Todd is God

Todd gets a passing mention in a review of new Taylor Locke album - Time Stands Still. According to Scottish Daily Express today the influences included The Beatles and The Cars. "But there is also a Laurel Canyon vibe going on, especially on breezy opener Burbank Woman, which has a Jackson Browne/Todd Rundgren feel to it."

Pitchfork has details about the Runddans album including some snippets behind a Todd interview explaining how it came about. Sounds like a throw back to 70s experimental Todd. Billed as a "spiritual magnum opus," it is one single (sub divided) track that spans 39 minutes, and is said to fuse Rundgren's "trippy. blue-eyed soul" with Lindstrom's "disco epics" and Nikolaisen's "studio trickery" to result in a "cosmic mix of soul, synth, pop, and disco". Going to be interesting this one.

All Music reviews the new Todd album , and awards it three and a half stars (out of five). "[I]t's perched at a point between the past and the present, protest and satire, and that inscrutability is often where Rundgren does interesting work."

" Global is essentially what I learned making State , merged with my more traditional approaches to songwriting and album production." Vintage Rock talks to Todd about the new album and the writing process. Good interview. Todd points to a couple of his favourite album:  "I think two of the best records of my career came out of that period, Nearly Human and 2nd Wind. Those two records I am especially fond of." Meanwhile, Argentinian publication Pagina/12 has an brief interview with Todd too (think done a while back)

British singer Rumer, who has previously covered Todd's 'Be Nice to Me' , is currently doing a version of 'Love is the Answer' in her live set.

There's seventies mood over a large slice of this month's podcast.   The Decemberists - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World Belle & Sebastian - Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance BC Camplight - How to Die in the North Nathalie Prass - Nathalie Prass Meghan Trainor - Title Gaz Coombs - Matador Check out this episode!

OK, this is interesting. The new Whitesnake  album [out  in Europe on May 15th, the UK on May 18th and in North America on May 19th] is called The Purple Album  and   is a re-imagining/covers album of Deep Purple songs from David Coverdale’s time as lead singer. 

The AV Club has a review of   Dan Deacon's new album Gliss Riffer " "The first half of the record plays to the cheap seats, with slices of catchy, hummable melodies and baldly commercial vocals seemingly designed for maximum pop appeal. This isn’t shocking—Deacon has always been a populist, especially in his live shows—but it still feels a bit off-putting to hear the first single, “ Feel The Lightning ,” come across like the love child of Daft Punk and Todd Rundgren." I'm often Told I hear 'Todd' everywhere, but it wasn't especially something that came to mind with this. Brit synth pop of the 80s and 90s, yes, Todd not so much.

Rundgren Radio spoke to Todd and got the low down on the new record and the tour.  As I mentioned last week Dam Funk is going to be the tour DJ, and he will essentially be 'the band' on this tour.  Also of interest was that Todd doesn't rule out a possible Utopia reunion tour for 2016. Says he and Kaz have talked about it but that it would need to be for a proper tour with proper rehearsal time so that it wasn't just a going through the motions exercise. 

The Smalltown Supersound label Instagram account has a visual update on the collaborative album between Todd and Norwegian DJ and producer Lindstrøm and fellow Norwegian Emil Nikolaisen of alt-rock band Serena-Maneesh, that I first mentioned on the blog a year ago. The intragram shows a white label vinyl with the caption: "Testpressing approved" So it looks like we'll have two 'Todd' albums this year.

Todd Rundgren shares his thoughts on his own music educational experience - as well as his Spirit of Harmony Foundation - as well as the strong need to bring back a dynamic music educational program in our schools on Storytime from PRX.

According to Paul Lester at The Guardian, Dâm-Funk is due to be the DJ on Todd's summer tour. That sounds cool. A great DJ and a man who if you check out his interviews over the years mentions Todd a lot.

The lead track off the new Todd album (very much a 'State' style dance track) is out today. Simple repetative beat and lyrics, but after a couple of listens I think I'm sold. Full preview of album is also available via iTunes

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."

Faster Louder talks to Mark Ronson and asks about his collaboration with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker   Let’s talk about the other Australian you collaborated with on the album – Kevin Parker. I believe you guys met on the 2011 Future Music Festival tour. Was there a particular track, album or genre that you bonded over initially?  "We were both obsessed with drum sounds, like mic’ing drums, how you get a particular sound. I love the sound that he got on Innerspeaker and he really dug the sound of ‘Bang Bang Bang’. That was really it, I can’t remember if there was a particular song. Jay [Watson] and I bonded over Todd Rundgren he was amazed that I’d never heard of this song called ‘International Feel’ because he was convinced I’d ripped off ‘Bang Bang Bang’ from it, and I was like “No, I’ve never heard it’. Even back then, four years ago even when they were super young they were monsters, such talented musicians each one of them could play every instrument. It was reall...