Todd is God

Today's Independent plugs the UK Todd dates in its 'Book Now' recommendations today. "The American songwriter/ guitarist/ rock maverick Todd Rundgren (above) performs five concerts, featuring material from his acclaimed new album, Liars. Bristol Academy, Glasgow Academy ( www.carlinglive.co.uk) 12 and 17 July; Birmingham Symphony Hall and Bridgwater Hall, Manchester ( www.ticketline.co.uk) 14 and 18 July; Royal Festival Hall, London, SE1 ( www.rfh.org.uk) 15 July"

According to DJ Jono Coleman in last Friday's Daily Star there is a very good chance that Liv Tyler will be in the crowd for some of Todd's UK gigs next week...Liv also mentions Todd in an interview in Thursday's Daily Mirror saying: "But even though I discovered that Steve was my real dad and not Todd, I didn"t allow that to grind me down. I still have a great bond with Todd." An Interview with the band Faithless in Friday's Guardian threw up a suprise mention of Todd, when the bands Rapper, Max "Maxi Jazz" Frazer , said of Todd: "He's wicked," says Frazer of the American singer-songwriter. "He has bass lines that create their own melody, which is how reggae is structured. If you can make the bass line into a melody you are on your way to heaven." The San Francisco Chronicle has an article on Tom Ross, who after a four-year stint in new play development at New York's Public Theater. (including creating the ...

Great review of 'Liars' by Bob Renstrom in 4th of July's The Wichita Eagle.( also carried by The Hartford Courant) He describes the album as a 'an album of creamy melodiousness that clinches his status as a genius singer-song writer of the Wilson/Wonder/McCartney level.', and 'The results are a stunning achievement of, as Nick Lowe once said, pure pop for now people...The greater embarrassment is that we live in a bland corporate media wasteland where this grand magnum opus will not get the least smidgen of the air time it richly deserves'

Both the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Evening Mail covered Todd last week (25th and 23rd June respectively). Once agin the main talk isof the forthcoming shows in the UK, including on in Birmingham ( I will be there!). In the Post interview he does comment on the last US election and Iraq: "I was in Talahassee a year and a half ago to play a gig. Talahassee is the state capital of Florida. There was one lonely person camping out on the municipal lawn. Now everyone is starting to wake up. They realise that if people were honest we wouldn't be in this state. Most people in Anglo Saxon countries were brought up to believe that other people's religions are inferior. This is a big lie. The other big lie is that we're fighting this war for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Everyone's changing their stance now but they believed the excuse that we went in there to help. They went along with that. In reality we went in there to hurt them, not to help them. Peopl...

The Australian Financial Review has a piece on Todd (26 June). Shane Nicols begins by asking: - Todd Rundgren, ageing pop wunderkind, techno wizard and acid visionary, if they put you in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame what would the citation say? "If elected, will not serve" comes the reply... On music today? "It should be about the songs rather than about vocal histrionics. The first thing I do when I hear something is concentrate on the songs, often in spite of the arrangement or how the song has been handled by the performer." "There's a degree of cynicism that music can be engineered into being a hit. That's always existed. But I can't think of anything that J-Lo's done other than get engaged or un-engaged." And so say all of us :-)

Acoording to People magazine : Actress Liv Tyler (and Aerosmith lead Steven Tyler's daughter) is expecting a baby. Her publicist confirmed to the magazine that Tyler and her rock singer husband Royston Langdon are overjoyed and look forward to the arrival of their child.

David Polochanin in the Boston Globe mentioned Todd in realtion to great work / anti-work songs. " Many of us listen to music on the job, but it's surprising that relatively few songs have been written about the subject of work. However, over the years, a few classic antiwork anthems have become part of our culture songs like Todd Rundgren's "Bang the Drum All Day" or Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend." You're bound to hear one of these songs or perhaps both if you tune into your local pop music station on Friday at 5 p.m. But these become quite outdated. We need new work songs celebrating the places we spend more than half of our waking hours. I'd like to hear musicians get creative with some of these titles: "Who stole my 401(k)?"; "My two-hour lunch break"; "I'm happy over Happy Hour"; "Just expense it!"; and "My boss makes six times my salary." We're talking instant hits, her...

Yes, the man is 56 today. have a good one Todd!

I actually haven't managed to listen to much this past week, until the last 3 days, when my listening has been dominated by Velvet Revolver. Velvet Revolver - 'Contraband' I must confess the thought of Stone Temple Pilot front man Scott Weiland joining up with various ex Guns n Roses was something that sounded like a good idea (but ONLY on paper!) So , I have to confess to being pleasantly surprised by Contraband. It is, quite frankly, much better than it deserves to be. From the opening chords of 'Sucker Train Blues' right through until album closer 'Loving the alien', this album does exactly what it says on the tin. The sound is exactly as you think it'll be, and it's great. Play 'Spectacle', 'Slither', 'Headspace', 'Do it for the Kids' and just turn that volume up LOUD! Bizarrely on 'Superhuman' they actually remind me of the Dan Reed Network (!) Certainly the best Hard Rock album of the year.

USA Today (1 June) Elysa Garner gives Liars ( * * * ) concluding that "Not every whole track measures up to its parts; several bring to mind an inventive author in need of a good editor. Still, at a time when young artists are encouraged to subscribe to neat formulas, Rundgren continues to prove that the road to longevity can be paved with intriguing twists and turns" The Age (28 May) Jeff Glorfeld gives Liars (****). He says "His latest record circles back on much of what he's established as his sound, while also turning away from much of his legacy. From one of the great string-benders, there's almost no guitar here. It's mostly an electronic keyboard album yet is full of organic human warmth, all supplied by Rundgren's remarkable voice. It's like he's gone back to his Philadelphia blue-eyed soul roots, liberally sprinkled with funky '70s disco grooves".

Shane Nicols in the Australian Financial Review reviews Todd, Morrissey, and Alison Moorer this week. In a 10 star review of 'Liars' he says: "His voice is as compelling as ever, masterfully used in ethereal choirs and in a series of pop/soul vignettes that show off different tonal colours. It's a production, masterpiece, a wall of sound he has approached in the past, a vivid and ecstatic mixture of rhythm, seductive synths and layer upon layer of vocals. In all, a new musical benchmark, a What's Going On for the new century". [must confess alway thought WGO was an over-rated album, as is this review for me] AS for Morrissey's - 'You are the Quarry' he rightly concludes "Anyway, the whole things sounds great - an album of passion, guts and profound class.", and also rightly gives a thumbs up to the new rockier sounding Alison Moorer: seems as sis Shelby Lynne gets more country Moorer is heading the opposite way.

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...

The Atlanta Journal - Constitution has an article about the recording of the new Glands CD. The article says that singer Ross Shapiro 'can't exactly put his finger on the direction the new record will take. He can say that the new songs the band is integrating into its live show are, "keyboard-based as opposed to guitar [based]. And, uh, one of them I like has some Todd Rundgren-esque chords in it."

This is my - very unofficial - transcript of the interview Todd gave to Richard Allinson on his Radio 2 show 20/04/04 SOUL BROTHER RA: ‘Soul Brother’. It’s been a long time coming, but it is, and I didn’t think I’d say this for a long, well, I haven’t said this for a long while – the new single from Todd Rundgen, who we’ve bothered in the wee small hours of lunch-time in Los Angeles. How are you Todd? TR: I’m pretty good (laughs) I agree with ya, I don’t think I imagined I would hear such a thing either – ‘the new single by…’ RA: Yeah TR: Yeah RA: Well, I first, as a young lad, erm, I first heard ‘I saw the Light’ and ‘I (It) wouldn’t have made any difference’ and, or songs like that. Pop Singles. Classic little two and a half minute / three minute pop records. And then I got into your music a lot and suddenly thought – he does much much more than pop records. So where are we now with this album ‘Liars’? TR: Well some people say it has pop sensibilities, although I w...

Saturday's Jonathan Ross radio show (BBC Radio 2) played 'Soul Brother' from Liars.

Jeff Spevak at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle interviewed Jesse Gress about the tour. Again the fun begins when they chat about playing through notebook computers. ``You can mix-and-match speaker-cabinet combinations, various microphones set in front of the speaker cabinet, microphones moved various distances from the speaker cabinet,'' Gress says. But is this honest musicianship? ``Why is it a lie?'' Gress asks. ``As soon as you plug into an amp, you're simulating an acoustic guitar. It's not for technology's sake. Todd uses it to make his artistic vision a reality.'' And on the lack of big album sales since the 70's.``It's never one's choice to peak commercially,'' Gress says. ``It happens. The new record's doing really well in England; it's getting five-star reviews. They booked us in the Royal Albert Hall.[actually the Royal Festival Hall Jesse, but we'll let you off] Maybe this is gonna be a British thing...