The first signal of his approach is the abrupt appearance of a small black dog, hauling its thoroughly pregnant belly behind a couch just quickly enough to cause you to disbelieve your eyes. Seconds later, a head pokes around the corner with all the caution of a vaudeville comedian who wants to get the feel of an undetermined audience. Then, assured that the audience is friendly, he falls into a grinning puddle on the couch.

He still wears the look of a neglected British popstar; taller, perhaps, than you might have expected, but thin enough to send any Jewish mother scurrying for the stove. Those unmistakeable sagging eyes are framed with shaggy clumps of hair that show traces of red and yellow streaking through the brown. Though the faded jeans say that today he’s wearing his lounging clothes, the burgundy smoking jacket and shiny silver boots would be proud additions to any tastemaker’s wardrobe. He’s not exactly what you would call pretty in the silver screen sense, but he’s certainly fun to look at.

“Well,” he shrugs when informed that bags overflowing with fan mail had failed to materialize in the previous 24 hours, “the dream’s over. Ah, the fickle public. Now you’ll have to write about me from a nostalgic point of view. The dream is over” he sighs, the sparkle at the corners of his eyes giving immediate lie to the facade of Resignation. Because, of course, the dream is just beginning for Todd Rundgren. He’s been carrying it in his back pocket for a long time now, but 1972 finds the dream and the reality building steady momentum toward a collision course. And somewhere in the middle is Todd Rundgren, just waiting for that explosion.

He’s almost been there on several occasions, falling short yet each time by a shorter measure. And each time, it seems, he has picked himself up off the floor with a smile on his face and a strength that he didn’t possess before the fall. Although these setbacks have revealed to him the wisdom of keeping both his feet firmly planted on the ground, his head is roaming in considerably loftier territory.

You can tell immediately that he is the genuine product of the television enlightenment that Alice Cooper purports to reflect; not necessarily the specific themes (which has been Alice’s long standing cop-out when he couldn’t come up with anything more convincing) but surely the initial flash that introduces the picture to the screen. ELECTRICITY. Which is merely the most accurate way of saying technology. And, coincidentally, what Todd Rundgren happens to be all about.

Mrs. Rundgren: Harry, I’m beginning to worry about Todd . . .

Mr. Rundgren: I dunno. He seems like a perfectly normal boy to me, Denise.

Mrs. Rundgren: Normal? You call sitting in a dark room and watching TV all day long normal? I swear, that boy is going to get droopy eyes from watching so much TV. Why, just last night I found him staring at the fuzzy screen a full two hours after all the stations had signed off. And you know What he told me? That it didn’t matter if there weren’t any shows on because he wasn’t watching the pictures, he was watching the television. Now what do you suppose he meant by that . . .

Mr. Rundgren: Yes dear ... I mean, I don’t know dear . . .

Mrs. Rundgren: And that guitar! When he isn’t watching television, he’s banging away on that instrument and screaming as though he’d just gotten off the African Queen. When I asked him what it was, he just turned to me with a tortured look on his face and said “it’s the blues, woman” and went right back to his banging and screeching. It’s not healthy, I tell you. I hope he hasn’t fallen in with the wrong crowd!

Mr. Rundgren: Yes dear. Would you mind turning on the TV to Channel 2? The Phillies got Robin Roberts pitching against St. Louis . . .

Todd Rundgren’s chord was plugged into Philadelphia, and he has memories of being kicked out of his Upper Darby high school on several occassions for the length of his hair. Remember Todd Rundgren? He was the kid in your high school that you thought was weird, but left alone because he was in a band and, even though your parents had warned you about artistes, you secretly wished that you had the balls to do it too. And now you’re handing the man behind the counter five dollars for that weird kid’s record.

The same people that make you weird sometimes also make you famous. And then smile approvingly when they call you eccentric.

By 1966, weirdness had attained an uneasy respectability of sorts, aided immeasurably if you could play guitar. Which is precisely what Todd did with Woody’s Truckstop, Philadelphia’s first Consciousness Three band. A local legend because they were first in line. Todd introduced slide guitar to the middle-class kids of Philley, all as desperately concerned with paying their dues as was Todd himself. And dues, it turned out, were the best rewards Woody’s Truckstop could offer.

Over its four year lifespan, the band suffered no less than 23 personnel changes. They inevitably got caught up in every counter-cultural current — from Millbrook to macrobiotics — while Todd just stood in the corner and waited for a chance to play some guitar. The Truckstop legend never got much farther than the city limits, and it was inevitable that Todd should leave. He didn’t quite see how the Maharishi would make him a better guitar player.

“When I found out how easy it was to boost your ego by being a guitar player,” he remembers, “I started looking for more challenging ways of boosting my ego. And the Nazz, I guess, was a big part of that.” Having tasted of the apple, the Nazz was Todd’s attempt to take it all in one bite. Even if they never did quite pull it off, they acted from the beginning as if they were already there; living up, as best they could, to the image of success that was set before them.

If Woody’s Truckstop gave Todd his roots', then the Nazz gave him his moves. The Nazz, you see, had more to do with style than music. A Grand Funkian concept to be sure, but, unfortunately, without a Terry Knight. Their clothes were as flashy as the times demanded, and they were immaculately groomed. (They even had hair dryers in their dressing rooms so that they could replenish their perfection between sets.) It was a mail-order marriage between elaborate English decadence and wholesome all-American simplicity. Coincidentally — but only coincidentally — they were an exceptionally fine band.

Once again, however, Todd found himself standing in the corner, waiting impatiently for the light to turn green. The band’s guidance counselors had deemed it unnecessary for them to perform the common labor expected of Ordinary rock and roll bands, so they found themselves with nothing much to do except to sit around and feed their neuroses. But you can’t deny your audience and then expect them to support you, and the Nazz was suffocated by its elitist distance. The kids, it seems, just weren’t willing to buy something they couldn’t see, no matter how attractive it might have looked in the pages of Sixteen. Everybody remembers the Nazz now, although few of them were around at the time.

Scene: A late, late, super-late movie, somewhere in Los Angeles. Announcer: Hello, friends and neighbors, I’m Osten Tatious, and I’m here to tell you about a really fine used musician deal. Here we have a late model Todd Rundgren, seldom on the road and in tip-top condition. He comes equipped with guitar, but is willing to pick up whatever’s necessary. Now wouldn’t he look just dandy in your studio, friends? Energy, enthusiasm and talent: are these what you look for in a good used musician? If so, you’ve sure come to the right place. And today, friends, as a special bonus I’m willing to throw in 3,000 pornographic trading stamps with every purchase. Remember, the number to call is TY 8-7100...”

As frustrating as the experience might have been, the Nazz wasn’t without its lessons. Todd had come a long way toward developing the elements of personal style, had written a lot of nice songs, and had been made painfully conscious of his limitations. He had seen his concept fail largely because there were areas of execution which he hasn’t been prepared to handle. He resolved that the next time — and there was never any doubt but that there would be a next time — the dream would not be beyond his grasp. The only chains he had to break were those of inexperience and naivety, both of which were internal.

So Todd Rundgren disappeared into the studio, grabbing at every opportunity to be able to fool around with those dials, twisting and turning them until the connection fell into place, until it was him. In a short time, his name began appearing on albums by people like The American Dream, Ian & Sylvia, Jesse Winchester, Paul Butterfield and The Band. By the time Badfinger’s second album had arrived and solidified his position as a “name” producer, people began finding out that he’s slipped a couple of his own things in at various points along the line.

He hadn’t intended to keep Runt a secret; it just kinda worked out that way. Runt was the name he devised for a band which consisted of himself and as few other people as possible; they were a band really only insofar as they had a collective name. It was Todd’s show, and the rhythm section (which initially consisted of Hunt and Tony Sales, both sons of Soupy) was his only concession to the fact that he wasn’t quite able to do it all. Still, Runt was Todd Rundgren’s first full-fledged attempt to define himself on his own terms, and a kind of personal yardstick for the distance he’d come as well.

It should have come as no surprise that Todd would reappear as a multi-armed monster. “See,” he says, pointing to the invisible progress chart on the wall, “I’ve been doing it a long time now. Emmitt Rhodes has been doing it for awhile tod, but I was doing it back in the Nazz. I looked at the first Beatles album and saw that ‘oh, they play maracas and congas’ and all those little diddleyshit percussion instruments. And I thought it was cool that they could play more than one instrument, so as soon as I got into the Nazz I began to play piano and stuff like that. And when we were in the studio, I took every opportunity to rent any instrument we could get. So it was really nothing new; I just brought it out into the open a little more.”

He was making some mistaken and hitting an occasional off-note, but this time around at least they were his mistakes. When he fell, it wasn’t because sombody pushed him. The Runt albums, though, were both quite good, showcasing his proficiency at both guitar and keyboards and some exceptional embrionic ideas concerning the application of harmony. At last he seemed to have gained some kind of grip on his talent and experience, fashioning from them a concrete direction.

Runt was never particularly successful on commercial terms. They (and I apply that word very loosely) had a hit single of good proportions — “We Gotta Get You A Woman” — which broke so slowly that the brunt of its impact was effectively diminished. And, they, like the Nazz, were seldom in first-hand contact with their audience, (once, before the first album came out, I can remember one of the G.T.O.’s enthusing to me about a tour they were supposed to do with this magic band called Runt. To my knowledge, neither this nor any Runt tour ever got past the discussion stages.) To top it off, people couldn’t make up their minds whether to call it Todd Rundgren or Runt. Being essentially a studio band, Todd Rundgren was actually more correct than Runt, and, after all, the only body to appear on either album cover did belong to Todd. Ironically, now that Todd’s name is firmly up front, he reports that it’s easier for people to accept his concept of the band. As a matter of fact, Todd found that a lot of things came easier once he became strong enough on his own that he didn’t have to be on his own.

Continued on page 75.

It’s time to rock and roll at My Father’s Place, a smallish booze and hustle joint for Long Island’s hip citizenry, and sitting at the next table is a double mother-daughter combination. The two mothers had chaperoned their offspring in an obvious attempt to protect them from the jungle fever that rock and roll has been known to infest young people with: make sure that the strings of decency are tightly secured.

They sit there solemnly through the first part of the set, sipping at their beers and allowing their daughters cherry cokes. One of the mothers starts tapping her fingers to the music unconsciously, but freezes instantly when a cold stare from her companion makes her aware of it. Neither of them appear to be having a very good time. Their daughters, of course, are enraptured.

Suddenly Todd appears on stage, jumping and laughing and wrenching alien sounds from his guitar. Both mothers stare transfixed at this madman in bright red velvet, neither of them too sure about what’s happening. The one mother’s fingers begin tapping again, but this time she doesn’t try to resist the call of the wild. Halfway through the set she’s banging on the table and singing along to words she’d never heard before. When Todd finishes his last number, she’s on her feet even before her daughter, pulling her shocked companion up with her to scream for more.

And so another convert is won, and we are reminded once again that jock and roll is possessed of a power that could make even the Pope trembly with impure thoughts. Kathryn Kuhlman’s got nothin’ on Todd Rundgren!

Much like his records, the Todd Rundgren roadshow is the product of a self-contained concept. It’s divided into three portions — the Hello People, Cosgrove & Woods, and then Todd himself — a deluxe package that is consciously varied and carefully constructed as to build to a genuine climax. It’s art and it’s showbiz, but mostly it’s fun.

The Hello People have been around for at least four years now, though you’ll probably remember them best if they’re designated as “those crazies in white-face.” They’re expert mimists, and they can do with silente what most rock and roll bands can’t even do with sound. They do play, and quite well, but it is their mime sketches that round out the show so effectively. Tommy Cosgrove and Stu Woods, contrary to what their name implies, are not an emaciated folk duo but a rock and roll twosome. Joined by members of the Hello People, they lay down a slightly Bandish brand of funk that sets up the high energy introduction of Rundgren perfectly. When Todd finally appears on stage, all three portions are joined and ignited by his presence.

For one who has been there so few times, Todd has a remarkable command of stage techniques. Realizing that his guitar is the best prop at his disposal, he works out of a visual dimension apart from any technical proficiency; dancing and jumping just enough to keep your eye focused on the man in the spotlight. His voice Occasionally reflects his lack of stage experience — straining on the more demanding numbers — but that’s the only flaw in his armor. The show doesn’t really have that much to do with his records, it’s a concept of total entertainment. “I want it to be more something people haven’t seen or heard before,” he says, and although he estimates losses on the first tour of from $10-50,000, it’s worth it to haul those extra people along. That, you see, is what makes his show extra-special, and the fact that he wouldn’t have it any other way is certainly reassuring.

And now, ladies and gentleman, a few words from the Hello People:

By the time of Something/Anything, Todd had gained enough confidence in himself that even a bassist and drummer became expendable. The first three sides of the double album, consequently, are exclusively solo moves. In recognition of the fact that the ideas in his head weren’t songs so much as sounds, he plays each instrument for the sound he can produce with it, and not as specific objects with roles to fulfill. This melange of sound might sometimes come off as complex, but that’s not the case at all.

“The whole musical thing,” he explains, “is just a dense arrangement of simple parts. I’m trying to show people what they can do with themselves, and at the same time keep a step ahead of them. Not so much that they can play what’s being played in the music, but just to understand the inherent simplicity in things that seem complicated.”

“It’s really all theory,” he says in reference to his one-man exhibition, “and has very little to do with technique. It’s only the extent to which your theory has developed that dictates how successfully you’ll be able to manage it.”

He plays the studio much the same way that he would play any other instrument. Through his knowlege of the studio he can bypass its supposed sterility and get right to the heart of the matter:

“Records to most people just represent twelve songs on a piece of black plastic, but records are really a whole lifestyle. Something/Anything is a record of experience, but the thing is that I’m bringing the experience into a really specific focus, and the experience is the whole thing that’s creating the experience. It’s not only a record about the experience, it’s a record about recording the experience.

“I’m not doing it because I have to make records. I do it because I feel it’s time for me to make a summation of what I’ve been doing for a certain period of time. I do them only when I have something to say.

“The point is, if it was a hundred years ago, nobody would be uptight about having a record contract. But it’s not a hundred years ago, and for some reason people think you can’t gain musical satisfaction for yourself unless you have records released. And I’ve been having records released for a long time that people never bought, so the only satisfaction I got was taking them home and listening to them myself. And now people are starting to buy my records, but my attitude is the same. My attitude is that I make the music for me and the people that think like me and want to know what I’m thinking. That’s what it’s for.”

Then, sensing that he’s pushing a point farther than he had intended, he takes off on another tangent. “It’s very hard for me to say that what I’m doing is not records. It’s harder for me to say that what I’m doing isn’t even really music, because deep inside of me what I want to do is much greater than music. Music is the way that I understand how to communicate now, the way that I’ve learned how to communicate, and that’s the way I’ll do it now. But it will eventually have to go beyond that.

“You see, I’ve realized that music is not what keeps people involved — it’s the attitude behind the music. So it doesn’t really matter that my voice sometimes gets fucked up on stage, because I’m there with a certain attitude, and I’m only trying to translate that attitude through my music. My equipment may fail me, but the attitude is still there.” That attitude is sometimes called rock and roll.

And remember kids, even popstars have to put up with the same shit as normal people. Todd was hired by Apple to produce the second Badfinger album, but when it came out, two tracks were listed as having been produced by George Harrison. One of them was a very big hit. And Todd still hasn’t been paid for any of it. For Christmas, Allen Klein sent Todd a bottle of wine. Todd’s landlady said it wouldn’t go very far toward paying the rent. Todd sighed and poured himself a glass of wine. Merry Christmas.

Todd Rundgren, it would seem, is a compulsive achiever. Although that might sound like some kind of nightmare neurosis, its effects have not been particularly bad. He has apparently reached a self-awareness that demands further exploration, and this is accompanied by an equally persistent demand that it be communicated. One thing he certainly has enough of is ambition, and at a time when our biggest stars use their success as an excuse to fall asleep, the knowledge that Todd’s ambition will keep him in motion is more than a little assuring.

It seems also that a large part of his following (which can’t help but be huge by the time this magazine reaches you) is based more on personality than music. At Rundgren concerts, for example, the kids scream out request for specific songs, but they never complain about what they get; simply because, to them, Todd is more important than the music. (This, in turn, gives him a certain flexibility in presentation, and it is to his everlasting credit that he uses it to the fullest.) This kind of attention is perfectly natural, because the unavoidable end of the music is Todd Rundgren. He’s exactly the kind of person that a thirteen year old kid would aspire to be; not because of the romantic distance between the kid and his image of the star, but because he’s precisely where you’re at and has even found a way to enjoy it. And even become famous.

“For some reason, I’ve never been more intrigued with anyone’ else’s personality than my own.” Then, as he realizes how potentially pompous that came out sounding, he smiles to let you know that it’s really not as it sounds. “I used to have a very jaded attitude about myself, about how much better I thought I was than anybody else. And then you realize that all that has to happen is for some greaseball to come along in a Mack truck and smear your brains all over the highway, and that’s how much better you are ...”

Which is why, I guess, that humor plays such a natural part in whatever Todd does. A smile is the truest common denominator, the easiest means of touching another person, and so Todd allows you the option of not taking everything too seriously if you can find satisfaction by another avenue. Not that you would ever not take him seriously — he makes it too obvious that he cares — but sometimes it’s important that you just relax and have a good time. Because, when you get right down to it, you’re your own best Todd Rundgren. sgsx