A band I was in warmed up for Todd/Utopia a couple times in the 80's, and I have met and talked with him at length probably 10 times in the past, hmm....20 years? I seriously doubt he would remember me though. He has probably met hundreds of thousands of starry-eyed young musicians, and I was pretty much typical.
Todd has produced many uber things (Bat Outta Hell, American Band, The Tubes, etc. ). He is a great composer and inventor, and fantastic performer. He is a very nice man, and I enjoyed talking to him. He is very kind, intelligent in an unusual artistic kinda way.
In the early 80's we had a good talk on side-stage about the state of synthesis when Ray Kurzweil was the big thing. Todd was hype on Fairlight, so he, I, and Roger Powell ended up in quite a row. I had just taken a master class at the time with Zappa, and Ray happened to be at the convention part of the events pushing his early gear. Frank was hype on Kurzwei at the time, and so was I. Funny how things end up, since all of it now is just fluff, and the big debates of the old days become silly in the new.
I think many of Todd's Utopia mixes were caught up in the "treble wars" of the 80's, and his earliest work was perhaps better than some of the later.
A big standout during that period was "A Cappela," which was in itself a moment of genius. If you missed the live tour of it you really missed out.
Another great moment was the album, "Healing," which scared a lot of people off, but I was quite impressed. The SNL performance of Healing reamins a fav of mine.
Todd, like Prince, Zappa, and a few others, is indeed an amazing phenomenon. But he would probly tell us he is just another guy (not God), trying to do his best, like all of us. I bet he is happily waiting to see what we all will come up with next.
As Zappa said, lets "shaddup and get back to work!"
Cheers,
KT
PS, another good story I had was around 1990, Todd came to Austin with a very cool group and my boss at the time, Mark B......y, happened to be a decent friend of Todd's. Very cool show with an amazing rendition of Johnny Jingo at a pretty small club in Austin. I recall meeting Marianne Faithfull and being star-struck!
Another time, I was a stage hand at an Ohio outdoor venue called "Legend Valley, (this was like, hmm...1981?) and Todd was headlining ahead of The Cars, Eddie Monie, and Cheap Trick. Todd came out and jammed on a cover of (I think) "Drive My Car" along with Cheap Trick, and I was hanging with the Cheap Trick crew. I ended up eating a certain new and X-cstatic tiny pill, and sitting at the feet of Todd during the Utopia performance.
Unknown to me, a giant pyro bomb went off right in my face leading up to the finale. I lost my hearing and most my vision for about 10 mins. Shortly after, Todd did the finale encore into the setting sun, singing "Love is the Answer," while we all watched in amazement and irony as the crowd set fire to the ticket boothes way up the hill, and the smoke of anarchy and violence rose into the air.
A friend of mine ran security and protection dogs, and the crowd had gone insane. I personally had to drag several children under age 7 over the fence and into backstage to save them. There were at least 2 super-violent conflicts in the mud that hour, and over 100 people passed out from heat stroke. Sirens and ambulences rang out from every corner.
As I was semi-insane, yet semi-prophetic the entire performance, I continued to sit about 4 feet from Todd's feet on stage, and stare at the entire scene as if from a Sci-Fi movie.
I will never forget watching the entire scene go up in flames, with half the back crowd fighting and pillaging, and the front half waving and hugging, all as Todd sang on, "...Light of the World...Shine on Me...Love is the Answer..." Truly Apopcolyptic.
I often wonder what he saw and how he felt.
8th July 2005
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I'll have to hunt it down 
.Wonder if he's is on the net 
...Hey Mr. Todd Rundgren are you out there? 
