Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?

Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? was pretty much ubiquitous throughout the 70's.  Almost everyone had it, or if you didn't have your own copy, you knew five people that did.  The biggest hit was Hello It's Me, which was probably Todd's biggest hit in his storied career.  I always thought it was interesting that the album had this one massive, mellow hit on it and then when people would buy it, it had three sides of just Todd doing whatever it was he wanted to do, and one side of a very loose studio session (which is where Hello It's Me came from).  Whatever it was, people loved it, though.

I remember a couple of older girls from when I was a sophomore, and they were friends of one of my best friends' older brother.  The one girl lived in an old house owned by a woman who was a councilman in our city, and absolutely one of the coolest old hippie ladies that ever walked the planet. The old house was huge, and the upstairs was a place where girls without families lived.  I don't know if it was a foster thing or what it was, because not all the girls went to my school (even though it was within walking distance).  The girl I knew was Chinese, and I think she had a family, but they were in China.  She had lived in the US for most of her life, I think with an uncle or aunt and I think they died and she wound up here.  She had what these days would be considered a horribly racist nickname, and she was really a cool chick.  She had her own car, got killer grades and worked and I think she paid her own way through college.

Her best friend was my friend's brother's biggest crush.  It really pissed him off the first time we all went to the big house to party and I knew her and got a big hug.  We had a lot to talk about because our fathers were both in the school district athletic department.  We had seen each other at functions for years, and we were close to the same age and most of the other kids that always had to go were much younger.  So we hung out, sneaked smokes and talked about music while pot lucks and awards ceremonies raged in the background.  So we had a lot of catching up to do, and she was impressed that I was good at getting alcohol together, even on weeknights.

My first order of business at any one's house was pretty much to attack their record crate and try not to be too much of a snob about what was in it.  There was a lot of slightly mellower 70's rock, and a lot of Todd.  I always loved Something/Anything? because it was such a sprawling project and it seemed to have either really mediocre songs, or really great ones.  The great ones are unbelievably great, like Couldn't I Just Tell You, I Saw the Light and Black Maria.  I really love Black Maria, and I can remember grabbing the album out of the box, and saying, "Hey, can we play side 3?"  We were all pretty buzzed, and the girls out voted me and stuck on side 4.

So I figured it was because they wanted to hear Hello It's Me, and I'm okay with that. There's some other stuff that's a little raunchy and funny on there, and I'm thinking it will be funny to see what they do when those songs come on.  Because teenage me had no fucking clue that other people actually listened to their albums, just like I did.

So the girls change the lyrics to you Left Me Sore to something I was pretty sure you needed to be a fifteen year old boy to find funny, and were dancing on the bed, spilling beer and ashtrays and singing at the top of their lungs to Slut.  I learned a lot about teenage girls that night.  I learned that I didn't know anything about teenage girls, and that I wanted to know teenage girls like these two.  I also learned that older brothers are dumb and I'm glad I don't have any.

So while I'm listening to my copy I pulled out the insert with the lyrics and personnel on it and I notice that there's a little star drawn next to the titles of some of the songs, like *It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference and *It Takes Two to Tango (This is for the Girls).  So I bought this one used because that's not something I ever did.  It's funny to see which songs the original owner liked, but better yet on *Black Maria and *I Went to the Mirror written above the * is HEAVY.

These days you may be thinking, "Todd is heavy?"  Not just heavy, but HEAVY.  Back when this was a popular record, heavy meant more than just Black Sabbath or Grindcore or whatever kind of core is heaviest these days.  Sometimes it just meant that it made you think, which is what I think the person that owned this meant I Went to the Mirror was HEAVY.  I don't necessarily agree with them, but I like the commentary from the past.  The records are in good shape, so I think I'd have liked whoever owned this record.

Of course, I'd have liked them more if they danced and sang on the bed in 1977, but for now I'll just thank them for the memories.

Todd Rundgren's Utopia - Another Live

I found a really nice copy of this the other day.  I used to have it when I was a kid.  It came out in 1975, and I think I bought it back then.  I remember this was one of those albums that I played on my old stereo that I bought with my own money (it would still be working if I hadn't let my BiL have it and he set it up outside for his kids - the speakers absorbed water pretty well).  The first turntable I bought for it was a BSR of some sort with a ceramic cartridge that needed to eat records to stay alive.  So my original copy of this is definitely in a landfill somewhere, but I always check out cheapo copies to see if one is clean for little money, and I found one yesterday.

So I got some of that new Budweiser Black Crown and listened to records last night.  The first thing I thought was that this had the worst cover of almost any good record I've ever heard.  It looks like fan art.  There's a funny insert with a photo of the band, and the words to the songs on side one.  The whole thing looks like a project they were starting, but gave up on and just released, and I remember always thinking that about this record.  But I like this album.  I don't love this album, but I definitely like it.  Side one was new songs back in 1975, and they're kind of Prog Rockish, which I definitely dug listening to while lying on my bedroom floor with my old Radio Shack headphones on, cranked up too loud and thinking a real Rock Concert would be the coolest place to ever go.  So last night I sat on the floor and slapped on my headphones and let this one drag me back for awhile.

I remember taking this down to Canton, where my dad was from and I was born.  I had cousins down there, and I thought my cousin Theresa and her friends were just about the coolest people I knew.  I think she's a year older than me, and she had a little stack of records I coveted back then.  She smoked and I think she drank beer, and I smoked and wanted to drink beer.  They used to give me a hard time back then because I used to smoke menthols, like Kool's or Newport's.  Back then mostly black kids smoked those, and Kool's supposedly had fiberglass filters that would make you cough up blood.  I figured that was bullshit, because why would a cigarette company knowingly kill their customers (I'm glad I don't smoke anymore!)?  I remember when I took this down there Theresa took one look at it and said, "Hell, yeah! I love Todd.  Let's go to Peggy's and listen."  I was real excited, because I knew I had this awesome record and they hadn't heard it yet.

Well, they were in love with the Todd that did Something/Anything and A Wizard, A True Star.  This was different.  There's no Hello, It's Me or It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference on this album.  Side one is just three long songs, with lot's of keyboards, acoustic guitar throughout The Wheel and almost enough keyboards to make Rick Wakeman jealous.  Strike one with the girls.  But side two is shorter songs, and has a great cover of Do Ya and Todd's classic underdog fan's prayer, Just One Victory.  So the girls didn't hate it, but it felt like I walked to first, and I remember quickly switching to Uriah Heep and then going outside so we could hang around and smoke and try to look cool.

Now, Just One Victory reminded me of swimming.  I swam for years, but only one year in high school, and during Christmas workouts we were allowed to bring records in to listen to while we swam back and forth for six hours out of the day.  The high school pool had a PA, and there were speakers all over so we could actually hear real music instead of the song that just gets stuck in your head the whole time.  I remember one of the seniors telling me Just One Victory was his favorite song, which is fine.  But it was how he looked at competition and the futility of that song that bugged the shit out of me.  I told him that song was great for the fans, who can't do anything but cheer and hope, but the athletes have options.  If you want to win, you don't let the other guy beat you.  If he does beat you, and you can prove you did better than you've ever done before, then you can be proud of yourself even in defeat, but hoping and praying the other guy blows a turn or swallows a gallon of pool water is fucking stupid.  Our medley relay went to state that year.  We would have medaled but Just One Victory false started.  That really pissed me off.  I never false started and coming in to high school, I had been on some medley relays that had made some serious statements as to just how good our team was (it's the first event in a swim meet, and when you're in another state or city where they don't know you, blowing everyone out of the water the first event is a good way to get every one's attention).  That song kind of leaves me salty these days.

Something's Coming was so familiar to me.  Todd does a great job of bringing this classic from West Side Story into the land of Rock.  My dad listened to his 8 Track of that soundtrack a lot, and Something's Coming was always my favorite song on it.  You really can't hide the show tune in it, though!  But my favorite song on the record is and always will be, Heavy Metal Kids.  It's certainly the hardest rocking song here, but I forgot just how screwed up I used to think the narrator in the song had to be when he woke up this morning, got drunk off my ass!  Wow.  These Rock and Rollers were not like my mom and dad, that's for sure!

The copy I found is a promo, with the old pink and black sticker on the front, but it's actually a Bearsville promo label, too.  I think it was played, but not much, and certainly on a better record player than my old BSR.  I'm glad I bought it.