{"id":15100,"date":"2018-08-28T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T09:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15100"},"modified":"2018-08-29T07:38:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T11:38:13","slug":"utopias-adventures-continue-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/28\/utopias-adventures-continue-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Utopia’s Adventures Continue (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"Ra<\/i> (1977)
\n<\/b>The most durable Utopia lineup now in place, the band made a concerted effort toward internal democracy. Or at least as much of a democracy as possible when the group included Rundgren, a star with his own separate record contract. \u201cIt was as democratic as any marriage is democratic,\u201d says Wilcox, choosing his words carefully. \u201cAll four band members were contributing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the goal,\u201d Sulton says. \u201cEverybody had a 25% vote; any one member could be voted down by the other three, and if there was a tie, we had to work it out.\u201d But he goes on to explain that \u201cit was a little touchy, because the band was started by Todd. So his opinion and his wishes had a little bit more weight.\u201d For his part, Rundgren says that having four vocalists meant that each musician got his turn being the front man. \u201cAnd it appears more democratic once everybody gets a shot at taking a star turn,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Ra<\/i> featured an ambitious, 18-minute prog opus, \u201cSingring and the Glass Guitar (An Electrified Fairytale),\u201d but it also included more concise pop tunes like \u201cMagic Dragon Theatre\u201d (a Rundgren-Sulton co-composition) and \u201cJealousy,\u201d written by Rundgren and Wilcox. The tour in support of the album featured the spectacle of a giant pyramid backdrop; during guitar solos Rundgren would climb atop the structure and play his ankh-shaped guitar.<\/p>\n

\"\"Oops! Wrong Planet<\/i> (1977)
\n<\/b>Later in that year, Utopia released its second album as a quartet. Oops! Wrong Planet<\/i> continued the group’s move toward mainstream rock, albeit of an ambitious sort. \u201cI think it was a conscious effort by the band to try to increase our appeal,\u201d Sulton says. \u201cOn Oops!<\/i> we were settling into what was comfortable for us in terms of songwriting, which was 4-minute pop songs.\u201d Wilcox describes Utopia’s collective character at that time as \u201cmore singing, more songwriting, more band-oriented. And so the music started to reflect that intimacy.\u201d The album included Rundgren’s anthemic \u201cLove in Action\u201d and the ballad \u201cLove is the Answer.\u201d The latter song was a hit (#1 on the U.S. Billboard<\/i> Adult Contemporary chart) in a cover version by soft rockers England Dan and John Ford Coley.<\/p>\n

Adventures in Utopia<\/i> (1979)
\n<\/b>By 1979, Utopia had built its own audio and video production studio in New York; the group’s next album channeled the group’s multimedia ambitions into its most commercially-successful set of songs yet. Adventures in Utopia<\/i> would come to be seen by many as the apex of the post-prog lineup’s work. And for the first time, the group scored a Top 40 single. \u201cSet Me Free\u201d featured a Kasim Sulton lead vocal and spent 12 weeks on the U.S. singles chart, reaching #27.<\/p>\n

\"\"The album’s inner sleeve included these words: \u201cAll songs originally performed for the Utopia video television production, Utopia<\/i>.\u201d But neither Rundgren, Wilcox nor Sulton recalls there ever being such a program. \u201cThere may have been some talk about it, and maybe some attempt at putting a 3-page treatment together to shop to networks,\u201d says Sulton. \u201cBut the idea was, ‘If<\/i> we had a television show, and if<\/i> we were doing episodic versions every week, what would the accompanying soundtrack be like?’ That’s where Adventures in Utopia<\/i> came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having gained some commercial traction, most bands would have sought to build on the momentum of Adventures in Utopia<\/i>, creating a similar set of radio-ready songs. But Utopia was never a typical group.<\/p>\n

\"\"Deface the Music<\/i> (1980)
\n<\/b>\u201cTodd is extremely uncomfortable doing the same thing twice,\u201d says Kasim Sulton. So rather than craft a follow-up to Adventures<\/i>, Rundgren decided to make a Beatles pastiche album. \u201cWe all recognized the influence the Beatles had,\u201d says Rundgren. He characterizes Deface the Music<\/i> as \u201ca kind of flippant and contrarian reaction; we had a perverse sense of humor.\u201d The album grew out of a one-off song Utopia had intended for the soundtrack of the 1980 film Roadie<\/i>. \u201cIt was like an experiment in what was supposed to be the new music at the time, which was power pop: ‘My Sharona’ and that sort of thing.\u201d But the filmmakers balked when they heard \u201cI Just Want to Touch You.\u201d Rundgren laughs at the memory. \u201cThey said, ‘We’re afraid the Beatles are gonna sue us, so we’re not gonna put it on the album.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet sued by the Beatles? We could only hope<\/i> to get sued by the Beatles,\u201d Rundgren recalls thinking. \u201cWe’re gonna do a whole record of this!\u201d So the group recorded 12 more original songs in a Beatles style, parodying \u201cEleanor Rigby\u201d with \u201cLife Goes On,\u201d skewering \u201cAnd I Love Her\u201d with \u201cAlone,\u201d and taking on both \u201cStrawberry Fields Forever\u201d and \u201cI Am the Walrus\u201d with \u201cEverybody Else is Wrong.\u201d Considered on its own \u2013 and out of the context of Utopia’s career, the album has artistic merit, and it’s a fun listen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Some critics believed that the album was the latest (and quite ill-timed) salvo from Rundgren in a supposed feud with John Lennon; others saw it as a musical mash note to Rundgren’s heroes. Either way, Face the Music<\/em> was a commercial flop. \u201cWe had started to head in the right direction,\u201d says Wilcox. \u201cAnd doing that was certainly not the best idea for our careers; absolutely not. But musically it was a blast.\u201d Sulton is more direct on the subject. \u201cAt the time, I thought it was a mistake,\u201d he says. \u201cMore often than not, we chose to acquiesce to what Todd felt that the band should do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Swing to the Right<\/i> (1982)
\n<\/b>Among executives at Utopia’s record label Bearsville, support for the band had always been minimal. And the band felt that lack of enthusiasm. \u201cThey thought that Utopia was a distraction from Todd’s solo career,\u201d Sulton says. As Swing<\/i> would be the last record under the band’s contract, Sulton believes the label decided not to put any effort into promoting it. \u201cI think that had some effect on our ability to move the band forward,\u201d says Wilcox.<\/p>\n

Rundgren’s perspective is more measured. \u201cIt was hard enough to promote me, let alone my other projects,\u201d he says. \u201cI have to say that Bearsville were probably pretty indulgent, because they gave us tour support and stuff like that when they probably really didn\u2019t want to. They were hoping that I would give up the band at a certain point, but I had my own reasons for keeping the band together: it allowed me to focus on my playing. So there was a certain point at which they just kind of said, ‘We know you\u2019re gonna do this. We\u2019ll do whatever we\u2019re strictly required to do, but we don\u2019t have great expectations of the band.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bearsville was initially reluctant to release the album, and did so only after fans \u2013 encouraged by the band \u2013 petitioned that it be issued. Despite some solid songs \u2013 \u201cLysistrata,\u201d \u201cOne World\u201d and the ballad \u201cOnly Human\u201d \u2013 Swing to the Right<\/i> received mixed reviews, virtually no radio airplay and disappointing sales.<\/p>\n

For his part, Sulton was frustrated and decided to leave for a solo career. \u201cI was a little cocky in terms of what makes a good record,\u201d he admits. \u201cWhat makes a good record is good songs, and at that point in my career \u2013 I was 24 or 25 \u2013 I was still finding my way as a songwriter. I might have bitten off more than I could chew.\u201d His 1982 album Kasim<\/i> didn’t make a ripple in the music world, and Sulton would soon return to Utopia.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Ra (1977) The most durable Utopia lineup now in place, the band made a concerted effort toward internal democracy. Or at least as much of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51,55,56,57,62],"tags":[3548,2228,2299,3549],"class_list":["post-15100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-prog","category-psych","category-rawk","tag-kasim-sulton","tag-todd-rundgren","tag-utopia","tag-willie-wilcox","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-56-id","cat-57-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15100"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15127,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100\/revisions\/15127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}