Production, Video and Other Work
In addition to his own recordings, Rundgren has engineered and/or produced albums for many notable acts. Sparked by his dissatisfaction with the sound quality of the Nazz albums, Rundgren learned how to engineer and master his own records and since 1970 he has overseen production of all his solo recordings and those by Utopia. His earliest outside credits were as producer on a long-unreleased Janis Joplin track (recorded with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) and as recording engineer for the LP Stage Fright by The Band (1970). Other notable production credits include Halfnelson (first incarnation of Sparks), New York Dolls, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, Ian and Sylvia (on their "Great Speckled Bird" album), Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, Shaun Cassidy, The Tubes, Tom Robinson Band, XTC, Bad Religion, John Sloman, Cheap Trick, Hello People, Hiroshi Takano, Bourgeois Tagg, Dragon (aka Hunter), 12 Rods, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Psychedelic Furs, Steve Hillage, The American Dream, and many others.
The difficult XTC sessions produced the album Skylarking (1986), now considered a high point for band and producer despite its acrimonious origin. Rundgren's production of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell (1977) (on which he also played lead guitar) helped that album become one of the top selling LPs released in the 1970s. The industry regard for Rundgren's production work has been a lofty one: Jim Steinman, with whom Rundgren worked on Bat Out of Hell, has said in interviews, that "Todd Rundgren is a genius and I don't use that word a lot."
Rundgren has long been on the cutting edge of music and video technologies. His music video for the song "Time Heals" was among the first videos aired on MTV, and a video he produced for RCA, accompanied by Gustav Holst's The Planets, was used as a demo for their videodisc players. His experience with computer graphics dates back to 1981, when he developed one of the first computer paint programs, dubbed the Utopia Graphics System; it ran on an Apple II with Apple's digitizer tablet. He is also the co-developer of the computer screensaver system Flowfazer.
In the 1990s, Rundgren was an early adopter of the NewTek Video Toaster and made several videos with it. The first, for "Change Myself" from 2nd Wind, was widely distributed as a demo reel for the Toaster; he also used the system for videos from No World Order (songs "Fascist Christ" and "Property"). Later, he set up a company to produce 3D animation using the Toaster; this company's first demo, "Theology" (a look at religious architecture through the ages featuring music by former Utopia bandmate Roger Powell) also became a widely-circulated item among Toaster users. Most of Rundgren's Toaster work is available on the video compilation The Desktop Collection.
Rundgren composed music for the 1986 TV series Pee-wee's Playhouse and Crime Story as well as the movies "Undercover" (a/k/a "Under Cover") (1987), and Dumb and Dumber (1994), plus background cues for several other TV shows. He hosted a syndicated radio show called "The Difference" in the early 1990s.
In 1986 he sang a duet with Bonnie Tyler: Loving You's a Dirty Job but Somebody's Gotta Do It, released (also as a single) on Bonnie's album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire.
As the Internet gained mass acceptance in the mid-1990s Rundgren, along with longtime manager Eric Gardner and Apple digital music exec Kelli Richards, started Patronet, which offered fans (patrons) access to his works-in-progress and new unreleased tracks in exchange for a subscription fee, cutting out record labels. The songs from Rundgren's first Patronet run were later released as the album One Long Year. Since then, Rundgren has severed his connections with major record labels and continues to offer new music direct to subscribers via his website, although he also continues to record and release CDs through independent labels. (However, as of November 2007, the PatroNet.com website offers the following message: "PatroNet is undergoing a major software revision and is not accepting memberships at this time.")
Rundgren produced the 1999 debut album for the band Splender, entitled Halfway to the Sky.
In the summer of 2001, Rundgren joined artists such as Alan Parsons, The Who's John Entwistle, Heart's Ann Wilson and Ambrosia's David Pack for the successful "A Walk Down Abbey Road" tour, in which the musicians played their own hits alongside Beatles favorites. They also did a short tour of Japan in Winter of 2001. John Entwistle's guitarist/vocalist, Godfrey Townsend acted as musical director for the tours and stayed on for the following year's "sequel" tour, which included Todd and Parsons returning, with a slightly changed lineup which featured Jack Bruce of Cream, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, Christopher Cross and Eric Carmen. Godfrey also brought drummer/vocalist Steve Murphy on board for "A Walk Down Abbey Road's" 2002 Summer tour.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks Rundgren created the score for the film 'A Face to a Name', directed by Douglas Sloan (filmmaker). The film depicted the many photographs of NY's missing, that were displayed on Bellevue Hospital's 'wall of prayers' following the attacks. The film was part of a special screening at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2002.
Rundgren toured the US and Europe in 2004 with Joe Jackson and the string quartet Ethel, appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing their collaborative cover of the Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". (video)
In 2009, Rundgren produced Cause I Sez So by the New York Dolls. In October, in one of the last concerts at the famed Wachovia Spectrum, Rundgren and Philadelphia area musicians The Hooters and Hall & Oates headlined a concert titled "Last Call". Tickets were as low as $6.00, the deep discount reflected ticket prices in 1967, when the Spectrum first staged concerts.
The year also included a lecture at DePauw University in Indiana, in which he discussed "Music, Technology and Risk-Taking".
In late-October to early-November 2010, Rundgren was the IU Class of 1963 Wells Scholars Professor at Indiana University. He taught a course with IU Professor Glenn Gass entitled 'The Ballad of Todd Rundgren'.
Read more about this topic: Todd Rundgren
Famous quotes containing the words video and/or work:
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“Work is a responsibility most adults assume, a burden at times, a complication, but also a challenge that, like children, requires enormous energy and that holds the potential for qualitative, as well as quantitative, rewards. Isn’t this the only constructive perspective for women who have no choice but to work? And isn’t it a more healthy attitude for women writhing with guilt because they choose to compound the challenges of motherhood with work they enjoy?”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)