{"id":24850,"date":"2023-04-13T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24850"},"modified":"2023-04-19T09:02:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T13:02:40","slug":"dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/13\/dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Forget All About It: Todd Rundgren\u2019s Early Days in Nazz (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"With the prevailing Anglophile mindset of the four members of Nazz, however, there was a belief that the producer\u2019s role extended to the sound<\/i> of the record. \u201cWe thought that the producer would instruct the engineer about how the record should sound, according to our opinion,\u201d Todd Rundgren says with a rueful laugh. \u201cThat was a mistake. So it was a surprise to us when Bill Traut spent most of the time in the control room reading the trades.\u201d He points out that the putative producer \u201cwasn\u2019t making any suggestions at all about how things should sound or what we should play.\u201d<\/p>\n

What that meant in practical terms is that Nazz ended up doing most of that work themselves. \u201cEven the contracting,\u201d Rundgren points out, noting that the band hired an orchestra to play on one song, Rundgren\u2019s \u201cIf That\u2019s the Way You Feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once recording was complete on the debut Nazz album, Traut mixed the multi-track recordings for release. \u201cWe were not<\/i> happy with the sound of it,\u201d Rundgren says. So Rundgren took matters into his own hands. \u201cAfter Bill Traut left, that was the first time I ever sat down at a mixing console,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI put my hands all over it, and essentially fumbled my way around until we got the record that we wanted sound-wise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazz<\/i> was a creatively successful album, but it didn\u2019t make much of a dent in the music marketplace. Released in October 1968, it briefly broke into Billboard<\/i> Top 200 Album chart (#118), and a single from the album, the balladeering \u201cHello It\u2019s Me\u201d reached a lowly #66. In those days, because radio programmers and DJs actually chose the songs they played, a single like \u201cHello It\u2019s Me\u201d could become a local hit without breaking out nationally; that happened in the Boston market. Five years later as a solo artist, Rundgren would re-record his original composition in a more uptempo arrangement; this time it would soar to the national #5 spot.<\/p>\n

Another track from Nazz<\/i>, \u201cOpen My Eyes\u201d was the b-side of the single. Taken together, the two tracks represented contrasting sides of the band\u2019s musical character: While \u201cHello It\u2019s Me\u201d was a romantic ballad, \u201cOpen My Eyes\u201d showcased the soaring, proto-power pop character of the group. While \u201cOpen My Eyes\u201d stiffed on the singles chart (Billboard<\/i> #112), the Who-like raver gained belated recognition when Lenny Kaye included it on his influential Nuggets<\/i> compilation album in 1972.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s label, SGC (Screen Gems Columbia) wasn\u2019t interested in promoting a singer-songwriter styled combo; like the band\u2019s manager John Kurland, they wanted a rocking band they could market in teen magazines. Signed to the same record company under a slightly different label \u2013 Colgems (short for Columbia Screen Gems) \u2013 The Monkees had done quite well with that approach. Rundgren says that Kurland did little to book Nazz for live appearances, instead preferring to market the band through color photo spreads in the pages of 16 Magazine<\/i>. \u201cHe was well-connected with what we considered teenybopper magazines,\u201d Rundgren says. \u201cThey wanted to make a \u2018discovery\u2019 out of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rundgren says that he and his band mates were united in their distaste for that approach. \u201cWe were very sensitive about being equated in any way with The Monkees,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were a synthetic product; they were \u2018cast,\u2019 and we were a more or less organic product of our local music scene.\u201d But the band played along with Kurland\u2019s plans. And so even before the release of Nazz<\/i>, the band was featured on the cover of several teen mags.<\/p>\n

That Nazz made two very different styles of music suited songwriter\/guitarist Rundgren just fine; as his subsequent work would vivdly demonstrate, his interest and talents could never be pinned down to a single type of music. But the other band members were less enthused with the ballad-type songs Rundgren was composing; music influenced by Laura Nyro wasn\u2019t in keeping with the harder-rocking inclinations of Mooney, Stewkey and Van Osten. Those simmering conflicts would soon come to a head.<\/p>\n

Rundgren emphasizes that unlike The Monkees, Nazz \u2013 and primarily Rundgren himself \u2013 wrote nearly all of the music featured on the band\u2019s records. As a result, the record company took a more or less hands-off approach to the band. \u201cI think the record label thought that everything that happened after [being on the magazine covers] was going to be automatic,\u201d he says. Rundgren believes that to the SGC brass, \u201cit almost wouldn’t matter what kind of music we made as long as it furthered the whole kind of teeny bopper idol thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But that didn\u2019t fit with Rundgren\u2019s goals. While production on the band\u2019s second album is credited to the group, Rundgren admits that it was mostly him doing the actual production work. \u201cI saw it as my responsibility to organize the project, pretty much telling everybody what to do all the time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And with the benefit of decades of hindsight, he candidly acknowledges that taking on that role caused tensions within the band. \u201cAll of that was contributing to [our] disintegration as we were making the record,\u201d Rundgren says. But he defends his actions: \u201cThat was kind of something I just took for myself, but at the time, I don’t think the other guys were paying that much attention to what the producer and engineer had been doing.\u201d Rundgren recalls that his band mates \u201cdidn’t have a specific objection\u201d until he actually started running the sessions.<\/p>\n

Nazz Nazz<\/i> would feature its share of high-energy, hooky rockers: \u201cForget All About It\u201d hinted at the coming progressive rock wave, \u201cKiddie Boy\u201d was a heavy blues stomper, and \u201cUnder the Ice\u201d delivered power and sophistication to rival The Who and Small Faces. And the epic \u201cA Beautiful Song\u201d laid bare the group\u2019s most musically ambitious tendencies. But Rundgren\u2019s more sensitive musical side came out in many other songs recorded for Nazz\u2019s sophomore release.<\/p>\n

While Rundgren was effectively in charge of the recording sessions, James Lowe (formerly of The Electric Prunes) handled the technical duties as recording engineer on the session. \u201cBy that point, [Lowe] understood what I was going for in terms of sounds, so I didn’t have to mess too much with the console,\u201d Rundgren says.<\/p>\n

But when it came to mixing the tracks, Rundgren dove in. \u201cI preferred to get hands-on with it,\u201d he says. The experience of mixing Nazz Nazz<\/i> was effectively the beginning of Todd Rundgren\u2019s technical studio career.<\/p>\n

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

Continued from Part One… With the prevailing Anglophile mindset of the four members of Nazz, however, there was a belief that the producer\u2019s role extended to the sound of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24848,"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-24850","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\/24850","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=24850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25142,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24850\/revisions\/25142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}