Todd is God

Since I was talking about Kasim the other day,  thought I'd also share this interview with him from Goldmine - lot of interesting stuff including read between the lines answers such as: GM:  Richie Sambora. KS:  You don’t get any nicer than Richie. You just don’t. GM:  Then what the hell happened with him and Bon Jovi? KS:  I don’t know if I should say this … GM:  Oh, c’mon … KS:  You work with someone enough and you contribute to them enough over the years, through the course of your career, and you’re still second fiddle, when, in reality, they would not be who they are were it not for you. That’s when you go, “Y’know what? I got my millions. I’m OK. I don’t necessarily need to be in this position anymore. It’s painful. So I’m just going to take my toys, and you go have a good time without me.”

Over at the Guardian, Paul Lester (who can see Todd anywhere - bit like me) comments on new band Swim Mountain and says their sound "draws on “60s studio ethics and modern production techniques … the harmony-heavy songwriters of the 60s and 70s (Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone, Rundgren, Nilsson and the Wilson brothers) "

The Guardian yesterday published a powerpop - ten of the best list and quite rightly Todd was on it. 1  Todd Rundgren - Couldn’t I Just Tell You Powerpop, some say, began with  Emitt Rhodes ’s 1970 debut album or Badfinger’s  Magic Christian Music  (also 1970), but really those were more like late Beatles works. Powerpop may have drawn on the 60s – in fact, there is a school of thought that has the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Who and the Small Faces as original powerpoppers – but powerpop is really a 70s invention. It’s about young musicians missing the 60s but taking its sound in new directions. In its insistence on brevity, energy and melody, powerpop was not just an alternative to prog and the hippy troubadours, but a cousin to glam. And like glam, it has a claim to being one of the first postmodern genres. This is largely a 70s list because powerpop is era-specific. You can re-create it outside the time from which it came, but it becomes something diffe...

Q: Do you think of this album as risky? These songs have fans who will say you can’t touch Sinatra’s version. A: Risky? Like walking across a field laced with land mines? Or working in a poison gas factory? There’s nothing risky about making records. Brilliant. As is the rest of this marvelous interview with AARP. 

I haven't really mentioned Kasim on here for a while, so I'm going to rectify that now. Kasim's third solo album '3' came out recently. It is 12 years since his second, Quid Pro Quo. This is also his first to really draw on his musical friendships. So, we get Blue Oyster Cult guitarist Buck Dharma Roeser, Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes and Billy Joel/Ringo Starr sax player and musical director Mark Rivera, and of course Roger Powell, Willie Wilcox and Todd (as well as a few others). I have always liked Kasim's voice, so it is nice to have another album with him taking lead vocals. This is pretty good too. The first few tracks especially are a delight. The album kicks off with Fell in Love for the last Time , which evokes Bruce Hornsby, before giving Cold Play a run for their money. . Next up, it's Utopia time.  A number of people have pointed out that Clocks all Stopped (which features Todd and Roger) would not be out of place on most Utopia album...

The Guardian's New Band of the Week feature, last week profiled Ralegh Long  and noted some hints of Todd: -  "But Long has more in common with the ill-fated, esoteric wing of the balladeer brigade - you'll be reminded variously of Nilsson, early Todd Rundgren , even Alex Chilton at his most overwrought and wracked. Love Kills All Fear's chord progression is uncannily similar to Rundgren's Believe in Me ; uncanny unless it was deliberate, in which case we probably mean unashamed. The Ride and Beginning the World, meanwhile, have some of the twilit ambience and demented beauty of Big Star's late-period tortured anti/avant-ballads."