Todd is God

I have to confess I have always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the small purple one, but when he announced his 21 nights in London gigs at the O2, I knew I had to go. Playing in the round on a stage the shape of the squiggle (the same as at the Superbowl) Prince cast away gimics, strange shaped guitars (he was back with his trusty Telecaster), and the purples, and peaches (the man was in black and whites all night) and just played the music. Was he any good? Well, where I was sat - quite high up - the sound quality was not the best (the venue's acoustics are pretty poor, esp on louder numbers) I'd have to say he was pretty fucking good. Forget about the man on record, live he really does know his stuff. Also, I have no idea what 'IT' is, but Prince has got it. He has an energy and a presence on stage, so at odds with his off stage persona, that it is quite amazing. The set list was something like this: Let's Go Crazy 1999 I Feel For You Controversy /Hou...

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a nice little interview with Todd, where he says his current solo gigs are "before I go off to sequester myself to record a new album." Also of note was his look back on his eclecticism: "I have a low threshold of boredom," Rundgren says. As a live performer, "I'm not long for any sort of gig that starts to turn into just a job. ... I'm not likely to do the same sort of presentation for more than 18 months or two years at a time before I have to dream up something else." And as a recording artist, "Even though I've had records that were commercially successful, I wasn't disciplined enough to follow 'em up with more of the same," he says with a laugh. Rundgren's 1972 opus "Something/Anything?" defined him as a singer-songwriter with a knack for timeless pop songs such as "I Saw the Light." But he immediately followed it with the disjointed and psychedelic "A Wizard, ...

The Rocky Mountain News has a 10 questions for Richard Thompson piece where the great man mentions that other great man, Mr R: Your Web site is amazing: Fans can buy exclusive music, hear free music, see videos, send you questions, etc. In one of the videos you call yourself a "folk rock dinosaur," but you're actually way ahead of the curve, don't you think? "I was quite late coming to it, to tell you the truth. Everyone had a Web site but me 10 years ago. Todd Rundgren was one of the pioneers, offering downloads. Every month he'd give you a new track. In a year you'd have 12 tracks and he'd send you the artwork. He was the first one who struck me as being really Internet savvy. I probably took some ideas from him."

According to Pitchfork    Hot Chip have a limited edition 12" due this month with "Shake a Fist"--  featuring  a sample of Todd - 'intro/sounds of the studio' from Something Anything .   Blogged with Flock