this is one of my favorite songs of all time

[Super 10]

todd rundgren was a true musician

 

[0000]

I don't like him much, but wasn't he in a band called Nazz or something like that... I like a few of those songs

 

[runtfan]

Yeah, "Hello It's Me" is a great tune. Obviously, by my username, you can tell I'm a huge Rundgren freak. I've been a huge fan since I first saw Utopia in 1981 and have seen him about 15 times since then...even got to meet him a couple of times.

eberg15101 - you're right, Todd Rundgren was the songwriter/lead guitarist for The Nazz - a very underappreciated late 60's band.

 

[LG]

I'm not a big fan of Todd's, but he is one of the "Smartest" people in rock music period. I watched a documentary celebrating the making of Jim Steinman's magnum opus "Bat Out Of Hell", which was produced by Todd and Steinman went on record as saying he was a genius.

I do like that song Super 10, and Runtfan, I never knew that was why you picked your name...

 

[Truckin]

I liked several of his songs such as Hello It's Me, Real Man, I Saw the Light. I also was in to Utopia which was another Rundgren project.

But I have to give him credit the most for taking over the direction of Badfinger's album Straight Up. When Harrison left to do the Bangladesh project he didn't return to finish the Badfinger album so they gave it to Todd.

Although production credit for individual songs on the album is given to both Rundgren and Harrison, Rundgren did the final mix of the entire album (and was upset that he was given neither a co-production nor a mixing credit for any of the Harrison songs).**



** from Wiki..so take the part about being upset with a grain of salt as far as being the truth.

 

[LG]

I didn't know that Truckin', why wouldn't they give him the credit? Except maybe Harrison's stature took precedence in that instance.

I seem to remember that Todd also built his own recording, studio that was way ahead of it's time, he was not satisfied with the average ones available back then.

 

[Super 10]

I'm not a big fan of Todd's, but he is one of the "Smartest" people in rock music period. I watched a documentary celebrating the making of Jim Steinman's magnum opus "Bat Out Of Hell", which was produced by Todd and Steinman went on record as saying he was a genius.

I do like that song Super 10, and Runtfan, I never knew that was why you picked your name...

lol no i made my name after my favorite transmission to drive, im a truck driver and drive a super 10 speed volvo

 

[Truckin]

I didn't know that Truckin', why wouldn't they give him the credit? Except maybe Harrison's stature took precedence in that instance.

I seem to remember that Todd also built his own recording, studio that was way ahead of it's time, he was not satisfied with the average ones available back then.

It's hard to say why Todd didn't get more recognition for this album. The only reason I could think of was because it was on the Beatles Apple label??

I found this review from Rolling Stone from back in 1972. The reviewer totally trashed the album. Now me and him don't see things the same way. Straight Up is one of my favorite classic rock albums. Link:

http://www.superseventies.com/spbadfinger3.html

I also found this extract from an interview with Todd:

Q: Did you have much exposure to Badfinger’s music before working with them?

T: Yeah. I liked “No Matter What” I thought it was a good record. I thought they were obviously ‘Beatles lite’. The band was a little dejected after all this time. Essentially they said “just take whatever we’ve got and we’ll record some new stuff and make an album out of this”. I could have started over and recorded everything over. Instead of doing that I evaluated the various tapes that they had. I think Geoff Emerick had done some stuff on eight track and the stuff they did with George was on sixteen track. I re-recorded stuff like the drums on “Day After Day”. On “Day After Day” Ringo and George were playing together and they were into the wet rag drum thing. They had towels all over the drums and that particular song I think sounded like shit. So I made them record all the drums over and various other things and remixed it. The reason George didn’t finish the record was because he got sucked up into the “Bangladesh” thing. I remember during the course of it meeting George for the one and only time I ever met him. They were having a listening party for the “Bangladesh” record at Apple Studios. He said “ Yeah, I just kind a gave up on it. i didn’t have the time to finish it, so use the stuff or don’t use the stuff or do anything you want to with it, I don’t care, I’m out of the project”. So I reworked and mixed it and he(George) took one hundred percent credit including royalties (laughs). I’ve never had a high opinion about him since then. We did about half the songs from scratch. We didn’t do any of the recording at Apple. We did other studios were we could get into-places like Trident and Morgan. I think there were about six original songs. We used two of the tracks that Geoff Emerick started as well but he got no credit at all.

I wish I still had my original Straight Up album cover. I keep seeing all kinds of references to Todd being the producer of the album on the internet but I can't remember what the original cover said.

 

[rtbuck]

I like Rundgren,especially the Utopia stuff. I got into Rundgren & Utopia after hearing Adventures in Utopia on a radio station when they played the album in its entirety back when it first came out. Rundgren also produced the NY Dolls debut album.
I can't believe that horrible review of 'Straight Up'. I thought Straight Up picked right up where 'No Dice' left off & I don't know which one of the two I like better.
"No Matter What" is my favorite song of all-time but "Baby Blue" is such an awesome tune.'No Dice' had "Without You" but 'Straight Up' had "Day After Day".
No Dice had "Bloodwyn" but Straight Up had "Suitcase". I could go on with the 2 albums but for me what it boils down to is that the songs are so strong on both albums that they are equal & the 2 could have been released at the same time as a 2 record set.