toddle along

I was listening to a group gripe on the Slate Culture Gabfest which by the way I have listened to every week for possibly ten years now and it has really informed my worldview* and they were griping about the terminology/underpinnings of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and apparently Todd is going to be inducted along with Tina Turner, the Go-Gos (I bet the Bangles are really pissed off) and Carole King, and Todd was not dismissed exactly but categorised as 'rock of course' the implication that this was one of the old school people who you'd expect to have been inducted any year.

I don't feel dudgeon or anything on his behalf and I am sure he can take care of himself but he is a lot more iconoclastic than 'rock' and I'm pretty sure that anyone who categorised TR as 'rock' just doesn't really know/care what he does. Certainly he has committed many crimes in the realm of rock the most heinous of which in my book is producing Bat out of Hell though the one thing I will say in his defence there is that apparently he thought the whole thing was a Springsteen parody. Since I don't 'get' Springsteen I suppose it makes sense that I don't therefore 'get' Meat Loaf except insofar as that record makes me feel about as queasy as real meatloaf. Anyway - TR's actual output tends not to be rock, is my point, or at least it's at least as often other styles and genres (most of the time in the last ten years he's been putting out dance records, of some variety) and hearing him described/dismissed as 'rock' makes me want to pull out a bunch of his less rock records and not only that but also to play them while I make corrections to an article I first wrote about a decade ago and which possibly might even just see the light of day next year. A nation exhales lol. 

*Fascinated to hear them not pronounce ABBA the way most Americans often seem to, with the a sounds as in Java or guava or lava but to rhyme with the 'abbas' in yabba dabba doo. I had a feeling there might have been a chat beforehand just to get everyone on track there and that they went through a few minutes of getting the members' names right, too, which they didn't really, not that I could do better. 

todd rundgren's album, arena

I reviewed this album elsewhere a while ago and now I have to say it's in my top 5 Todd. Now listening to it I can't even remember how I thought it was so extreme when I first heard it. My Todd top 5 is probably: 5. Hermit 4. Wizard true star 3. Arena 2. Runt 1. Something /Anything. I guess it is interesting to me that I can really like the work of someone like Todd while really knowing no-one else who likes his work like I do. I don't know if that's part of the interest. It is also interesting to me that something like the Pixies for christ's sake - a nonsense band of no merit - can fill Festival Hall, but Todd is not popular anymore. Extraordinary.

apropos of nothing

A marvellous song from Utopia, written and sung by Todd Rundgren, one of my favourite ballads ever and, gosh, I love ballads (if they're good).

I bought Todd's latest album Arena a few months ago sort of out of sentimentality but I have really come to enjoy it greatly. This was not a foregone conclusion but it's getting a lot of play on my ipod. This is probably my favourite song from the album (this live version doesn't quite capture the sharp and dense sound of the record - how could it - but it has its own appeal):


And, well, why not...


I suppose you could say, 'why not? because of the eyebrows, that's why not, and now I'm going to have nightmares'. I see your point.

smokey day

Healesville, 52km away from here, is all but burning down and Melbourne is covered in smoke. The sun was an amazing pink through the haze, it looked like Jupiter actually, anyway I tried to photograph it but it just didn't come out properly in the camera (too light: the reality was a very vivid hot pink) I suppose because the camera was adjusting in a 'man, you want me to photograph the sun?!?' kind of way.

Meanwhile, I review Todd's newest record here

speaking of todds

It was nice to see this for the first time ever, even though it's horrible (I love the song though - my favourite 2nd period Dragon single, partly for its weirdness, partly for its bombast). Commercial flop.

you can't go past todd.

Well you can - many have - but they are all making a big mistake.

Various comments accompany the above on YouTube, including:

'The Glam Rock early '70s! Musicians sure wore some goofy get ups and paint jobs back then!... There was also the unfortunate drag queen branch of glam maybe Alice Cooper began way back in the late '60s, and taken to new heights (or lows) by Bowie and others. I'm glad to see those days are gone! Then in the '90s we got grunge, the polar opposite of glam. Fashions do come and go.'

'Why are you such a Jack off? Fuck face.'

'You sound like you have a fist in your ass, idiot'

'How dose it feel to have a nut sack resting on your nose all day, you can't talk because your mouth is full. It may sound like I have a fist up my ass, but we all know you actually do! YOU are a first class idiot. Come out of the closet fuck face, Carrot top is waiting.'

'I want to do a pastel painting of Todd in his Cosmic Cowboy outfit, but I have searched on the internet "high and low" and can never find a COLOR shot of it. Do you by any chance remember what color the spots were on his outfit?'

Here's another fine piece of Todd work: