Joe Jackson<\/strong> and many others…on and on.<\/p>\nBut there aren’t just audience bootlegs out there. From his earliest post-Nazz<\/strong> days, Rundgren has appreciated and embraced television and radio performances as a means for reaching potential fans. As such, there are \u201cboard tapes\u201d and\/or professionally recorded documents of pretty much every tour he’s ever done. And as he sought to have the best among these released officially, the trading market has somewhat died down (by and large, Rundgren’s fans are an ethical lot; they want him to profit from his work).<\/p>\nThe latest entry in the \u201cTodd Rundgren Archive Series\u201d is a near-comprehensive collection of his work for the British Broadcasting Corporation. At the BBC 1972-1982<\/em> is a 3CD + 1 DVD set documenting four concerts (three in audio, one audiovisually) and various other related bits and bobs.<\/p>\nThe first disc showcases an early solo gig Rundgren did for BBC’s Radio One. An excellent quality mono recording from 1972 finds Rundgren at the piano, using backing tapes to accompany himself. An experienced studio rat even then, he created \u201ckaraoke\u201d versions of his hits, allowing him to present them in a live onstage manner that combined the precision and arrangement of a recording with the spontaneity of a live show. Of course such an approach is old-hat now, and has been since the dawn of MIDI (musical instrument digital interface), a digital means of syncing multiple sounds sequences. But in 1972 it was innovative stuff.<\/p>\n
Even with the confining nature of the backing tapes, Rundgren delivers an off-the-cuff, intimate performance, most notably on the Something\/Anything?<\/em> tune \u201cPiss Aaron.\u201d Few would count the tune among Rundgren’s best, but his onstage delivery of it is undeniably entertaining. And the inclusion of \u201cBe Nice to Me\u201d from his early album The Ballad of Todd Rundgren<\/em> is a rare and welcome delight. Rundgren even rocks out at the end, turning in a performance of \u201cBlack Maria.\u201d<\/p>\nThe first disc also includes two songs from the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test<\/em> television program(me). These feature the seven-piece Utopia in 1975, performing \u201cReal Man\u201d from his solo album Initiation<\/em>) and \u201cThe Seven Rays,\u201d a highlight of the Utopia Another Live<\/em> LP (The package’s DVD also features a\/v versions of these same two performances).<\/p>\nSpeaking of Another Live<\/em>, the second disc of At the BBC 1972-1982<\/em> is similar but expands upon the content of that set. Utopia’s set of the time (1975) included material from Rundgren’s solo albums in addition to their own songs. The BBC disc features a full concert (or at least something approaching one) in excellent stereo, and as such includes songs that weren’t on the single LP Another Live<\/em> set (recorded elsewhere). Rundgren introduces \u201cFreedom Fighters\u201d as \u201cthe first Utopia single\u201d that was never released. The studio version of the tune was on the group’s debut LP; at nearly six minutes, the live reading here is nearly half again as long as its studio version. Live versions of \u201cThe Last Ride\u201d and \u201cSons of 1984\u201d showed up on other Rundgren albums (Back to the Bars<\/em> and Todd<\/em>, respectively), but here they’re presented in the context of a full Utopia concert. And \u201cSunset Boulevard \/ Le Feel Internacionale\u201d from A Wizard \/ A True Star<\/em> hasn’t been released in a live version before (possibly excepting other archival releases), and it’s a highlight of this set.<\/p>\nBy 1977 and time of the Utopia Radio One \u201cIn Concert\u201d set documented on disc three, Utopia had pared down to a foursome: Rundgren on guitar, Roger Powell<\/strong> on synthesizer, John \u201cWillie\u201d Wilcox<\/strong> on drums, and Kasim Sulton<\/strong> replacing John Siegler<\/strong> on bass (\u201call four boys sing,\u201d as they say). Touring to promote both the transitional album Ra<\/em> and the more mainstream-rock oriented Oops! Wrong Planet<\/em>, the group performed newer material from those albums, with a quick dip into Rundgren’s solo catalog (\u201cLove of the Common Man\u201d from Faithful<\/em>) and the set closer \u201cUtopia Theme.\u201d The tighter, compact lineup meant an emphasis upon shorter, more concise songs, but the band still stretches out instrumentally on some longer pieces.<\/p>\nAs previously mentioned, the fourth disc in the At the BBC 1972-1982<\/em> box set is a DVD. All three sets included are sourced from the TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test<\/em>. The first (mentioned above) features two songs from a 1975 broadcast. The second (from May 1978\u201d documents \u201cThe Bearsville Picnic\u201d (the Albert Grossman<\/strong>-headed Bearsville Records was Todd’s and Utopia’s label at the time) and features the extended \u201cSingring and the Glass Guitar (An Electrified Fairy Tale)\u201d from the proggy Ra<\/em> album.<\/p>\nAnd the final set of performances on this set brings things full circle in a way, featuring Todd solo in 1982, this time without the gimmicky backing as he winds his way through a solo material set. The performance \u2013 featuring Todd variously on acoustic piano and 12-strong acoustic guitar, and even electric \u201cFool\u201d Gibson SG on \u201cTiny Demons\u201d \u2013 highlights songs from his Hermit of Mink Hollow<\/em> LP, and includes the innovative \u201cTime Heals\u201d promo video, one of the earliest clips ever broadcast on MTV (the cable channel had premiered the previous fall). Two songs are included that were recorded but cut from the original broadcast: \u201cThe Song of the Viking\u201d (originally on Something\/Anything?<\/em>) and \u201cLysistrata\u201d (a full group performance of which could be found on Utopia’s Swing to the Right<\/em> album). His reading of \u201cCompassion\u201d (one of his best but least-known songs) is a highlight. Because of the vintage of the video material, it is presented in old format (4:3 ratio) as it was originally broadcast.<\/p>\nEach of the four discs is encased in a mini-LP style sleeve, and the whole affair is in a box slightly larger than a double-CD. A sixteen-page booklet includes photos and an informative essay by Mark Powell<\/strong>.<\/p>\nTaken as a whole, At the BBC 1972-1982<\/em> is essential for the Rundgren fan who must have it all, and recommended equally to the relative novitiate looking for an entry point into Rundgren and Utopia’s large catalog.<\/p>\nYou may also enjoy: my career-spanning critical look at all of Todd Rundgren’s output<\/a> (now quite outdated, but worthwhile nonetheless).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several years back, Todd Rundgren took a proactive approach to the myriad live recordings that exist documenting his long and varied career. A true renaissance man who engenders fierce loyalty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25,47,49,51,55,56,57,62,65],"tags":[2228,2299],"class_list":["post-7472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-dvd","category-multimedia","category-new-release","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-prog","category-psych","category-rawk","category-review","tag-todd-rundgren","tag-utopia","cat-19-id","cat-25-id","cat-47-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-56-id","cat-57-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472","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=7472"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30693,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions\/30693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/todd_bbc.jpg\")
<\/p>\n