“For most artists, it would always be in the back of their minds that if they didn’t sell records it would be the end of their career,” he said. Meanwhile, at Secret Sound, and then in a home studio upstate (“New York to me is a monkey house”), Rundgren, eschewing earlier pop success, made experimental records of his own. You would take velvet and ball it up, tie it up in twine, and boil it until it got permanently wrinkled.” He went on, “I was designing lights for a discothèque, doing anything I could to survive, because I didn’t know what I’m doing next. There was a boutique down on Christopher Street called Stone the Crows. “I was spending my days in the Village with clothing designers. “I recall our excursions starting in Brooklyn, looking for an affordable place, and by the time we found something it was in Great Neck, on Long Island.” He left Nazz after a year and a half. “We were a dress-up band, a glam band,” he said. Rundgren, originally from the Philadelphia area, came to New York in late 1967 with his band, Nazz. “I’d have one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. We wired it all up ourselves, did our own soldering.” Someone had given him a shoebox of peyote buttons. By then, I was getting a budget to make my next record.” His previous album-the one with the hit “Hello It’s Me”-had done well, so he spent the budget on equipment instead of studio time. “He had the loft space and was living there,” Rundgren said. The bar in Chelsea was on the ground floor of the building where, fifty years ago, he set up his first recording studio, Secret Sound, with Moogy Klingman. They live on the island of Kauai his wife owns a tiki bar. “I actually have my wife’s spare in case I need an Uber,” he said. He arranges his own travel, to avoid the tour bus and the COVID risk. Known in his youth as Runt, he’s sturdier now, with long two-tone hair and a vibe that manages to be both beatific and bearish. He was in a bar in Chelsea, on a day off from the Bowie tour (twelve gigs in thirteen nights), sipping what he called a Ukrainian Mule. ![]() At this point, I’m kind of tributed out.” “I’ve already determined that I’m not doing any more Beatles,” he said the other day. ![]() ![]() This on the heels of a few Beatles-tribute tours. Todd Rundgren, the record producer, sound engineer, songwriter, and recording artist, has had such a strange career in the music business that it somehow does not seem strange that, at seventy-four, he has been performing in a David Bowie tribute band.
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