TODD RUNDGREN - HERMIT OF MINK HOLLOW @ 45

 

Released 45 years ago this month, it’s Todd Rundgren’s 8th studio album, the very literally titled Hermit Of Mink Hollow, which was issued in May of 1978. After his excursions into the far reaches of progressive experimentation and excess with his band, Utopia, and solo albums like A Wizard, A True Star, this album found the eccentric genius in an introspective and minimalist mood, stripping back his style to a kind of accessibility which hadn’t been heard since 1972’s Something / Anything.

At the time the album was produced, Rundgren had recently ended a serious romantic relationship and was looking to regroup in a more private setting. He also wanted to simplify his arrangements to the bare bones of drums, bass, piano and vocals, with the emphasis on the last, for which he’d developed some new techniques while out on the road with Utopia. Ensconcing himself in his home studio at Mink Hollow Road in Lake Hill, New York, Rundgren set about creating the album entirely on his own, producing and playing everything, with only the occasional visit from engineer Mike Young. That “do it yourself” approach proved to be somewhat tedious at times, especially with the drums set up in the basement while the control room was upstairs. With no remote controls for the recorder available, Todd would have to bolt up and down the stairs to activate the machine and get the recording done. If he made a mistake, he’d have to dash back upstairs to reset the tape machine.

To help relieve some of the tedium, Rundgren would approach particular instruments and recordings by adopting “characters”. For example, he might imagine himself as Paul McCartney for a particular bass part, channeling characteristic runs and fills after the musician. Songs were generally built up from the drums & bass, with vocals coming in as the final element. After having gone through a breakup, Rundgren’s lyrics tended to be more intimate and confessional, though he later denied that they were directly biographical in nature.

Upon its release, the album received mostly positive critical reviews, with many noting his “return to form” with more modest and accessible pop sensibilities dominating the proceedings. The album performed reasonably well on the charts and the single, Can We Still Be Friends, became his most frequently covered composition, with versions by Robert Palmer, Rod Stewart, Colin Blunstone, and Mandy Moore.

TODD RUNDGREN - A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR @ 50

 

Released 50 years ago today, it’s the fourth solo album from Todd Rundgren, A Wizard - A True Star, which hit the record shops on March 2nd, 1973. After the pop chart success of Todd’s previous record, this album saw him veer off into some far more challenging and experimental avenues than where he’d gone before. It was an album inspired by Rundgren’s indulgences in psychedelic drugs and his desire to bring the music he was hearing in his head out into the world.

With limited exceptions, the entire album was created from the ground up by Rundgren, who wrote, performed and produced most of it save for a few bits and pieces here and there. It’s the kind of approach which would be of direct inspiration to young talents like Prince, who often cited Rundgren as a key touchstone. Todd envisioned the album to function as a kind of “flight plan” for a psychedelic trip, carefully crafting it so that each track progressed from one to the next in a seamless manner. No singles were released from the album as Rundgren wanted the LP to be considered as a whole.

After the success of his previous record, Something/Anything, Rundgren began to feel uncomfortable with the praise he was receiving and the comparisons being made to past classics. When he returned to NYC in 1972, he began experimenting with psychedelic drugs for the first time in his life. To his recollection, this included DMT, mescaline, psilocybin, and possibly – but not certainly – LSD. These inner journeys caused him to question his prior work, coming to the conclusion that the simple pop songs he’d made his name on were lacking in effort and true creativity, often feeling formulaic and perfunctory. This realization made him determined that his next record would be far more eclectic and experimental. He explained, "It wasn't like I suddenly threw away everything that I was doing before and decided that I was going to play the music of my mind", rather, the experiences allowed him "to actively put some of my songwriting habits away and to absorb new ideas and to also hear the final product in a different way." However, he "wasn't really aware, at that time, that I'd make such a radical shift".

To record the album, Rundgren and keyboardist Moogy Klingman established a professional recording studio, Secret Sound, to accommodate the Wizard sessions. Located at Manhattan's 24th Street, the studio was designed to Rundgren's specifications and was created so that he could freely indulge in sound experimentation without having to worry about hourly studio costs. During these sessions, Rundgren came to certain revelations, like the idea that the general approach to synthesizers, which was to try to make them sound like traditional instruments, was completely misguided. He realized the instrument had the potential to sound like ANYTHING and that limiting it to pale imitations of horns or strings was a waste of its potential. Rundgren assembled o plethora of instruments in the studio, including vibraphones, organs, keyboards, Fairchild equalizers, and his Stephens 16-track machine. As much as he was able, he’d work by himself, but in some instances, particular songs required others to be available. In these cases, he’d recruit Moogy & the Rhythm Kingz, a band that included drummer John Siomos, keyboardist Ralph Schuckett, and bassist John Siegler. Rundgren encouraged the musicians to contribute any ideas they felt would benefit the music. According to Siegler, "when Todd needed guys to play on his record, we were already there. It was like a club. Secret Sound was our clubhouse, and suddenly Todd was the leader of the club.”

Stylistically, the album runs the gamut from prog & psychedelic rock to Broadway show tunes, bubblegum pop, Philadelphia soul, jazz and funk. The album’s flow is somewhat of an expression of musical ADD, with Rungren unconcerned about the apparent completeness of his ideas, flitting about from one to the next with sometimes abrupt transitions. Regardless, the album is intended to have a specific flow to it, beginning in a kind of chaos and then evolving through a sense of “utopian” idealism, culminating in a medley of Todd’s favorite Philly soul tunes. Music writer Bob Stanley commented that, with Wizard, Rundgren combined all his musical loves, such as "bits of Gershwin, Weimar cabaret and a fight between electronic dogs", into "a red-blooded synth stew".

With the runtime of the album pushing the hour mark, making it one of the longest single disc LPs ever engineered, mastering the vinyl became something of a technical challenge. Most records tend to stay below the 20 minute mark per side, maybe pushing a few minutes beyond that in a pinch. The longer the runtime, the less spacing you can have between the grooves. To accommodate this, the volume level of the mastering had to be dropped, which compromised the sound quality. The liner notes on the album actually address this and advise listeners to increase playback volume to compensate.

Upon its release, the album was met with critical praise, but its eccentric nature knocked it out of contention for much commercial viability, causing it to sell poorly compared to his previous records. Yet commercial success was never the point of the album for Rundgren. After this, he’d spend much of the decade further pursuing his progressive passions with his super-group, Utopia, releasing several albums with them and touring with an elaborate stage show. Todd’s success as a record producer would earn him more than enough commercial success to enable his indulgences on more adventurous projects as a performer.

FANNY - MOTHER’S PRIDE @ 50

 

Celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this month is the fourth and penultimate album from rock’s premier major label all girl group, Fanny, with Mother’s Pride, which was released in February of 1973. It was also the last album to feature original members June Millington (guitar) & Alice DeBuhr (drums), With the help of producer Todd Rundgren, it was arguably their most sophisticated album, though perhaps not their hardest rocking effort.

After their stint in London to record their their third album, Fanny Hill, at the illustrious Abbey Road Studios, they were back on American soil and ensconced in Todd Rundgren’s Secret Sound Studio in New York City for their next LP. When it came time to pick a producer, Todd was the only name all the band members could agree on, at least as far as people who were available. Todd’s approach with the band was to move them away from the hard rock sound of the previous records and into a more pop friendly feel. Ultimately, this ended up being at odds with some members of the group, who were hoping for a more raw, rockin' sound. Both June and Jean Millington felt the end result was overproduced and they were also resentful that he was so guarded about the production process, shutting the band out of the mixing process entirely. While this resulted in disappointment for some in the band, critically, the response was mostly very favorable, with many finding the combination of Fanny’s music with Rundgren’s production sophistication a perfect marriage. Personally, I find it hard to argue with Todd’s results as he managed to bring out a layered and varied complexity to their performances and songwriting that weren’t as apparent on their previous records. The exception to that being the off key vocals from Alice DeBuhr on Solid Gold, which were reportedly recorded when she was off-her-face drunk. Even there, however, Rundgren’s production prowess manages to make it seem deliberate enough to work in the finished mix.

As richly loaded with quality music and performances as the album is, it didn’t help break the group in any meaningful way. The tensions of the recording process and the industry in general ultimately proved too much for June and Alice and the group fractured with them jumping ship to leave bassist/sister Jean Millington and keyboardist Nickey Barclay holding the bag to reconstitute the band. They’d pull it together to record one final album with original drummer, Brie Howard, and new guitarist, Patti Quatro. As Fanny faded into obscurity by the back half of the ’70s, the beauty of this album was lost for a long time until the past few years, when a revival of interest in the group brought a new wave of appreciation for their pioneering efforts.

TODD RUNDGREN - SOMETHING / ANYTHING @ 50

 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this month is Todd Rundgren’s third solo album, Something / Anything, which was released in February of 1972. It marked the peak of his success on the pop charts and also the end of his indulgence in that particular music form, at least for his own works.

By the time this album came about, knocking out catchy 3 minute pop songs was becoming too easy for Rundgren and he didn’t want to be just another “singer/songwriter”. He was also somewhat frustrated with the studio musicians he’d been working with, so he set about recording the entire album, from the ground up, on his own. He wanted to play every instrument and utilize multi-tracking to allow him to build them up, one by one. Three quarters of this double LP was done like this with Rundgren starting on the drums and humming the song in his head in order to figure out where to put in changes and fills. From there, he’d add in bass, guitars, keyboards and whatever else until he’d built out the song enough to add vocals. If he made a mistake and put something in the wrong place, he merely changed the arrangement to incorporate the mistake rather than keep rerecording to conform to the original arrangement. It was a process of essentially working in the dark and trying to anticipate where a song would go, leaving spaces for subsequent overdubs to fill in. He also didn’t use a click track, so the end result was actually very “live” and natural sounding, though he admits if he had used one, his performances might have been a bit tighter. Even though he wasn’t particularly adept at some of the instruments he was approaching for the first time, he was confident enough in the cumulative results to feel like he’d managed to communicate his idea sufficiently so that any deficiencies in his performances simply weren’t noticeable or relevant.

Most of the work was done at I.D. Sound Studios in LA, though he also set up an 8 track system in his his rented home on Astral Drive in Nichols Canyon. Working there allowed him to take his time with some things, like programming his VCS3 synthesizer, without worrying about wasting anyone’s studio time. It also allowed him to be a workhorse, taking minimal time for breaks or eating. Though he was constantly in high gear, it wasn’t a stress for him and he attributed his productivity to a combination of Ritalin and cannabis, stating that the drugs "caused me to crank out songs at an incredible pace." Work continued in LA until an earthquake hit and Todd decided to relocate to the Record Plant in NYC for the next set of sessions to complete the album. Once there, rather than continue on in the one-man-band mode, he went and flipped the script and hired a gaggle of local session musicians to work on the final suite of tracks, recording each live in the studio after only minimal rehearsals. The results constitute a “Pop Operetta” which became known as “Baby Needs A New Pair Of Snakeskin Boots”. Final recording, mixing and overdubs were done at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock.

Reception for the album after it’s release was exceptionally positive and the album spawned hit singles including I Saw the Light, It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference and Hello It’s Me. However, as previously mentioned, this album was the endpoint for Todd insofar as delivering radio friendly pop music. From here, he’d take a hard left into progressive rock territory, particularly when he founded his band, Utopia, and on his next solo album, A Wizard, A True Star. Todd has been a mercurial creative powerhouse throughout his career and he made making hit records seem like child’s play before he sped off into other directions, though his production stamp graced many popular records throughout his career.