Jill Sobule and giving people you adore more power than you should

San Jose Mercury News, 7th jan has an interview with Jill Sobule, ahead of a gig this Sunday at Redwood City's Club Fox on Sunday, where she shares the bill with Mr Kasim Sulton.

The piece talks about Todd.

Sobule's first album, 1990's "Things Here Are Different," was produced by Todd Rundgren.

"I was a big fan. I hadn't met, really, any celebrities, let alone one of my icons. I hadn't been in the studio much. And Todd was really intimidating back then, in that time period. So it was really sort of semi-terrifying.

"Right before then, I was just excited to play an open mic at The Bitter End in New York. That was a big deal. Or right before that, I played Josephina's Pizza in Denver, Colorado. So my eyes were overly wide open," she says, laughing. "I didn't have any expectations."

The album failed to register with record buyers. The next one, produced by Joe Jackson, went unreleased. "People who you adore, you sometimes give them more power than you should. And I was having problems singing. I was tense and probably going through some sort of mental state. Part of it was not having confidence in myself."

Claire Wells

Peter Guy at the Liverpool Echo talked to local musician Claire Wells (Liverpool Echo, January 8) http://clairewelles.bandcamp.com/ about her music and influences.

What are your influences and which artists do you listen to at the moment?

For this current LP, I was listening to a lot of late '70s-early '80s Sparks (their Georgio Moroder era), Julian Jumpin' Perez mixtapes circa 1986/7 and Todd Rundgren - who has been a mainstay for many years now.

More recently, I've been really impressed with artists such as Julia Holter, Jenny Hval, Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) and Susanne Sundfør. Note my preference for solo artists!

I also enjoy listening to absolute crud such as Hall & Oates, Phil Collins and enigmatic '80s musician/ Wall Street trader "Lewis".

Great seeing Todd mentioned but also Oneohtrix Point Never  and Susanne Sundfør who produced two of my favourite records of last year.

Erykah Badu - Hello (Ft. Andre 3000)

Erykah Badu recently recorded this interesting re-working of Todd's Hello It's Me [Based more on the Isley Bros cover]

Victim Singer: Adele?

I think Mr R being a little harsh here:

“I don’t have the same kind of feelings that a lot of people do about this new generation of victim singers like Adele and Sam Smith, where it just seems like they’re abused animals,” he added. “Everything they sing about is, ‘Oh, I’m so needy, I’m so hurt.’ I don’t think the world needs more of that. The world needs more of ‘I can’t feel my face.’” [Revue 29 Dec]

Live At The Old Waldorf

The new year begins with this from the Scottish Daily Express...

TODD RUNDGREN & UTOPIA: Live At The Old Waldorf **** (Esoteric) 

Another entry to the Rundgren Archive Series, this is a first official release for an August 1978 concert in San Francisco, where Rundgren mixed songs from his cosmic prog rock band Utopia and the more soft-rock material from his solo career. So while they can ramp it upon the more outlandish tracks like The Seven Rays, Abandon City and Gangrene, Rundgren likes to tone it down a bit when he offers Can We Still Be Friends and Couldn't I Just Tell You.