A Rock Music Story
I was a true Todd Rundgren music believer, the memories were all great. First heard of Todd with the band NAZZ, who I thought were from England. Radio Station WNEW FM in New York played their tunes a great deal. This was the day when the FM stations did not spin playlist songs but were known as free form stations. Well Todd was not from the other side but from the Philly area. The band was described as ” Beatlesque” which was true.
What put me in the Todd corner was the breakout double album Something/Anything ? where he played all the instruments. This was mind-blowing that he could do that. Todd also was a hell of a producer and the list of rock bands who used his services were the who’s who of seventies and eighties rock. The bands included: The Band, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall and Oates, New York Dolls, Meat Loaf and XTC.
Here is my Todd story. In his Something/Anything album there was a post card stating if you want to be on my next album, send me your name and address and you will be included on my next album. I loved this idea and of course sent him the card. A year of so later his next album, A Wizard, a True Star was going to be released.
Before that however, Todd was performing a free concert in Central Park which I was not able to attend. My friends Nat and Ron were going and they would give me the run down on how the concert went. They reported back and were duly impressed.
Here is the gist of the Todd story. When a Wizard was released inside the jacket sleeve was a computer generated image of Todd’s face with 12,000 names of fans who sent in the card. I was on that poster. As for my friends Nat and Ron they were also on the album but with a wide-angle shot of the concert and the crowd. You needed to know where the boys were on the photo but you could recognize both of them in the mob. A double hit of fame for us.
Todd continued to produce albums, make another mark with his band Utopia and still is a presence in the rock world. He is one of the characters that rock music breeds and more power to him.
Keep smoking.