Monday, May 17, 2004

Moore moves

Mandy Moore has signed a deal with Sire Records, the Warner Bros. imprint after recently parting ways with Sony Music's Epic Records, who seemed unhappy with sales of her last album, 'Coverage'. Glad to see her with a new deal, 'Coverage' which included her faithful (no pun intended) cover of 'Can we still be friends' was a light, but enjoyable record.

Philli and Boston reviews

Review of gig at the Tower Theater by Philladelphia Inquirer. The paper said "Forget the imperfect bits: The rocker was as good as he has been in some time...For Rundgren fans, Sunday's epiphanies came early. Hallelujah"

The Boston Globe too found a lot to like in the gig at the Roxy. It described it as Rundgren demonstrating "why he has a reputation as both a polished perfectionist and an innovative eccentric during his slick, tightly choreographed two-hour show

Todd in the Uk

Last Friday's Daily Mirror plugged Todd's up-coming London date saying: "If you love the vocal range of The Darkness, the lyrics of The Streets and the producing of Dr Dre, Todd Rundgren has got the whole lot rolled into one. He recently released his 18th solo album, entitled Liars, and this is a rare chance to see one of the unsung heroes of rock." Quite

Meanwhile Manchester Evening news also mentioned the ever expanding uk tour. Tour now looks like this:
July 12, 2004 – Bristol Carling Academy
July 14, 2004 – Birmingham Symphony Hall
July 15, 2004 – London Royal Festival Hall
July 17, 2004 – Glasgow Carling Academy
July 18, 2004 – Manchester Bridgewater Hall

Florida warms to Todd

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has an article on Todd "THE TRUTH IS, HE'S BACK TODD RUNDGREN EXPLORES DECEIT IN 18TH SOLO ALBUM" . Most interesting parts were answers to a couple of questions. On 'The Wondering' and the 2000 elections. "Yeah, it was something that seemed so ultimately inexplicable -- that more or less a single Supreme Court justice winds up appointing the president of the United States. It seems so antithetical to everything you're brought up to believe about American democracy that you just wake up one day and say, what are we supposed to think now?"
And on will the music industry will embrace Internet music sharing and sales? "I doubt it, based on the industry's behavior so far. They're fully committed, live or die, to the commoditized music model. They like the idea of "iTunes" because you can buy one song at a time for 99 cents, confounding the actual reality that some songs are priceless and some songs are worthless. Few songs are worth exactly 99 cents. What you have to do is completely disconnect that calculation and adopt a subscription model that's like cable television".

Florida Today claims Todd as a un-sung genius and some one who could have been a hit making machine. Todd's reason it never happened? "Some people are less easily bored than I am," Rundgren said. "And I get bored with myself. I get bored if I have to do the same thing over and over, just like anyone would if they were working on a factory floor, just like inspecting donuts or whatever. The repetition for some people is comforting. For me it's discomforting."

The Tallahassee Democrat looks forward to the new tour dates as well as digging back for gems such as Todd saying "My best friend and I loved Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It's something I just grew up with," he said in a 2003 interview with the Democrat.
"We learned all of the parts of all of the songs and would do them even when people didn't want us to. Especially when people didn't want us to. It was our way of entertaining each other. There wasn't much else for smart kids to do. ... We were sort of like those Columbine kids - smart and outcast. Except we found a more creative outlet for our frustrations."

He points to the radio play the album has been picking up in the uk. "I've long since given up on radio," Rundgren said. "It ('Liars') has taken off in Great Britain but nothing here yet."

And finally, in perhaps the funniest moment of the interview reveals "The only problem is that I wrote and recorded a lot of these songs with the intention of never playing them live," Rundgren said. "But the response has been so positive that we've gone back and are teaching ourselves how to play them. 'Stood Up' is the last one we're learning because it's the hardest. There are parts of it where I'm singing at the bottom of my register and then it goes way back into the high register. It's a (expletive) to sing."

Not to be left out the Florida Times Union previews last weekend's Florida gigs too.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Spin the black circle

Had a couple of people ask why I'd stopped doing this, so here we go again. What I've been listening to, this past week or so:

The Smiths: - 'The Queen is Dead'. Ahead of the new Morrissey album out next week (and after hearing the fantastic new single 'Irish Blood, English Heart') I decided to give one of my favourite smith's albums a few spins. Hard to beat songs like 'Cemetry Gates, 'Big Mouth', 'I Know it's Over' and 'The boy with the thorn in his side'. Still a great record.

Hole: - 'Celebrity Skin'.
Not sure what made me give this a spin, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was still a pretty decent album. Mad Courtney does write a good tune every now and again, and whilst this album lost the raw power of the excellent 'Live Through This', it was still a lot better than it ever got credit for being.

Nina Simone: - 'Sings the Blues' As they say, don't make 'em like this anymore. Not my favourite Simone album, but it's hard not to enjoy this record, and her great vocals on it, all the same. 'I want a little sugar in my bowl' never failing to raise a smile.