{"id":24851,"date":"2023-04-14T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T09:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24851"},"modified":"2023-04-22T21:07:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T01:07:30","slug":"dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/14\/dont-forget-all-about-it-todd-rundgrens-early-days-in-nazz-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Forget All About It: Todd Rundgren\u2019s Early Days in Nazz (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"Stewkey was nominally the group’s lead vocalist, but Todd Rundgren \u2013 the band\u2019s songwriter \u2013 was a singer as well. And Rundgren explains that he had sung lead on much of the material during the planned double-album\u2019s sessions. \u201cProbably too<\/i> much,\u201d he admits. \u201cMost everything that I sang was sappy ballads and stuff, because of my Laura Nyro infatuation. That was affecting my songwriting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rundgren explains that he was taking these more sensitive tunes more personally, and wanted to sing them himself. \u201cHaving two vocalists maybe made for a more interesting record,\u201d he suggests. \u201cBut that was not what the band had originally set out to do.\u201d He emphasizes that the original vision for Nazz was to be \u201ca power quartet like Led Zeppelin or The Who.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tensions within the band combined with the label\u2019s waning interest. \u201cThe band got more and more begrudging about playing some of the material as the project went on,\u201d Rundgren says. And once sessions were completed, Van Osten quit the band in frustration. Rundgren followed suit shortly thereafter; though not yet 21 years old, by that point he felt that his musical path didn\u2019t align with where Nazz was heading (if, indeed, it was heading anywhere). \u201cI got pissed off and left,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the behest of Stewkey and Mooney, the record company pared the collection of songs down to a single LP\u2019s worth, primarily choosing the most uptempo material. Rundgren says that SGC didn\u2019t need much persuading. \u201cThey said, \u2018We’re not putting out a double album, regardless of what’s<\/i> on it.\u2019\u201d He notes that he was not party to decisions regarding which songs would be included or deleted. Released in April 1969, Nazz Nazz<\/i> made it to #80 on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s album chart.<\/p>\n

With Rundgren and Van Osten gone, the band soldiered on for a time with replacement members. But SGC wanted a third album, and so one was compiled from the leftover tracks from the aborted double-album project. That clutch of songs leaned much heavier on Rundgren\u2019s singer-songwriter style, and so while Nazz III<\/i> had plenty of quality material, in places it felt like what it was: a collection of previously-rejected songs.<\/p>\n

And it didn\u2019t make sense to release an album featuring lead vocals from a singer who was no longer in the group, so Stewkey recorded his own lead vocals. Somewhat perversely \u2013 though it does make good sense \u2013 Rundgren was enlisted to prepare a finished mix of Nazz III<\/i> for release. So even though his lead vocals were removed, the album bears the character of a Todd Rundgren production.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly One Winner\u201d bridged the gap between the two styles of Nazz music. A cover of the Paul Revere and the Raiders hit \u201cKicks\u201d injected even more power pop character into the tune. \u201cLoosen Up\u201d was a best-avoided piss-take on Archie Bell and the Drells\u2019 \u201cTighten Up.\u201d The album\u2019s closing track \u2013 and the last word from Nazz \u2013 \u201cYou Are My Window\u201d provided a preview of one of the signature styles that would characterize Rundgren\u2019s first two solo albums, Runt<\/i> and The Ballad of Todd Rundgren<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The post-Rundgren period of Nazz is murky and convoluted; the group morphed into Fuse and then Sick Man of Europe, eventually shaking out in the middle 1970s as Cheap Trick, with none of the original Nazz members involved. (Rundgren, of course, would go on to work with Cheap Trick, producing the Rockford, Illinois band\u2019s underrated Next Position Please<\/i> LP in 1983.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For many years it was believed that the original tapes featuring Rundgren\u2019s lead vocals had been erased or destroyed; the new Lost Masters & Demos<\/i> boxed set proves otherwise. Lacquer acetates of early mixes of tracks used on Nazz Nazz<\/i> and Nazz III<\/i> feature differences from the released versions. Sometimes those differences are subtle; other times they\u2019re significant. And now listeners can hear what some of those songs sounded like with Rundgren\u2019s lead vocal.<\/p>\n

In the past, Rundgren hasn\u2019t demonstrated much enthusiasm to talk about his Nazz years. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I hate it,\u201d he emphasizes, \u201cbut Nazz was so long ago, and it was such a brief story.\u201d Rundgren points out that the time between him co-founding the group and leaving it \u201cwas only about 18 months. But,\u201d he concedes, \u201ca whole lot happened in a short amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rundgren is irreverent when queried about what the future might have held for the band had it stayed together. \u201cI guess the fourth album would have been called Nazz <\/i>Nazz Nazz Nazz<\/i>,\u201d he quips. But then he provides a more thoughtful conjecture. \u201cWe saw ourselves as a more English-type band, more likely to do quirky things,\u201d he says. \u201cWe saw ourselves as maybe doing more conceptual records like the Small Faces\u2019 Ogdens\u2019 Nut Gone Flake<\/i>. But it never got that far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rundgren says that when he left Nazz he found himself \u201con the street with nothing of value except for the fact that I had written these songs.\u201d He notes that the value of publishing rights only became known to him in later years. In light of his subsequent successes, it might seem absurd to think so today, but at that time, Todd Rundgren didn\u2019t see much of a future for himself in music. \u201cI had no prospects until I started working for Albert Grossman\u201d at Bearsville\/Ampex, he says. \u201cThat\u2019s when the experience of making Nazz records became a real asset for me. And it helped my career in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Stewkey was nominally the group’s lead vocalist, but Todd Rundgren \u2013 the band\u2019s songwriter \u2013 was a singer as well. And Rundgren explains that he had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24849,"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-24851","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\/24851","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=24851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25153,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851\/revisions\/25153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}