What a wise guy, right?  Did you listen to that clip?

If not, listen first.  It’s only a few seconds.  And make that your “character reference” for this guy.  

That is the “wizard, true star” Todd, goofing on Archie Bell and the Drells' Tighten Up with precocious wit long before Spinal Tap did the same for metal. 

And while most people remember Hello, It’s Me, Open My Eyes or We Gotta Get You a Woman from those days when we affectionately called him, The Runt…I remember Loosen Up.

Because back in the 60s and 70s, when he was the absolute shizznits starting at the ‘way too early age of about…19 or so—I was 15 when he founded Nazz—it was clear to me from that one track that Todd was exactly like me and most of the kids in my high school gifted classes.  Too smart for his own good and destined for both greatness and some real hard lessons.

But he was hot as hell.   Barely in his 20s, he produced albums by…well…here’s what Rolling Stone says:

“By this time Rundgren had become associated with manager Albert Grossman, who let him produce for his new Bearsville label. By 1972 Rundgren had taken over production of Badfinger's Straight Up LP from George Harrison (who was involved with his Bangla Desh concerts) and had engineered the Band's Stage Fright and Jesse Winchester's self-titled 1971 LP, as well as produced records by the Hello People, bluesman James Cotton, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Halfnelson (who later became Sparks). In 1973 he would produce the New York Dolls' debut LP, Grand Funk Railroad's We're an American Band, and Fanny's Mother's Pride.” 

He was also putting out two albums a year of his own on average.   And that’s just…’way too much talent for one person to have.

But when I met him years later as a rock critic for the Chicago Sun Times, I saw one lesson coming already.  I remember I had just interviewed Brian Eno, another “wizard,” who had been surprisingly vulnerable and effusive—and half dead from a long PR tour and the unbearably humid Chicago summer heat.  That interview went to Rolling Stone, and is oft-quoted and reprinted by his die hards to this day.

There’s a reason for that.  Interviews with rockers were usually just raucous, stream of consciousness cuss fests—you’ve seen Steven Tyler—who also looms large, ironically, in this story--go off on Idol a few times now, so you know what I dealt with for those five long years.  A lotta fun, but I could damned near write the articles in my sleep, almost, after a while.  I just knew pretty much what was going to happen.   So I did a quick “lede” and outline, fleshed that out with anecdotes after the interview, filled in the quotes…done.

The Enos, Bowies and Rundgrens of the business were few and far between.  When I met them, I became that gifted student again.  They made me do it.

First, they gave me that “look.”   And answered in monosyllables, or, worse, a rush of techno/psycho/philosobabble designed to smack you down to size.  

And that was when I would ask the question that woke them up and made them think,  “Oh, okay, not your run of the mill chick rock crit.  Let’s dance!”  And from there, it was on. 

Those conversations renewed my faith.  There was intelligent life out there worth writing about.   But I did not have that kind of conversation with Todd.  Because our conversation happened during “the Bebe Buell years.”

I’m not going to even try to explain Bebe Buell because she’s something of an enigma.  But she was La Grande Dame back then—a glittering prize to be won.   And Todd had her. 

And she had him.  Boy, did she have him.   They were like emaciated, twitter-pated Siamese twins when we met.   She sat on his lap.   Or right up against him, leaning, lounging, loving on him the entire time. 

This was also during Todd’s “multicolored hair” phase—he still does that, but now it’s just two toned, a little thatch of white hair on top of jet black.  Back then, he was like a jukebox.  Stripes of neon pink, green and yellow.   And she had exactly the same look.

They were a package deal—she was even in the press kit, I believe.  A PR dream couple.  But all I wanted to do was reach over, touch him on the heart, like ET, and say, “OUCH.”

I knew too much about bands and band women not to know how dangerous this liaison could prove to be.   And…I was right.  Only a “minute” after that, Bebe had a baby.  Not Todd’s.  Tyler’s.  Liv Tyler, no less—the Steven Tyler baby you know best.

But to my astonishment…Todd claimed her, put his name on that birth certificate and manned up to raise her as if she were his own--even after he and Bebe called it quits for good.  She is his daughter, first.

Quote from a Liv Tyler fan site:

"Todd is my dad as much as Steven is...Now that I'm an adult, it just means a lot to me that I still have this beautiful relationship with Todd.  He did a wonderful thing for me."

Todd, Liv (3 days old) and Bebe

This…I had not anticipated.  The gifted girl…had been dead wrong, at least about that.

That’s because the other side of Todd--a side that prompted him to move to Kauai with beautiful backup singer and force of nature in her own right, Michele, to raise five children--is a magnificent, magical antidote to everything that ails the “bright boy” side.  In fact, it informs and enhances that side.

From what I’ve heard in the music I’ve just begun to discover and rediscover…I think Todd is in love with…everything.  Fascinated, endlessly curious and insatiably energized by the whole damned universe. 

After I lost track of him--I moved to Hopi much as he moved to Kauai, for love and to “wash my hands” of the mad music business--he wrote a song, now my favorite song, about Steven Hawking.  And in it,  he almost literally cries:  “And then God kissed me…and I knew it when I fainted in His arms…”   Each time he sings those lines, the gender changes, ultimately becoming “Its.”

Later, he would also write a song called I Love My Life, one of the best gospel songs I have ever heard in my life—a Black choir could kill with this song—in which he admitted that he and his Creator have a “funky love thang.”  It gave me pause…because I’m anything but traditionally religious.  But…neither is he.  It fit the song, it fits the mood the song creates…and the mood is so exuberant you don’t really care what he’s saying.  And then…you want to know what he’s saying.  So that you can love your life in a way that makes you feel as good as he sounds.

He spreads that love around to his loyal fans, too.  For his 60th birthday he invited 150 of them to his home in Kauai to camp out and boogie down, with Todd and Michelle playing gracious hosts.

One of the 150 said of Toddstock:

"I was not prepared for Todd and Michelle’s welcoming graciousness and over the top hospitality. We attended a house blessing followed by an unguided tour of his house where we all roamed around looking at every nook and cranny – not one hint of ostentatiousness in their demeanor nor their home. Todd held a frank and open Q&A session. He cheerfully singed (sic) autographs for a long line of adoring (and some trembling) fans. He posed for pictures, waited in line for dinner, poured us martinis and provided us a weekful of delightful breakfasts and delicious dinners, and Todd and Michelle personally provided many other surprises and good cheer and fun..."

Pop Underground Toddstock Article

Toddstock Facebook Page

So I believe that God, Whatever It Is, loves him back for things like this.  Even after he “disappeared,” he retained a cult of over 200,000 fans who buy everything he offers by conventional or his own very unconventional means—that’s halfway to a gold record’s worth of sales, guaranteed.   Which kept record companies interested right up until he decided he wasn’t interested in them anymore. 

He had other work to do—work so challenging no conventional record company could sell it.  I have to go back to Rolling Stone for this—I don’t know how to tell it:

“The following year Rundgren went back out on the road as a high-tech one-man band to perform his unique new album No World Order. The world's first interactive music-only CD (available on Philips), it allowed listeners to reshape the 10 songs into an infinite number of versions. To hear the same version of a song twice, Rundgren claimed, users would have to play the disc 24 hours a day, seven days a week "well into the next millennium." Continuing in a similar vein, he then released The Individualist, an enhanced CD which paired each song with its lyrics, graphics, and video. At about that time he came up with the monicker TR-i (Todd Rundgren–interactive), to be used for his multimedia work. In typical fashion, though, his next move was to rerecord several of his old songs in bossa-nova arrangements on 1997's With a Twist...(which also featured Utopia bassist Sulton). That same year he was one of the few Westerners invited to play the Shanghai Festival.”  

Well…he could do that kinda stuff, of course.   I reckon that aside from royalties and the constant revivals of his early hits,  Bang on the Drum, which we all know from a gazillion commercials, has probably paid the bills for decades.  You know:  “I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day…”

That song.  That he probably wrote in his sleep.  Yes, that, too…is Todd.

So it didn’t matter what happened with him and Bebe or the music business he was WAY too brilliant to be in.  He was on a journey most of the people he dealt with in that business could never begin to understand.   And…he didn’t give a damn if they came along or not.

But a funny thing happened after most of the kids were out of the nest.  This Daryl Hall guy he used to know and play gigs with, invited him to be on his Web concert show.   Twice.  In fact Daryl went to Todd’s house for one of them, where they sat in the open air singing stone soul, framed by one of the most incredible island views imaginable.  The authentic luau afterwards…priceless.

That show got over 10000 “Likes” on Facebook.  And more comments than just about any of the others combined.  And nearly every one of the comments on the Daryl’s House site begged Daryl to team up with Todd for some concerts and maybe a CD or two or three or as many as they wanted.

The Runt is back.  Big time.  Playing the Borgata, with Daryl, real soon.   Of course, he was never really gone, but…this is his latest incarnation.   God, Whatever It Is, has called him back out into the arena.  And he fell right into His/Her/Its arms, no questions asked.

Ticket info for Todd and Daryl: Borgata

So as my little tribute to the latter, all of it, I’m going to reverse the usual order in which these retrospective things are done and begin with a song from the first Daryl’s House he did, and then…one from the second.  BUT PLEASE DON'T STOP BEFORE HAWKING--that...is not to be missed.

After Daryl's House, a performance from London’s Hammersmith Apollo, circa 2005, that puts everything into perspective—this is an aria, folks.  Believe it.

After that…Hawking and Todd otherwise at play in the house of his God and more.  Going all the way back to when he was The Runt, sitting at his grand piano, singing A Dream Lives On Forever. 

But first, just the audio of the song that has been my "pick me up" anthem for decades, Love Is the Answer.

No kidding.  When I die…this has to be the last thing they play for me.  And then I will rest easy.  Just...raise face and hands to sky, and ride this with me:

Okay, now...here we go: