Todd is God

Happy Birthday Todd - Todd is 59 today. Also a happy one to the wondeful Kris Kristofferson, who is 71, and Cyndi Lauper, who amazingly is 54 already.

Steven Tyler interviewed by today's Daily Mirror , talks about Liv and Todd “Now she’s doing movies all the time I still don’t see much of her,” says Steve. “I surely have regrets about not being there for Liv when she was growing up. It just happened that when I courted Bebe, Liv’s mum, I was stuck in a spot that sounds like the middle section of Whole Lotta Love. You know the one? I was in the way outosphere. I was in the sweet spot, hanging between the lines. Very long lines.” Nowadays, he and Rundgren are pals, although Tyler admits he’s a little jealous of his old rival. “Yeah, I’m envious that he owns all that property in Hawaii!” he laughs. Meanwhile, Today's Times has an interview with BC Camplight who, it comments, "Christinzio’s music is like being run over by a runaway truck stuffed with care bears, glitter and, hell, a few gold-potted rainbows. Like his heroes Brian Wilson and Todd Rundgren, his ambition is nothing less than to create “perfect pop”.

Nice interview with Liv in Australia's Herald Sun Washington Post review the latest offering from Sea and Cake - 'Everybody' and comments that the track "Up on Crutches's" sunny pop-soul recalls early-'70s Todd Rundgren.

The new purchases from May: Twisted Sisters - Best of Scott Walker - The Drift Fishbone - Still Stuck in Your Throat Manic Street Preachers - Send Away the Tigers Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight Funeral for a Friend - Tales Don't Tell Themselves Kings of Leon - Because of the Times Lush - Ciao! 1989 -1996 Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna - Are you the Destroyer? Tracey Amos - Who are we Really? Revolutionary Youth League - RYL EP Cassette - The Smartest Bomb EP Race Card - Race Card Amanda Kaletsky - Between You & Me

Blogcritics has an interview with Todd Fink of The Giving Tree Band who reveals "I've been around music and instruments my whole life. My parents love music and even named me after one of their favorite musical artists, Todd Rundgren. My dad played multiple instruments and taught me a lot on guitar in childhood. I gravitated to the guitar right away".

JamJunky is the site that allows songwriters to get feedback on what others think of their creations. As an artist, you can upload your song, along with any details including tempo, key, lyrics, the song’s inspiration, and liner notes. Then you can send the page to friends to check out and comment on. If you’re feeling confident and want more feedback, you can leave your song open to the criticism of the JamJunky community. (via Profy.Com )

Went over to The Legion pub on Old Street last thursday with Diane to see a few bands. Longview were the headline act with with Autokat and Working For a Nuclear Free City in support. Autokat started off really bad but got a bit better as they went on, NFC were dire, and Longview were not too bad - in a Embrace/Coldplay sounding kind of way. The overuse of pipped in background vocals to make the lead singer sound better did start to get on my nerves a bit, and they are a bit samey (an opinion reenforced by listening to their album) But, they seem to have a small but dedicated following - Michael, Diane's ex that came along being one of them. Don't think I'd go out of my way to see any of the bands again, but at least i wouldn't leave anywhere where Longview were playing.

Nick Jameson, now most likely to be recognised for appearances in Lost and 24 but was originally in the band American Dream - which happened to be Todd's first production work for someone other than himself - gives Todd a mention . Also another gig review . This one from Birmingham.

First off the title makes me think of Iron Maiden's - Two Minutes to Midnight . Boy, I used to love that track. Still ok, but not the classic I remembered. But enough. A few weeks ago I looked at Avril Lavigne's latest record - her third - and lamented how she seemed to be getting worse rather than better. Hello Linkin Park. I love Hybrid Theory. There, I've said it. Listened to it again recently and I still think it is an excellent record. Just before the second album came out I actually said to my flat-mate that I hoped they'd split up and not release another record because they would not make a better record that Hybrid Theory. And then came Meteora ... and guess what? Sides 3 and 4 of Hybrid Theory were ok, but a lot of it wasn't really that great (with the exception of 'Faint' the only track I would actually have put on Hybrid). So ... New album ... Rick Rubin ... over 14 months to create ... and, it really isn't very good. I will say they are tryin...

It was 1989 when I first heard and saw the Manics. I was in my first year at Swansea University. They rocked. It still took a couple of years for their first proper album to come out - Generation Terrorists . This great album was followed by two more before Richey Edwards went missing/committed suicide. But the first post Richy album, Everything Must Go , was pretty good ... and then... It all went tits up musically for me. What followed were three very poor records. To be honest I had given up hope of another decent record. So, imagine my surprise when Send away the Tiger's came along. This is without a doubt the best thing the manics have done since Everything . Yes, some of it sounds a lot like other manics tunes and they seem to have been listening to GnR's Sweet Child o Mine too; but the first half of this album is pure pop/rock magic. The title track kicks things off, followed by a typical manics rocker, Underdogs , before hitting the wonderful first single Your love a...

Apparently Todd is STILL writing that autobiography ... Rundgren also has been writing a high-concept autobiography -- slowly, he says, because it reminds him of "a big homework assignment." Each page of the book can be read separately and will contain three distinct elements: a factual account of something that happened, his fantasy recollection of that same experience ("what I idealistically remember," Rundgren says) and a philosophical summary of what he learned from it. "It's not really chaptered," he says. "Sometimes I think I need a concept to do just about anything." I remember when I joined Patronet for a year, a few years back, this was a coming soon item! Meanwhile the Palm Beach Post has a nice interview with a mention of Bourgeois Tagg too. The Herald Times has a piece on Toby Myers who apparently watched the first-ever broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” in Todd Rundgren’s living room with Rundgren and Bebe Buell

Just bought the new Manic Street Preachers CD. Opinion to follow in a few days.

Not my usual kind of gig, but as a Birthday present to my flat mate in December of last year I arranged tickets to see Mr Marsters (known to many TV fans as Buffy's, Spike). Now funny enough I had already seen Mr Marsters on stage before - several years ago when he came on stage at a Four Star Mary gig. For a while he had a band called Ghost of the Robot, but he disbanded then a couple of years ago and started performing solo and mostly acoustic. What surprised me most (and for anyone who heard James sing in 'Once more with feeling' the classic Buffy musical episode will know what I mean) is how well he sang. He actually has a pleasant voice, especially on the quieter numbers. He is still not the greatest songwriter in the world, but there was some good stuff in there all the same. Able support was supplied by Dan Akio Sherwood - who also displayed a nice sense of humour. If David Gray's guitar based stuff is your thing, then check the man out. The Crowd was a rat...

The new purchases from April: Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero The Hold Steady - Live at Lollapalooza 2006 Blonde Redhead - 23 Charlotte Gainsbourg - 5.55 Jill Sobule - Underdog Victorious Hayseed Dixie - Weapons of Grass Destruction Magnum - Spirit: A History Amadeus - Film Soundtrack

Todd's gig opening the Fillmore Philadelphia sounded like it was fun - he even played "Slut" of all things. The Phili Inquirer has the low down

Found this cool little links page.

Now I suppose there is a view among some NIN fans that the last album White Teeth was a bit too mainstream Rock and not enough industrial/electronic sounding and true NIN-like (indeed the recent live set's lack of material from this record may reflect that). Personally I thought/think that White Teeth is a good record, but then I like to Rawk!. But, I digress We now have Year Zero, the first of what is rumoured to be part one of a two-piece concept album release. Lyrically Trent has Re-imagining the US as a police state in 15 years Musically we are back in the very electronic realm. Lyrically it's the usual Trent mixture of good and bad."I pushed the button and elected him to office/He pushed the button and he dropped the bomb" (Capital G) The album kicks off with brief instrumental "Hyperpower!" which moves nicely into the slow-building "The Beginning of the End" (one of the album's best songs) before rushing headlong into lead single "Su...

The Pontomac News talks to Todd

I still remember the first time I heard Avril Lavigne - On a listen post at a Virgin store in Chicago. The album was only just out in the States and still a long way away from appearing in the UK, but being a lover of pop/rock and an old fan of the likes of Pat Benatar, Patty Smyth (Scandal) and that ilk, the first bars of Losing Grip had me interested. When this was followed by Complicated, Sk*ter Boi and I'm With You , I thought, quite like it (indeed I would say that Losing Grip and I'm With You remain her musical high points). Bought it. She then followed this up with Under My Skin. Already I was starting to think, not so sure. And now we have Best Damn Thing. It is hard not to conclude that Avril is going backwards musically, at least unless you're under the age of about 12, in which case you'll probably think this is the best album ever. To be fair it isn't that the album is bad exactly, it is just more of a case that whereas after the first album came out...

"DMGI continues to build its catalog with high quality content from legendary artists, including unreleased, rare, and never-before-heard tracks," said Mitchell Koulouris, Chief Executive Officer of DMGI. "Today's announcement of previously unreleased work by these artists underscores our commitment to acquiring and making available great music to fans and music enthusiasts around the world." Todd Rundgren/Utopia: The Todd Rundgren and Utopia archive features approximately 2,000 never-before-released live recordings, demos, out-takes, and alternate versions from 1977 to 2000. It also includes a significant array of never-before seen video footage as well. Rundgren, both an accomplished songwriter and producer whose hits "I Saw the Light," "Can We Still Be Friends," "Hello, It's Me," and "Bang the Drum" vaulted him from a cult following to stardom, formed Utopia in the mid-1970s. The archive includes never before seen o...