I’ve never been an especially big admirer of Todd Rundgren, although — in retrospect — I guess I should be. I’m a huge fan of “Open My Eyes" by his Nuggets-era band, The Nazz, and I think his production work — notably on “Love My Way” by The Psychedelic Furs, Skylarking by XTC and the first New York Dolls album — is unparalleled, despite his reputation as an iron-willed task master. And, sure, there are a couple of Utopia tracks I like. I guess I am kind of a Rundgren fan.
The only reason I recently got to thinking about him is an article I came across on the A.V. Club yesterday, We Let One of Our Dads Interview Todd Rundgren. That struck the perfect note, as Todd does seem to now embody Dadrock.
Once implanted in my brain, however, Rundgren also seemed timely given the robustly high temperatures in recent days. For one reason or another, his seminal, early 70’s lite rock classic, “Hello It’s Me” — for me — almost single-handedlly captures the vibe of summer in the city. I can’t put my finger on why, exactly — it’s just those opening keyboards just remind me of hot days in Central Park, sitting on shady stoops under the criss-crossing shadows of fire-escapes, breezy Saturdays wandering around Manhattan. I wish I could explain it better. It just sounds like the summery New York City of my childhood. Here it is, one more time….
One thing that bugs me about it….there really should be a comma between “Hello” and “It’s.” Just sayin’, Todd.
In any case, while listening to this again, I found myself combing the web for a nice shot of Todd to augment this post with, and came across this great portrait of him from 1983, taken by the amazing Lynn Goldsmith.
You can feel the question coming, can’t you?
WHERE WAS THIS SHOT TAKEN?
I want to say Greene Street just south of Broome, but am not sure. What say you?
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