{"id":24843,"date":"2023-04-12T05:30:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T09:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24843"},"modified":"2023-04-13T07:18:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T11:18:58","slug":"dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/12\/dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Forget All About It: Todd Rundgren\u2019s Early Days in Nazz (Part 1 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For many decades now, Todd Rundgren has enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as one of popular music\u2019s most restless and versatile artists. His large body of work spans multiple genres: rock, soul, pop, blues, hip-hop, fusion, progressive, psychedelic, ambient, EDM and more. He has scored high-profile pop success several times (most notably with 1973\u2019s \u201cHello It\u2019s Me\u201d and \u201cCan We Still Be Friends\u201d from 1978 and again with \u201cBang the Drum All Day\u201d in 1983). And those credits don\u2019t even begin to tell his story: an accomplished producer, he has worked behind the recording console for hit albums by Meat Loaf, XTC, Badfinger, Psychedelic Furs and dozens of others.<\/p>\n

A technology pioneer, Rundgren developed an early version of the computer paint software, and he was a video innovator: his Utopia Studio was one of the first significant studios dedicated to music video. And lest we forget, his groundbreaking \u201cTime Heals\u201d was one of the first videos broadcast on MTV.
\nMore than 52 years after releasing his solo debut LP (Runt<\/i>, featuring the minor hit single \u201cWe Gotta Get You a Woman\u201d), Rundgren is as vital an artist as ever. During the pandemic, he mounted a \u201cvirtual tour,\u201d bringing geofenced live performances to a succession of North American cities. And the 74 year old\u2019s most recent studio album, Space Force<\/i> finds him collaborating with fellow innovators from across the musical landscape.<\/p>\n

But Rundgren\u2019s musical career didn\u2019t begin with his first solo album; at the time of making Runt<\/i>, Rundgren was employed as a staff engineer and producer at Ampex Records; in that role he worked sessions for a number of projects including Stage Fright<\/i>, the third LP from The Band. Yet even those activities didn\u2019t mark the start of his professional era in music. The real roots of Todd Rundgren\u2019s musical journey trace back to a rock band he co-founded in 1967, Nazz. That Philadelphia group would release three albums, and many of the strains of artistry found within Rundgren\u2019s work germinated during his brief time with the group. The band\u2019s three albums (artlessly titled Nazz<\/i>, Nazz Nazz<\/i> and Nazz III<\/i>) remain available today, but in recent months they\u2019ve been joined by a new archival release. Lost Masters & Demos<\/i> collects rare and\/or previously unheard recordings from the sessions that yielded the band\u2019s second and third albums.<\/p>\n

On the occasion of that release from Purple Pyramid Records, Rundgren spoke with me about his earliest days in music.<\/p>\n

Modeled after intelligent and high-energy British bands like The Who, Nazz was a progenitor of the style that would become known as power pop. (In 1967, the label hadn\u2019t entered wide usage, though The Who\u2019s guitarist\/songwriter Pete Townshend may have been one of the first to use the label to describe his own group\u2019s music.) Nazz featured keyboardist Robert \u201cStewkey\u201d Antoni on lead vocals, bassist Carson Van Osten, drummer Thom Mooney, and Todd Rundgren on guitar and songwriting. Van Osten and Rundgren co-founded the group; the two had played together previously in a local Philly band, Woody\u2019s Truck Stop.<\/p>\n

Record promoter John Kurland was hired by the group’s original management to handle PR for the new band; in short order he took over as Nazz\u2019s manager. But his approach to promotion didn\u2019t follow the common wisdom. \u201cHe had this weird theory,\u201d Rundgren recalls. \u201cIf we went out on the road too early, he could only ask for so much money. But if we waited and went out later when we had a record, then he could ask for more money. And ostensibly, we’d be a big hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem \u2013 or one<\/i> of the problems \u2013 with that theory, Rundgren says, is that Nazz hardly ever played live. And when Kurland did book the band a concert date, it still felt wrong. \u201cWe never went through the collective \u2018us-against-the-world\u2019 initiation that a lot of bands have to go through when they go out on the road,\u201d Rundgren says. \u201cOur lack of road experience was ultimately a factor in the breakup.\u201d But that was still a year and half away. In the meantime, Nazz had to begin its recording career.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The first Nazz album was produced by Bill Traut, whose previous work included production duties for The Shadows of Knight and The American Breed. Rundgren is on record as being dissatisfied with some of Traut\u2019s production on Nazz<\/i>, but today he admits that in the mid 1960s, the role of a record producer wasn\u2019t altogether clear and established.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were making our first record, the job of producer was going through an evolutionary shift,\u201d Rundgren explains. \u201cBefore the Beatles, nobody knew what a producer was. They didn’t ever pay any attention to the producer credits on the record until George Martin.\u201d Around that time, Rundgren says, \u201cpeople started to become aware that, \u2018Oh, there’s this other person who’s kind of supervising the making of the record.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Associate producer for the album was British-born Chris Huston, a musician himself and former guitarist for Liverpool band The Undertakers. And while Rundgren wasn\u2019t thrilled with Traut\u2019s work, he held Huston in high regard. Rundgren describes Huston\u2019s approach to recording as \u201cpretty liberal. He didn\u2019t mind if I snooped around to watch what he was doing.\u201d Huston became Nazz\u2019s engineer of choice. But on Nazz<\/i>, Huston wasn\u2019t calling the shots. Unfortunately, according to Rundgren, neither was Traut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a difference between English producers like George Martin and American producers,\u201d Rundgren says. \u201cIn Hollywood or wherever a recording metropolis was, an American producer would hire everybody who made the record. He would book the studio. Because most artists did not write their own material, he would hire a songwriter. He would hire an arranger and a contractor; the contractor\u2019s principal job was to make sure that everybody showed up on time, did their job, and got finished in three hours.\u201d Rundgren likens that understanding of the job of record producer to what a movie producer does.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue\u2026<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many decades now, Todd Rundgren has enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as one of popular music\u2019s most restless and versatile artists. His large body of work spans multiple genres: rock, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,55],"tags":[1563,2228],"class_list":["post-24843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-powerpop","tag-nazz","tag-todd-rundgren","cat-41-id","cat-55-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24843","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=24843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25130,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24843\/revisions\/25130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}