Todd (2016 Remaster) Todd Rundgren

• 1 How About A Little Fanfare? 01:03
• 2 I Think You Know 03:05
• 3 The Spark Of Life 06:23
• 4 An Elpee's Worth Of Toons 02:09
• 5 A Dream Goes On Forever 02:21
• 6 Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song 03:32
• 7 Drunken Blue Rooster 03:01
• 8 The Last Ride 04:49
• 9 Everybody's Going To Heaven/King Kong Reggae 06:38
• 10 No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator 05:13
• 11 Useless Begging 03:40
• 12 Sidewalk Cafe 02:15
• 13 Izzat Love? 01:55
• 14 Heavy Metal Kids 04:17
• 15 In And Out The Chakras We Go (Formerly Shaft Goes To Outer Space) 05:48
• 16 Don't You Ever Learn? 06:07
• 17 Sons Of 1984 04:34
• Total Runtime 01:06:50

Info zu Todd (2016 Remaster)

Todd is the fifth album and second double album by Todd Rundgren, released in February 1974. It was an expansion of his experimentation on his previous album, A Wizard, a True Star. It showed his growing interest in the synthesizer, and its ability to expand the textures of rock music. Much of the album is intensely experimental. However, it is not without its share of pop songs. Todd also tinkers with the synth-heavy progressive sound he would take further with his later band Utopia. First issues of this LP included a large wall poster; all the lyrics appeared on one side, while the other was Todd's cover portrait in shades of fine print, consisting of the names of 10,000 fans who had sent in the postcard included with A Wizard, a True Star.

„1974's „Todd“ was a departure for Todd Rundgren. After a series of one-man-band albums highlighted by the classic „Something/Anything?“, he'd allowed a few other musicians onto this effort's immediate predecessor, A Wizard, a True Star. „Todd“ goes one step further here by incorporating a full band, and the difference between this and Rundgren's streamlined, early records is startling. The songs are lushly orchestrated, with a full Philly-soul-styled horn section led by the legendary Brecker brothers on several tracks. The double-album length gave Rundgren the license he needed to stretch out compositionally and instrumentally.

Keyboards dominate the arrangements, with Rundgren, longtime cohort Mark 'Moogy' Klingman, and session-man Ralph Schuckett all contributing piano, organ, and vintage '70s-style clavinet. The songs themselves are quirkier and more exploratory than earlier efforts, with the progressive and fusion influences that would dominate Rundgren's forthcoming band Utopia rearing their heads. Yet, at its best, TODD still comes across as a pop album, with soulful gems like 'I Think You Know' and snarling rockers like 'Heavy Metal Kids' predominating. Listeners looking for more ear-pleasing pop on the order of „Something/Anything?“ may be surprised by the musical tangents here, but fans of early '70s prog and experimental pop will find much to appreciate.“ (AMG)

Todd Rundgren, guitars, vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, bass, drums, drum machine, percussion
Kevin Ellman, drums, percussion
John Siegler, bass, cello
Mark 'Moogy' Klingman, keyboards, organ, piano, electric piano
Ralph Schuckett, bass, clavinet, organ
Michael Brecker, horn, saxophone
Randy Brecker, horn, saxophone, trumpet
Bill Gelber, bass
Wells Kelly, drums
John Miller, bass
Chris Parker, drums
Peter Ponzol, soprano saxophone
Barry Rogers, trombone
'Legs' Larry Smith, tap-dancing

Recorded 1974 at Secret Sound Studio 'Sons of 1984': Recorded at Wollman Rink, Central Park
Produced by Todd Rundgren

Digitally remastered

Todd Rundgren
An eclectically accomplished musician and studio virtuoso, Todd Rundgren has been recording for more than three decades. His musical career has gone from simple pop that never brought the success some critics felt he deserved (only one gold LP, Something/Anything?) to the more complex progressive rock of Utopia, which did gain Rundgren a devoted cult following. Through it all, this multi-instrumentalist has maintained a prolific sideline career as a producer; he must also be regarded as a pioneer of rock video, interactive CD, and Web-based music.

Rundgren began playing in a high-school band, Money, then went on to play with Woody's Truckstop in the mid-'60s (a tape recording of the latter makes a brief appearance on Something/Anything?). In 1967 he formed the Nazz [see entry], which, contrary to then-prevailing West Coast psychedelic trends, tried to replicate the look of Swinging London in its clothes, Mod haircuts, and Beatles-ish pop sound. In some ways the Nazz was ahead of its time, especially in terms of Rundgren's studio facility and the band's musical sophistication. But the quartet remained a local Philadelphia phenomenon, with one minor hit single, the original version of "Hello It's Me." The Nazz broke up in 1969, at which point Rundgren formed the studio band Runt and hit the Top 20 in 1971 with the single "We Gotta Get You a Woman."

By this time Rundgren had become associated with manager Albert Grossman, who let him produce for his new Bearsville label. By 1972 Rundgren had taken over production of Badfinger's Straight Up LP from George Harrison (who was involved with his Bangla Desh concerts) and had engineered the Band's Stage Fright and Jesse Winchester's self-titled 1971 LP, as well as produced records by the Hello People, bluesman James Cotton, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Halfnelson (who later became Sparks). In 1973 he would produce the New York Dolls' debut LP, Grand Funk Railroad's We're an American Band, and Fanny's Mother's Pride.

For many, Something/Anything? (Number 29, 1972) is the high-water mark of Rundgren's solo career. On it he played nearly all the instruments, overdubbed scores of vocals, and managed to cover pop bases from Motown to Hendrix, from the Beach Boys to the Beatles. The album yielded hit singles in "I Saw the Light" (Number 16, 1972) and "Hello It's Me" (Number 5, 1973).

A Wizard/A True Star (Number 86, 1973), while in much the same vein, was more of a critical than commercial success. However, Rundgren's cult following was growing. In Wizard's liner notes he asked fans to send their names to him for inclusion in a poster to be contained in his next LP. As promised, 1974's Todd included that poster —with some 10,000 names printed on it in tiny type.

That same year Rundgren unveiled his cosmic/symphonic progressive-rock band Utopia, which gradually expanded his following to mammoth proportions. Utopia was a more democratic band, in which Rundgren shared songwriting and lead vocals with other members (from 1977 on: Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton, and Willie Wilcox). In the mid-'70s Utopia played bombastic suites with "cosmic" lyrics and used pyramids as a backdrop, but in the 1980s it returned to Beatles/new wave–style pop (Faithful [Number 54, 1976]). Despite some excellent music, the quartet never placed a single in the Top 40 or saw any of its 11 albums go gold. One of their songs, "Love Is the Answer," was a 1979 Top 10 hit for England Dan and John Ford Coley.

In 1975 Rundgren produced Gong guitarist Steve Hillage's L, on which Utopia played backup. A trip to the Middle East in 1978 led Rundgren to a brief flirtation with Sufism; that same year Hermit of Mink Hollow (Number 36, 1978) produced his first hit single in several years in "Can We Still Be Friends?" (a minor hit for Robert Palmer a year later). Rundgren also produced Meat Loaf's monstrously successful Bat Out of Hell. In 1979 alone he produced Tom Robinson's TRB Two, the Tubes' Remote Control, and Patti Smith's Wave; in 1980 he produced Shaun Cassidy's Wasp.

By that time Rundgren had taken a strong interest in the emerging field of rock video. By 1981 he had built his own computer-video studio in Woodstock, New York, and was making technically advanced surrealistic videotapes. In 1982 Rundgren embarked on a one-man tour, playing sets that were solo-acoustic as well as those in which he was backed by taped band arrangements, with his computer-graphic videos being shown also. He still concentrated on production (with the Psychedelic Furs, among others) and video art. Utopia took an indefinite sabbatical in 1985. Sulton, in addition to recording on his own, has played with Joan Jett, Hall and Oates, Patty Smyth, and Cheap Trick. Powell, designer of a shoulder-strap keyboard called the Powell Probe, now engineers software for a computer-graphics firm, while Wilcox writes and produces. In 1992 the four reunited for a tour of Japan, captured on Utopia Redux '92.

The following year Rundgren went back out on the road as a high-tech one-man band to perform his unique new album No World Order. The world's first interactive music-only CD (available on Philips), it allowed listeners to reshape the 10 songs into an infinite number of versions. To hear the same version of a song twice, Rundgren claimed, users would have to play the disc 24 hours a day, seven days a week "well into the next millennium." Continuing in a similar vein, he then released The Individualist, an enhanced CD which paired each song with its lyrics, graphics, and video. At about that time he came up with the monicker TR-i (Todd Rundgren–interactive), to be used for his multimedia work. In typical fashion, though, his next move was to rerecord several of his old songs in bossa-nova arrangements on 1997's With a Twist...(which also featured Utopia bassist Sulton). That same year he was one of the few Westerners invited to play the Shanghai Festival.

Consistently fascinated with new technological developments, Rundgren created PatroNet, a Web-based service in which subscribers could purchase new songs after paying a yearly fee, in 1998. The 2000 release One Long Year collected some of the songs sold through PatroNet. That year he embarked on a tour in which he performed material from his entire catalogue in a power-trio formation that also included Sulton and drummer Trey Sabatelli. Rundgren toured solo and with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band in the late-90s as well as produced Bad Religion's The New America and Splender's Halfway Down the Sky in 2000. An ongoing compilation, Todd Archive Series, included 11 different sets: The King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents in Concert, numerous full concerts, demos, and outtakes while Rundgren was alone, with Nazz, and Utopia, and a collection of Japanese-only rarities. In 2001 Rundgren played in the Beatles tribute tour, A Walk Down Abbey Road. In 2004, Rundgren released the political Liars on Sanctuary, making it his first rock album in thirteen years. In 2006, he assumed Rick Ocasek's duties in the Cars, henceforth named the New Cars. In September of 2008 Rundgren released Arena, which, with a surfeit of guitar-based rock and bombast, was something of a return to form. (Source: www.keysandchords.com)

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