Todd is God

According to the TR Connection there will be a major announcement this week from the UK promoting the new Todd CD (UK tour dates? PLEASE!) - which comes out 5 April. The Album is apparently " Very spiritual, electronic and is kind of like a full circle to Initiation/Real Man and Todd era ". Sounds interesting.

This week's listening was kicked off by watching 'Lost in Translation' and hearing both 'Just Like Honey' by The Jesus & Mary Chain and 'Sometimes' by My Bloody Valentine , and thinking, I own those albums! My Bloody Valentine - Loveless . I still really love this record, and 'When You Sleep' remains one of my all-time favourite tracks fromthe period. The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy . You know, they sound a bit like the BRMC ...LOL. The kings of low-fi feedback indie rock. Still a classic. Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions . Came back to Joss this week as a balance to the feedback driven rock of JMC and MBV And the Single: Powder - Up Here. Big on the live scene in LA by all accounts, the video for this is mad, and the lead singer looks like drew barrymore in drag. Actually the song sounds better without the video distraction. I love it.

Both today's Times and Guardian review the new CD by Gary Husband. A very gifted pianist, he is still probably better know - at least in the rock world as the drummer with Level 42. This album is an acoustic jazz leaning record, which features vocalist Christine Tobin on what the Times describe as "an overwrought adaptation" and the Guardian "a rather monochromatic take" on Todd Rundgren's Tiny Demons.

Track Listing as follows: 1 Truth 2 Sweet 3 Happy Anniversary 4 Soul Brother 5 Stood Up 6 Mammon 7 Future 8 Past 9 Wondering 10 Flaw 11 Afterlife 12 Living 13 God Said 14 Liar

Another week and more great listening! Orbital - In Sides: This has been the big listen of the week. Triggered off by hearing "the Box" on TV. Orbital have never been better in my opinion. Kings of Convenience - Quiet is The New Loud: keeping it mellow with the modern day simon and garfunkle sound. FannyPack - So Stylistic : I have no shame, I love this record. Feel good music by daphne and celeste mark II. Johnny Cash - American IV : Hurt still just blows me away and The man comes around isn't far behind. He went out with his head held high. RIP JC.

Wednesday's USA today features a review of a new album by Five for Fighting - The Battle for Everything, by Elysa Gardner. Giving the record 2 stars Gardner, who describes the band as "purveyors of heavy-handed, maudlin guitar-pop" comments that frontman John Ondrasik "aspires to more gracefully lyrical expression on the Todd Rundgren-esque One More for Love". The album she concludes is a "ploddingly earnest ...affair"

Ruby - Salt Peter . 9 years old and still sounds fresh. Lesley Rankine shines in this sort of rock/trip-hop classic [which again influenced Garbage] featuring one of my tracks of the 90's - Paraffin. Splender - Halfway Down the Sky . Some delightful Todd produced pop/rock. Thea Gilmore - The Lipstick Conspiracies . Modern pop/folk at its best, and another of 2003's best releases. Whiskey Mule - Fuel For the Mule . Demo CD bu bunch of 17 year olds, featuring a friend. 70's rock influenced. Lead singer is woeful, but with a little work there is potential there. The Boomtown Rats - Best of . Bob and the boys did crank out some cool tunes Boss Hogg - Whiteout. And the tracks: Curve - Hell Above the Water. Curve really should have been bigger. Garbage essentially ripped off half their sound and made money whilst Curve hardly kept their head abouve the water. This track from the album 'Gift' was proof that they could still crank out a good tune. Iron Ma...

Article in The Boston Globe (30th January) about Boston outfit the Rudds , ahead of gig at Lizard Lounge 31 January, and about singer John Powhida's vocal heroes - Daryl Hall, Todd Rundgren, and Cheap Trick's Robin Zander - who have influenced him since his teenage years growing up in Albany, N.Y. "That's the sound to me," Powhida says. "I liked the freeness and wildness that Daryl Hall and Todd Rundgren had. They'd slip into falsetto, take chances, and every time they sang a song it seemed like they were playing with their voices. That's an element of music I like a lot, that experimentation."

In the first of what again will no doubt be a regular feature on the site, we look at Scissor Sisters. In particular we look at their cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". Imagine the Bee Gees on hellium, and produced by Giorgio Moroda, and you get an idea of what this sounds like. The original is full of feeling, power, and some quite wonderful guitar playing ... however, in the hands of SS this is really just horrible. Do not encourage them to do anything like this ever again.

Todd Rundgren's concert in Pittsburgh on 18 April has been moved from Rosebud to the Rex Theatre

Ed Bumgardner of the Winston-Salem Journal recommended "Paparazzi" by Jamie Hoover and Bill Lloyd to any Todd, Beatles, Curt Boettcher, or Marshall Crenshaw fans stating of the material "the subject matter - romantic rejection and loneliness, peppered with a hint of retribution and acceptance - is not the stuff of happy endings. Still, Hoover and Lloyd never let woe overwhelm the desire to create masterful pop". Haven't had an opportunity to check it out myself yet.

Todd Rundgren's I Saw The Light was featured in "Venus And Mars", the first in the new series of The Afternoon Play (BBC1) 26th January. The episode starred Robson Green.

1992 - Todd Rundgren's wife, singer Michele Gray, gives birth to son in San Francisco. They name the child Rebop...

The first of a weekly update on what's been playing on the stereo, pc etc this week. Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions. This really is one heck of a record. The Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site. Quite possibly THE album of 2003. Still sounding good. Todd Rundgren - Live in NYC '78 Good music to have on whilst working on my latest article.

John T. Siomos, a drummer who performed and recorded with such artists as Todd Rundgren, Carly Simon, Peter Frampton, and many other well-known recording artists has died aged 56.

Liv Tyler told World Entertainment News Network that her "two" dads only met for the first time at her wedding last year. Apparently she made certain both Steven Tyler and Todd Rundgren were present at the wedding to Royston Langdon She said, "My mother, Todd and Steven had never been in a room together before, and Todd and Steven had never met"

When was the last time you heard a really good soul album. Real R&B, not the dross that gets labelled R&B these days which neither has any hint of rhythm or blues in its content. If you look you can still find some, but it's getting harder. So Imagine my delight listening to Joss Stone's debut 'Soul Sessions'. The 16 year old from the UK is a delight as she rips into a collection of souls classics such as the Isley Brothers' "For the Love of You", the Drifters' "Some Kind of Wonderful" , Aretha Franklin's "All the King's Horses", and Bettye Swann’s“Victim of A Foolish Heart”. Also thrown in for good measure the White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl (now a Boy)," which features the Roots, which in Stone's interpretation feels right at home in the company, and confirms the song as a true classic. If you like real music, and especially if you like old Stax and Atlantic Soul, then this album should b...

It seems at long last, a new Todd album, called "Liars" will be released in the next couple of months. To mark the release Todd will be doing a short US tour with old friends Kasim Sulton, Jesse Gress, John Ferenzik and Prairie Prince as his backing band. The Tour kicks off on the 8th April at Potawatomi Casino, Milwaukee . Further dates so far announced are: 10th April Chicago,House of Blues Chicago ; 16&17th April Ohio Theater, Cleveland ; 18th April Rosebud, Pittsburgh ; 22nd April Turning Stone Casino, Verona ; 23rd April, Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank ; 28th April, GW Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC ; 30th April, American Music Theater, Lancaster ; 1st May, Paramount Center For The Arts, Peekskill ; 2nd May, Mohegan Sun Casino, Uncasville ; and 18th September, Cerritos Center, Cerritos

Because I have nothing better to do with my time, and partly because none of my other blogs really suit my rambling on about anything, I've set up this one. It aims to keep any reader that finds their way here up to date on what's going on with the one and only Todd Rundgren . It is also going to be where I talk about any other music that's made me sit up or throw up. So let the games begin! Actually, can I start off with a moan. Patronet : If you have a dial up connection ,don't even bother trying to look at or access Patronet, it will hang so much, that'll it will just fuck you off. Sadly, like many others Todd only really caters for broadband users, which whilst fine in the US doesn't help some of us in Europe who still have phone companies that are very slow in upgrading their exchanges so we can get broadband access. I do have broadband, but I have just tested it out on dial up,as I was including the link and even and if you click on skip to the end, it...