
--Deborah Speer
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
RUMORS >> RUMORS>>> AWATS show
i cant hold back any longer.. There are rumors going around that todd will perfom live the album A WIZARD A TRUE STAR.
it appears its in the works and the details are trying to be worked out.
one show might turn into a mini tour if its successful. successful means good turn out and musically can be pulled off. i have information about the shows but i dont want to jump the gun on this. The peeps working on this know what they are doing and my feelings it will happen right after the summer.
it appears its in the works and the details are trying to be worked out.
one show might turn into a mini tour if its successful. successful means good turn out and musically can be pulled off. i have information about the shows but i dont want to jump the gun on this. The peeps working on this know what they are doing and my feelings it will happen right after the summer.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Vintage Picture: UTOPIA 1975
CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE FULL SIZE
thanks to super long time fan Bart Versteeg for sending me this great photos from 1975 the Hague Netherlands
thanks to super long time fan Bart Versteeg for sending me this great photos from 1975 the Hague Netherlands
thanks to super long time fan Bart Versteeg for sending me this great photos from 1975 the Hague Netherlands
thanks to super long time fan Bart Versteeg for sending me this great photos from 1975 the Hague Netherlands
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tickets still available for NYC shows
http://www.citywinery.com/todd-rundgren
a hand full of great seats are available for the 16th show and about 6 stool tickets left for the 17th show
a hand full of great seats are available for the 16th show and about 6 stool tickets left for the 17th show
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Rundgren visits DePauw campus
Rundgren visits DePauw campus
Thursday, April 9, 2009
By JAMIE BARRAND, Editor
He's been described as "rock's renaissance man," and on Wednesday night, Todd Rundgren was on the DePauw campus discussing music and technology. [Order this photo]
He's a renowned singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer, video director and recording engineer.
In addition to having a successful career as a solo artist, he has worked with such acts as Meatloaf, Hall & Oates, The Tubes, New York Dolls, Cheap Trick and Grand Funk Railroad.
But on Tuesday, Todd Rundgren seemed to relish the opportunity to just be a musician kibbitzing with students about the ins and outs of the business when he visited DePauw University.
Rundgren did an interview with DePauw radio station WGRE. He then went to the DePauw Nature Park and enjoyed a catered dinner and conversation with students before speaking on "Music, Technology and Risk Taking" as part of DePauw's Ubben Lecture Series.
Rundgren called the title of his presentation a "page marker." He said he preferred to do things off the cuff and let them go in whatever direction they went.
"Ideally, you want to leave people with something practical," he said. "You want to talk about things they're interested in. It's the worst thing in the world to be boring. I know that, because I've been bored."
Rundgren has been involved in the music industry in some form or another pretty much since the day he graduated from high school. He formed his first band at the age of 18.
Rundgren said being a producer is "more than knowing what all the knobs do."
"There are a lot of unheralded aspects of being a producer," he said. "You also have to be a politician and a psychiatrist. You have to do some hand-holding and get between members of the band to work through things that probably should have been worked through before they got into the studio."
Originally, Rundgren only wanted to be a guitar player.
"I didn't have the fire in my belly for writing music at first," he said.
The band he formed just out of high school lasted about 18 months.
"The internal dynamic caused the whole thing to explode," he said.
Rundgren said when he realized the band needed new music, he stepped forward to write it. As he slowly began becoming more dominant in the band, the other members became resentful and the band disintegrated.
This led to Rundgren moving into producing ("I didn't want to be in a band and I wasn't ready to be a solo act"), and to his being labeled a "wunderkind" in the music business.
"I was really just young," he said. "Add a couple of years and it wouldn't have seemed so remarkable. The trick is, you just never believe your own hype. All I wanted was to make music, and as a fortunate consequence of that, I made a living."
Two of Rundgren's most popular ballads are "Hello, It's Me" (1973) and "Can We Still Be Friends" (1978).
"I don't really relate to any of my early stuff anymore," he said. "That's because a lot of it was fueled by this failed relationship. As your stuff gets older, you realize you're singing about things that mean less and less when you should be singing about things that mean more and more."
One of Rundgren's best-known works is the end-of-the-work-week radio staple "Bang the Drum All Day." The song, released in 1983, is played on radio stations nationwide on Friday afternoons, and has also become a celebration theme for sports teams such as the Green Bay Packers and the St. Louis Rams.
"The success of that song is completely organic," he said. "It's purposely cynical. The record label wasn't taking it seriously and didn't hear it as a single. It was just something that popped into my head while I slept."
Rundgren said he believes the song became popular "solely because of the line about banging on the boss's head."
"It's a party anthem, and at least once a year I get a request to use it in a commercial or a movie," he said. "I hate playing it live, though. I feel ape-like. My hands get tired, my ears get tired. But the audience loves it."
At the dinner before he presented his lecture, Rundgren sat down to talk with a small group of DePauw students, most of whom were music majors.
"Music was never a commodity, it was always a service," he said. "Record companies want guaranteed income. The problem is, there are no Michael Jacksons anymore."
Rundgren said he considered services like iTunes "an impediment to people finding new artists."
"Who wants to pay to listen to something they might not like?" he said.
Something that will never change, Rundgren said, is that bands and solo artists alike must keep performing live.
"If you can't turn record sales into ticket sales, you're not going to be around long," he said. "There are plenty of acts who've had a good record and gone nowhere. It takes more than having a good record."
Rundgren admitted that he doesn't listen to a lot of new music (and doesn't own an iPod).
"It all kind of blends together," he said. "Linkin Park spawned a lot of little Linkin Parks, and they all sound the same."
Rundgren was accompanied at DePauw by his wife of 10 years, Michele, and his second oldest son, Randy (the Rundgrens also have a 22-year-old son, Keoni, and a 17-year-old son, Rebop).
"We've been together for 24 years. I was his backup singer," Michele said. "We got married on his 50th birthday. He said he wanted to do something scary."
Michele was impressed with both DePauw and Greencastle.
"This campus is just beautiful," she said. "As we were coming into town, it was like, 'Oh my God, we're in the middle of nowhere.' Then we got into Greencastle and it was just so quaint."
The Rundgrens split their time between homes in Kauai, Hawaii, and San Francisco.
Rundgren is currently on tour. He will be in Kentucky today, then will travel throughout the Northeast before ending the tour in Chicago. After that, he plans on traveling to Tulsa to see his oldest son Rex, a shortstop for the minor league Tulsa Drillers, play.
After that, he plans on acting as a counselor at a rock music camp in Los Angeles, then returning to his home in Hawaii for a bit of relaxation before hitting the road again in June.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
By JAMIE BARRAND, Editor
He's been described as "rock's renaissance man," and on Wednesday night, Todd Rundgren was on the DePauw campus discussing music and technology. [Order this photo]
He's a renowned singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer, video director and recording engineer.
In addition to having a successful career as a solo artist, he has worked with such acts as Meatloaf, Hall & Oates, The Tubes, New York Dolls, Cheap Trick and Grand Funk Railroad.
But on Tuesday, Todd Rundgren seemed to relish the opportunity to just be a musician kibbitzing with students about the ins and outs of the business when he visited DePauw University.
Rundgren did an interview with DePauw radio station WGRE. He then went to the DePauw Nature Park and enjoyed a catered dinner and conversation with students before speaking on "Music, Technology and Risk Taking" as part of DePauw's Ubben Lecture Series.
Rundgren called the title of his presentation a "page marker." He said he preferred to do things off the cuff and let them go in whatever direction they went.
"Ideally, you want to leave people with something practical," he said. "You want to talk about things they're interested in. It's the worst thing in the world to be boring. I know that, because I've been bored."
Rundgren has been involved in the music industry in some form or another pretty much since the day he graduated from high school. He formed his first band at the age of 18.
Rundgren said being a producer is "more than knowing what all the knobs do."
"There are a lot of unheralded aspects of being a producer," he said. "You also have to be a politician and a psychiatrist. You have to do some hand-holding and get between members of the band to work through things that probably should have been worked through before they got into the studio."
Originally, Rundgren only wanted to be a guitar player.
"I didn't have the fire in my belly for writing music at first," he said.
The band he formed just out of high school lasted about 18 months.
"The internal dynamic caused the whole thing to explode," he said.
Rundgren said when he realized the band needed new music, he stepped forward to write it. As he slowly began becoming more dominant in the band, the other members became resentful and the band disintegrated.
This led to Rundgren moving into producing ("I didn't want to be in a band and I wasn't ready to be a solo act"), and to his being labeled a "wunderkind" in the music business.
"I was really just young," he said. "Add a couple of years and it wouldn't have seemed so remarkable. The trick is, you just never believe your own hype. All I wanted was to make music, and as a fortunate consequence of that, I made a living."
Two of Rundgren's most popular ballads are "Hello, It's Me" (1973) and "Can We Still Be Friends" (1978).
"I don't really relate to any of my early stuff anymore," he said. "That's because a lot of it was fueled by this failed relationship. As your stuff gets older, you realize you're singing about things that mean less and less when you should be singing about things that mean more and more."
One of Rundgren's best-known works is the end-of-the-work-week radio staple "Bang the Drum All Day." The song, released in 1983, is played on radio stations nationwide on Friday afternoons, and has also become a celebration theme for sports teams such as the Green Bay Packers and the St. Louis Rams.
"The success of that song is completely organic," he said. "It's purposely cynical. The record label wasn't taking it seriously and didn't hear it as a single. It was just something that popped into my head while I slept."
Rundgren said he believes the song became popular "solely because of the line about banging on the boss's head."
"It's a party anthem, and at least once a year I get a request to use it in a commercial or a movie," he said. "I hate playing it live, though. I feel ape-like. My hands get tired, my ears get tired. But the audience loves it."
At the dinner before he presented his lecture, Rundgren sat down to talk with a small group of DePauw students, most of whom were music majors.
"Music was never a commodity, it was always a service," he said. "Record companies want guaranteed income. The problem is, there are no Michael Jacksons anymore."
Rundgren said he considered services like iTunes "an impediment to people finding new artists."
"Who wants to pay to listen to something they might not like?" he said.
Something that will never change, Rundgren said, is that bands and solo artists alike must keep performing live.
"If you can't turn record sales into ticket sales, you're not going to be around long," he said. "There are plenty of acts who've had a good record and gone nowhere. It takes more than having a good record."
Rundgren admitted that he doesn't listen to a lot of new music (and doesn't own an iPod).
"It all kind of blends together," he said. "Linkin Park spawned a lot of little Linkin Parks, and they all sound the same."
Rundgren was accompanied at DePauw by his wife of 10 years, Michele, and his second oldest son, Randy (the Rundgrens also have a 22-year-old son, Keoni, and a 17-year-old son, Rebop).
"We've been together for 24 years. I was his backup singer," Michele said. "We got married on his 50th birthday. He said he wanted to do something scary."
Michele was impressed with both DePauw and Greencastle.
"This campus is just beautiful," she said. "As we were coming into town, it was like, 'Oh my God, we're in the middle of nowhere.' Then we got into Greencastle and it was just so quaint."
The Rundgrens split their time between homes in Kauai, Hawaii, and San Francisco.
Rundgren is currently on tour. He will be in Kentucky today, then will travel throughout the Northeast before ending the tour in Chicago. After that, he plans on traveling to Tulsa to see his oldest son Rex, a shortstop for the minor league Tulsa Drillers, play.
After that, he plans on acting as a counselor at a rock music camp in Los Angeles, then returning to his home in Hawaii for a bit of relaxation before hitting the road again in June.
Todd to tour with NY Dolls
from Billboard: http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/new-york-dolls-revisit-roots-on-sez-so-1003961601.story
New York Dolls Revisit Roots On 'Sez So'
New York Dolls
April 13, 2009 08:37 AM ET
Laura Leebove, N.Y.
When the New York Dolls formed in 1971, they were greeted with a bevy of strong opinions. "People said, 'They're the best band,' or 'They're the worst band,' " frontman David Johansen recalls. "It was every kind of extreme reaction to what we were doing with music."
There's no denying that the Dolls' raw, provocative sound, combined with their gender-bending glam image and nonchalant attitude, created a legacy that would live long past their breakup in 1977.
Years later, acts including the Ramones and Kiss would claim the New York Dolls as an influence and today, their made-up faces appear on T-shirts worn by the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus and college-aged hipsters. But even though the band essentially defined punk music, it never really found commercial success.
In 2004, the three remaining Dolls (drummer Billy Murcia died during the band's first run; guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan passed away in the interim) reunited to perform at London's Meltdown festival, at Morrissey's request. Bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane died from leukemia months after the gig, but Johansen, guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and the three newest members went on to release "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This" in 2006 on Roadrunner Records.
Manager Ron Stone says that even though he felt "One Day" was a solid album, it took the band time to "get its sea legs." "It didn't do what I think they hoped it would do, which was to kind of energize this particular generation about who they are," he says.
At this point, the new lineup has been together almost as long as the first — a feat, considering its rocky past — and with the May 5 release of " 'Cause I Sez So" on Rhino Entertainment's Atco Records, the Dolls might get their commercial due.
Rhino senior director of marketing Michael Kachko describes the Dolls as "more of a hip band than a hit band," noting that most people know the group's name but probably couldn't name two of its songs. "I think a New York Dolls album coming out excites a certain group of people, but not necessarily everybody," he says. "But I believe if another group listens to the record, they're going to get hooked."
" 'Cause I Sez So" finds the Dolls revisiting its roots in a few ways. As previously reported, the set reunites them with Todd Rundgren, who produced the 1973 debut, and also features a tamer, reggae-infused rerecording of the song "Trash" from the band's first album. On the night of the album release the band will perform at designer John Varvatos' store in Manhattan, located in the former location of CBGB, where the Dolls played in the '70s.
The group played two gigs at South by Southwest in March and will tour in mid-May, with Rundgren joining on several dates. Stone says the live shows are key because while the gigs will draw longtime listeners, they'll also give the younger crowd a chance to see the band for the first time. "I think for younger fans, it's this fascination they've heard about this band that existed in conversation for 20-some odd years, and that other bands constantly are crediting them," he says.
In addition to the tour, Kachko says he's aiming for a late-night TV performance slot and the label is in discussions with a major online partner to stream the album near its release. The album's title track will be marketed to radio as the first single, but it won't be the campaign's focus. "They are not a radio band," Kachko says. "We're not going to try to make them a radio band at this stage in the career."
But regardless of the album's success, it's clear that the Dolls still don't care what anyone thinks. "We don't really pay that much attention to what anyone else does," Johansen says. "We just have this idea of what rock'n'roll should be and how it should swing, and that's how we play."
New York Dolls Revisit Roots On 'Sez So'
New York Dolls
April 13, 2009 08:37 AM ET
Laura Leebove, N.Y.
When the New York Dolls formed in 1971, they were greeted with a bevy of strong opinions. "People said, 'They're the best band,' or 'They're the worst band,' " frontman David Johansen recalls. "It was every kind of extreme reaction to what we were doing with music."
There's no denying that the Dolls' raw, provocative sound, combined with their gender-bending glam image and nonchalant attitude, created a legacy that would live long past their breakup in 1977.
Years later, acts including the Ramones and Kiss would claim the New York Dolls as an influence and today, their made-up faces appear on T-shirts worn by the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus and college-aged hipsters. But even though the band essentially defined punk music, it never really found commercial success.
In 2004, the three remaining Dolls (drummer Billy Murcia died during the band's first run; guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan passed away in the interim) reunited to perform at London's Meltdown festival, at Morrissey's request. Bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane died from leukemia months after the gig, but Johansen, guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and the three newest members went on to release "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This" in 2006 on Roadrunner Records.
Manager Ron Stone says that even though he felt "One Day" was a solid album, it took the band time to "get its sea legs." "It didn't do what I think they hoped it would do, which was to kind of energize this particular generation about who they are," he says.
At this point, the new lineup has been together almost as long as the first — a feat, considering its rocky past — and with the May 5 release of " 'Cause I Sez So" on Rhino Entertainment's Atco Records, the Dolls might get their commercial due.
Rhino senior director of marketing Michael Kachko describes the Dolls as "more of a hip band than a hit band," noting that most people know the group's name but probably couldn't name two of its songs. "I think a New York Dolls album coming out excites a certain group of people, but not necessarily everybody," he says. "But I believe if another group listens to the record, they're going to get hooked."
" 'Cause I Sez So" finds the Dolls revisiting its roots in a few ways. As previously reported, the set reunites them with Todd Rundgren, who produced the 1973 debut, and also features a tamer, reggae-infused rerecording of the song "Trash" from the band's first album. On the night of the album release the band will perform at designer John Varvatos' store in Manhattan, located in the former location of CBGB, where the Dolls played in the '70s.
The group played two gigs at South by Southwest in March and will tour in mid-May, with Rundgren joining on several dates. Stone says the live shows are key because while the gigs will draw longtime listeners, they'll also give the younger crowd a chance to see the band for the first time. "I think for younger fans, it's this fascination they've heard about this band that existed in conversation for 20-some odd years, and that other bands constantly are crediting them," he says.
In addition to the tour, Kachko says he's aiming for a late-night TV performance slot and the label is in discussions with a major online partner to stream the album near its release. The album's title track will be marketed to radio as the first single, but it won't be the campaign's focus. "They are not a radio band," Kachko says. "We're not going to try to make them a radio band at this stage in the career."
But regardless of the album's success, it's clear that the Dolls still don't care what anyone thinks. "We don't really pay that much attention to what anyone else does," Johansen says. "We just have this idea of what rock'n'roll should be and how it should swing, and that's how we play."
Saturday, April 11, 2009
RundgrenRadio upcoming shows
www.rundgrenradio.com
Upcoming Episodes Rundgren Radio with Jim Colgrove and John Holbrook
Rundgren Radio
Date / Time: 4/14/2009 8:30 PM
Category: Music
Call-in Number: (646) 716-9262
Jim Colgrove played on Todd's recording of "Piss Aaron" from the Something/Anything? album and is a member of the band "Great Speckled Bird". John Holbrook engineered for Utopia and is the sped up voice on 'Singring And The Glass Guitar" from their RA album. He also engineered Roger Powell's album "Air Pocket".
Original Air Date: 4/10/2009 3:00 PM
Rundgren Radio SPECIAL EDITION
A brief interview with Ken Owen, the facilitator of Todd Rundgren's lecture at DePauw University on 4/8/09, followed by a replay of the entire lecture/interview!
Upcoming Episodes Rundgren Radio with Jim Colgrove and John Holbrook
Rundgren Radio
Date / Time: 4/14/2009 8:30 PM
Category: Music
Call-in Number: (646) 716-9262
Jim Colgrove played on Todd's recording of "Piss Aaron" from the Something/Anything? album and is a member of the band "Great Speckled Bird". John Holbrook engineered for Utopia and is the sped up voice on 'Singring And The Glass Guitar" from their RA album. He also engineered Roger Powell's album "Air Pocket".
Original Air Date: 4/10/2009 3:00 PM
Rundgren Radio SPECIAL EDITION
A brief interview with Ken Owen, the facilitator of Todd Rundgren's lecture at DePauw University on 4/8/09, followed by a replay of the entire lecture/interview!
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