Todd is God

Boston Globe has an article (A must-see Donald Glover experience – 11 December) on Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino's latest album, "Awaken My Love!" The paper describes it as is a "throwback tour de force to the funk 'n' soul sounds of the 1970s. To be precise, the thing plays like it's August 1974 on your midnight radio. There are elements of Philly Soul, Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins, Rick James, and Rare Earth; echoes of Stevie Wonder and Kiss, smatterings of Todd Rundgren and even Frank Zappa (the George Duke era); look-aheads to Prince on the horizon. I'm just scratching the surface here."

'The Music Of Aretha Franklin', 14th annual Michael Dorf Carnegie Hall 'music of' tribute concert benefiting music education non-profit organizations, this year celebrating 18-time GRAMMY-winner and Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame-inductee Aretha Franklin. Performers include Antibalas, Melissa Etheridge, Kenny Loggins, Ann Wilson, Todd Rundgren, Sarah Dash, Glen Hansard, Rhiannon Giddens, Taj Mahal, Living Colour, Allen Stone And Bettye Lavette. 100% of net proceeds given to music education organizations for underprivileged youth

A Folkie take on Todd's Honest Work

Little Mix take on Metallica when nothing else matters in podcast 11. Sting - 57th and 9th Robbie Williams - The Heavy Entertainment Show Simple Minds - Acoustic Honeyblood - Babes Never Die Little Mix - Glory Days Metallica - Hardwired ... to Self Destruct Check out this episode!

We talk death, fannies, and acid. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree The Divine Comedy - Foreverland Teenage Fanclub - Here Regina Spektor - Remember Us to Life Angel Olson - My Woman Bon Iver - 22, A Million Check out this episode!

...Rundgren is preparing his next record for release by the end of the year, but since he moved to Hawaii around 20 years ago, he's found it difficult to put a band together. "I live so far away from all of the players that I am used to," he says. "I can't just call a session anytime I want. The end result has been that I wind up singing and writing and playing everything on the records. I've decided that I want to make something that is more collaborative, that includes other influences, that doesn't just sound like all me again, so I will be working with a whole bunch of other artists on this record." [ South Bend Tribune, 29 Sept, 2016] This sounds more like 'end of 2017' than 2016 for the new album to me going by the use of 'I want' and 'I will', but still, nice to know there is another in the works. Still looking out for that collaboration with The Roots to see the light of day too.

Country, pop, grime, rap, indie ... yes, it's another podcast. Dolly Parton - Pure & Simple Britney - Glory Ryley Walker - Golden Sings that have Been Sung John Paul White - Beulah Giggs - Landlord Viola Beach - Viola Beach Check out this episode!

Frank Ocean has published a list of songs that mean a lot to him, and it is interesting to see the Todd song Flamingo amongst them. This is nice as Todd has praised Ocean in the past and his writing and singer skills: "That's what I like about Frank Ocean or Bon Iver - they try to capture a feeling in the most sincere way."

Biffy Clyro - Ellipsis Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate Blood Orange - Freetown Sound Mitski - Puberty 2 Bat for Lashes - The Bride Steven Tyler - We're All Somebody from Somewhere   Check out this episode!

We move into part II of 2016, with an album that is a part II and more. We'd also like to dedicate this particular episode to the memory of Chris Crowley.  ABC - The Lexicon of Love II Garbage - Strange Little Birds Brandy Clark - Big Day in a Small Town Colvin & Earle - Colvin & Earle Lacuna Coil - Delirium Rick Astley - 50 Check out this episode!

The one where Scott really takes against one of the albums  ... PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Things That We Are Made Of Santana - IV Misty Miller - The Whole Family is Worried Drake - Views Foy Vance - Wild Swans   Check out this episode!

As another musical great is snatched from us, we remember Prince Rogers Nelson and review the following: PSB - Super Yeasayer - Amen & Goodbye Deftones - Gore Bob Mould - Patch the Sky Parquet Courts - Human Performance The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come to Expect Check out this episode!

I follow Andy Partridge on Twitter so saw most of this unfold online, but Ultimate Rock have pulled it all together nicely. Nothing new really in the P v T ongoing spat but still amusing it continues. “a great arranger. Really talented, we were lucky to work with him.”  “He is a mediocre engineer at best. As producer his ‘bedside manner’ is appalling. He was bullying, hectoring, divisive to the band, and if you think that’s sour grapes from me, just ask anyone else who has worked with him. I’ve met several and they all have the same stories. Ask Sparks, the Dolls,  Meat Loaf  and on and on.”

The Gainesville Sun (Florida) has an interesting article mentioning the beginnings of Tom Petty ' How one Southern college town - Gainesville - changed the historyof rock 'n' roll ' (Marty Jourard) which in turn mentions Todd: Nothing is sharper than hindsight, and the mystique that surrounds Tom Petty today has led to much speculation about his early years in Gainesville. At first meeting, Tommy presented as a longhaired Southern hippie musician, part of a large community of like-minded souls. Further observations revealed Petty as a serious songwriter who was fully engaged in music, with a quick mind and a truly indescribable sense of humor. In early 1972, he lived for a while in the converted attic of a house on a property adjacent to the railroad bridge at SW 13th Street, now the site of Wildflower Apartments. I visited one day as Tommy was listening to Todd Rundgren's new double album, "Something/Anything," a collection of 25 tracks that in...

School of Seven Bells - SVIIB Rick SpringField - Rocket Science The Jezabels - Synthia Esperanza Spaulding - Emily's D-Evolution Wild Nothings - Life of Pause 1975 - I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it Bonnie Raitt - Dig in Deep       Check out this episode!

Latest issue of Goldmine [ Goldmine -  Spring 2016 - Pg. 34 Vol 42 No. 5 ISSN: 10552685] has a really good Ken Sharp interview with Todd, with him talking about song inspirations (Open My Eyes: "That whole introductory thing was "I Can't Explain" with a slight variation. We just essentially stole stuff from all the different things that we liked. We had that whole kind of almost jazzy Beach Boys bridge in it. The song was a pastiche of all the influences that we wanted to exhibit.") , the Utopia reunion ("you shouldn't hold your breath but it would be nice if we could"), Bowie ( "I have to be quite honest and say that I was not always impressed with him artistically"), and a few other things.

DIIV - Is The Is Are Money - Suicide Songs Eleanor Friedberger - New View Shearwater - Jetplane and Oxbow Foxes - All I Need Check out this episode!

Pete and Scott look back on Bowie Check out this episode!

Nice interview with Kazim in Downtown magazine: On Working with Todd: - "But it seems I’m always working with him. Comfortability? Familiarity? I’m not sure. I do know that we sing well together, I respect his talent and over the years have gotten to the point where I know what he wants and expects from another musician without having to have it spelled out…April [2016] will mark my 40th year working with Todd."

Explore New Jersey spoke to Todd ahead of his upcoming local gig. " The experience of listening to the music is what’s important. The Hall of Fame stuff really is, to my mind, just a way to kind of try to move more product."

BBC Sounds of 2016 Hinds - Leave me Alone Savages - Adore Life David Bowie - Blackstar Check out this episode!

I posted this on my other blog yesterday, but thought it deserved a place here too. “ I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I play everybody” – David Bowie  My relationship with the music of David Bowie began in 1975 with the re-release of Space Odity. I was seven. I’d been vaguely aware of his existence before then, but this was the moment when I said: I like this song, play it again. NOW. What a song.  The next few years gave me other little gems: Golden Years, Sound and Vision, Heroes, Boys keep Swinging. But as the seventies drew to a close I still don’t think I’d actually bought a Bowie record. My brother had a few and I’d listened to his, but I’d not bought anything myself. That changed with Ashes to Ashes (1980). Major Tom was back and he coincided with a big singl...

Last night.

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,...

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

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 ]

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.

Awards and a look back at 2015, including our all important album of the year.  Check out this episode!