A Wizard a True Star

Paul Myers

Description

“If you know what you want, I’ll get it for you. If you don’t know what you want, I’ll do it for you.”

Few record producers possess the musical facility to back up such a bold promise, but in over forty-plus years behind the glass, Todd Rundgren has willed himself into becoming a not only a rock guitar virtuoso, an accomplished lead vocalist and vocal arranger and visionary keyboard player, not to mention a serviceable drummer.

But Rundgren’s greatest instrument of all is the recording studio itself. After learning his craft with Nazz, Rundgren engineered The Band’s Stage Fright album and soon became the producer of a string of noteworthy albums for Sparks, Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, Badfinger, Hall & Oates, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith Group, Cheap Trick, The Psychedelic Furs and XTC. Meanwhile, Rundgren played almost every instrument on his solo albums such as Something/Anything?, A Wizard A True Star, and Hermit Of Mink Hollow while collaborating on a series of albums by his band, Utopia.

A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio is a fascinating and authoritative trip through the land of flickering red lights inhabited by a studio wizard – and true star – who has rarely enjoyed a proper victory lap along the many trails that he has blazed. Researched and written with the participation and cooperation of Rundgren himself, Myers also draws upon exclusive new interviews with Robbie Robertson, Patti Smith, XTC, Sparks, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman, Cheap Trick, Grand Funk, The Psychedelic Furs, The Tubes, Steve Hillage, all members of Rundgren’s legendary band, Utopia, and many other key Rundgren associates.

Sujets

• Musique
• Histoire de la musique
• Music
• Musician
• Multiple signal classification
• Individual Composer

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906002800
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren In The Studio
Paul Myers
A Jawbone Book
First Edition 2010
Published in the UK and the USA by
Jawbone Press
2a Union Court,
20–22 Union Road,
London SW4 6JP,
England
www.jawbonepress.com
Editor: John Morrish
ISBN 978-1-906002-80-0
Volume copyright © 2010 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © Paul Myers. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.
The photographs used in this book came from the following sources. Jacket: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns. Woody's: Ruth Rundgren. Ballad sessions: James Lowe. Lake Hill: Moogy Klingman. Wizard: James Lowe/Bearsville Records. New York Dolls: Bob Gruen. Utopia session 1974: Bob Gruen. Utopia live 1974: Rex Features. Ra tour: Bob Leafe/Frank White Agency. Meat Loaf: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis. Deface tour: Bob Leafe/Frank White Agency. Utopia 1983: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis. Utopia exterior: Dave Gregory. XTC sessions (2): Dave Gregory. Utopia desk: Jean Lannen. A Capella: Jean Lannen. Nearly Human: Jean Lannen. 2nd Wind: Jean Lannen. Wizard 2009: Alex Sudea/Rex Features. Johnson 2010: Jean Lannen.


For Liza, my true partner, spiritual backbone, travel companion, and the instigator of all things fun and exciting in my life.

Contents
Introduction: Couldn’t I Just Tell You
Chapter 1: Early Life And The Rise Of The Nazz
Chapter 2: Strictly Bearsville
Chapter 3: Sparks
Chapter 4: Long Nights On Astral Drive
Chapter 5: A Wizard, A True Star
Chapter 6: New York Dolls
Chapter 7: Grand Funk We’re An American Band
Chapter 8: An Elpee’s Worth Of Toons
Chapter 9: Hall & Oates War Babies
Chapter 10: Midtown Madness
Chapter 11: Rock The Catskills
Chapter 12: Meat Loaf Bat Out Of Hell
Photographs
Chapter 13: Studio Hermit
Chapter 14: Patti Smith Group Wave
Chapter 15: Adventures In Video And Healing
Chapter 16: The Road To Dystopia
Chapter 17: The Psychedelic Furs Forever Now
Chapter 18: Cheap Trick Next Position Please
Chapter 19: Beyond Oblivion
Chapter 20: XTC Skylarking
Chapter 21: Pursuing Happiness, Heading West
Chapter 22: Very Suspicious Occasions
Chapter 23: There’s Always More
Runtology: A Selected Discography Of Todd Rundgren Productions
Acknowledgements
About The Author



Introduction: Couldn’t I Just Tell You
At one point during an interview for this book, Patti Smith’s guitarist Lenny Kaye summed up Todd Rundgren’s production philosophy better than anyone I’d spoken to over the course of my year and a half of research.
“Todd’s aphorism,” Kaye told me, sitting in the kitchen of in his New York City pied-à-terre in St Mark’s Place, “was, ‘If you know what you want, I’ll get it for you. If you don’t know what you want, I’ll do it for you.’”
That may be easy enough to say, but over Todd Rundgren’s 40-plus years as a producer, he has been one of the few musicians with the facility to back it up. A self-taught guitarist, he willed himself into being a serviceable multi-instrumentalist. But as good as he became as a drummer, singer, vocal arranger, and keyboard player, his ultimate instrument is the recording studio (both the old-fashioned bricks-and-mortar kind and today’s virtual kind). Arguably continuing in the tradition of multi-track pioneer Les Paul, Rundgren would himself come to inspire a generation of self-contained geniuses like Prince.
Throughout his storied career, Rundgren has ping-ponged between the worlds of producer and recording artist with varying degrees of critical and commercial success and financial reward. For many, myself included, their first sense of Rundgren’s studio wizardry came after hearing the spoken word ‘Intro,’ from his 1972 tour de force, Something/Anything? After two full album sides, where Rundgren played and sang everything himself, the wizard allowed us a peek behind his sonic curtain as he playfully demonstrated a litany of audio gaffes one might have encountered on the albums of the day. He couched all of this in the sarcastic premise of a “game,” inviting the listener to play along with him on their home stereo system.
“Before we go any further,” Rundgren announced as side three began, “I’d like to show you all a game I made up. This game is called ‘Sounds Of The Studio,’ and it can be played with any record, including this one … You can even play it with your favorite record; you may be surprised. Now, if you have a pair of headphones, you better get ’em out and get ’em cranked up, ’cause they’re really gonna help you on this one.”
Rundgren’s guided tour of things like ‘P’ popping, bad editing, and other common recording flaws told me more about him as both producer and artist than anything I’ve read about him since. Rundgren’s recordings could be seriously masterful, whimsically sarcastic, poppy and progressive, sweet and hard, often at the same time.
As a producer and engineer, Todd Rundgren is the product of both Les Paul’s recording innovations and the studio experimentations of 60s trailblazers like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. As such, he was born at the perfect time to flourish as a rock producer in the 70s and 80s, the golden age of the studio, when his reputation was largely cemented by a span of work stretching over 20 years. While he continued, and continues, to make recordings, Rundgren’s attentions were frequently diverted over the 90s into new fields of technology. Ironically, some of his innovations would come to liberate the recording artist in such a way as to lessen the perceived value, or need, for a record producer at all. His evolution into a significant digital artist of the 21st century milieu is covered rather broadly in this volume, and I have intentionally dwelled upon the first 20 years, when Todd Rundgren made his name as a studio producer, working in big rooms and, predominantly, on analog tape.
After learning his craft as a songwriter and arranger for Nazz, and then gaining major attention for his engineering skills with The Band, Rundgren began to demonstrate a latent genius for pulling off hit productions with acts like Badfinger, The New York Dolls, and Grand Funk Railroad. All the while he was pushing the boundaries with his solo albums and those made with the various versions of his performance-based group, Utopia. We’ll look at some of his more underappreciated albums for Sparks, Hall & Oates, The Tubes, and Cheap Trick as well as iconic releases by Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, The Psychedelic Furs, and XTC. Along the way, we’ll touch on some of Rundgren’s other work for artists like Steve Hillage, Shaun Cassidy, Jules Shear, Alice Cooper, Tom Robinson, and Bourgeois Tagg.
In describing Rundgren, the word that most frequently came to the lips of his clients and associates, the majority of whom talked to me for this book, was “genius.” The second most frequent, however, was “sarcastic,” with “aloof” running close behind. But while most artists only worked with Rundgren once – with notable exceptions being Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, The Tubes, The Hello People, and The Pursuit Of Happiness – rarely do any of his single-time clients bemoan the final results.
A case in point is Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin, who reportedly had a fraught experience working with Rundgren, his boyhood idol, on the band’s 2000 album, The New America . When it was over, Graffin still managed to praise Rundgren’s methods to a writer from Rolling Stone .
“He’s a prick in the studio … an egomaniac,” Graffin told Jennifer Vineyard. “It’s his way or the highway … but if you don’t like hearing the truth about your own shortcomings, don’t talk to Todd … Most producers suck your dick: ‘You’re the greatest, you rule.’ That’s why most records suck: You’re not challenged. But we were legitimately challenged. He would be very honest. We got along great. He has a sharp tongue, and so do I. He has a resilient character, and so do I. He used to be my hero, and now he’s just my friend. But what I learned, it’s like having a good editor to be a great writer. He challenged me to be as clear as possible. And he and I spent more time laughing than anything else.”
Jim Steinman, composer of Rundgren’s most commercially successful production, Bat Out Of Hell , echoed that sentiment for this book. At one point during our two-hour conversation, Steinman began laughing as he described Rundgren’s constant browbeating and sarcastic taunts. Then, in the same moment, Steinman insisted that Rundgren, who put himself on the line financially to get Bat Out Of Hell made, was “the only true genius” he’d ever met in his life.
The most legendarily combative sessions of Rundgren’s production career were undoubtedly those for the XTC album Skylarking . Yet, in each of their interviews for this book, the three members of XTC express, in hindsight, their admiration for the final results. Dave Gregory, admittedly a fan, credited Rundgren for doing exactly what he’d been hired to do. “Against all the odds,” said Gregory, “he got the band a hit in America with ‘Dear God.’ Todd Rundgren saved XTC’s career.”
As you will see, over the course of the first-hand remarks, post-mortems, and personal opinions expressed by the many players in Rundgren’s professional world, he is not always the hero in his own story; but he is frequently the most compelling character. Contrary to the myth, Todd is not God; in fact he’s nearly human. Good social skills may make for a more pleasant life, but they are not a prerequisite for good art. Having s