Todd is God

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.

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

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

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...

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 t...