Rundgren Rings In 2009 With Rituals, Reverie and Rock! NYE Private Event Show, 12-31-2008 – 01-01-2009, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia PA.

by Jeff Boule in Concert Reviews, Musician Reviews, Opinion Posts, Reviews

To paraphrase the sappy, mushy title theme from the equally sappy movie Love Story of the `70’s, “Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a night can be?” No minor exaggeration, this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime events that everyone who attended will not soon forget. The evening had everything every average Todd Rundgren fan would run a Ponzi scheme to get to.

But the room was filled with non-typical Rundgren fans. As it stands, your average Rundgren fan is not the average music fan. They are knowledgeable, they have sensitivity to the ebb and flow for the direction the artist takes, and they are usually hearty, adventurous types when it comes to music. They have to have those attributes because they probably never would have found out about Rundgren through conventional means. He doesn’t heavily rotate anywhere but Rundgren Radio. By the way, the fine folks at Rundgren Radio were the proud sponsors of this event. The unique uniting feature of this particular audience was the fact that we had shelled out money for something from his online store. The feature item? A bobblehead. Perhaps the goofiest article used for the promotion of a rock musician, or any musician for that matter. I still have yet to see a bobblehead that flatters its subject. But the purchase of this unique item opened the gateway to a wonderful, magical night where we said good bye to 2008, hob-nobbed with the likes of the manager of the University Cottage Club, made friends with some of the venue personnel, big ups to Darrell and Donald, and more surprises to be revealed.

It shall be revealed.

This evening started off with a dinner that was to be attended by several, including Nazz keyboardist/vocalist Robert “Stewkey” Antoni, then after the dinner, folks were to reconvene at the Painted Bride Art Center (PBAC) for the show and then a hang-around with refreshments afterward.

My companion and I chose to remain in the neighborhood, aiding the local economy. We dined at the restaurant next door to the PBAC, a Turkish establishment called Konak. We were served authentic, delicious cuisine by the lovely ladies of Konak, and there is always something to be said for dining local to the venue as once we found ourselves settled at the bar, in walks none other than drummer Prairie Prince and bassist Rachel Haden. My companion and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously said together “I bet the food here is really good…” But why settle for the current rhythm section? Why when you can throw in the former bassist for the last Rundgren tour, now playing third guitar and some keyboards on the current Rundgren tour, Kasim Sulton walks in and sits closest to us at the bar.

Gonna be a great night…

Migrating through the piercing winds, we ventured over to the PBAC. The logistics were interfered with by the weather, the howling wind kept pulling the door practically off the hinge. It had to be kept locked, but after a certain hour, people were due to start arriving so the door would either have to be kept locked which means people freeze outside until someone comes out to the lobby to let people in, or someone mans the door to keep people from being kept out.

Nearby the door was a table was set up with bags of merchandise that been pre-ordered. So in the lobby you would pick up your pre-ordered swag and when the doors to the foyer room to the performance area opened, a plethora of new merchandise was laid out on more tables, in case you didn’t order in advance, or if you just wanted to supplement your pre-order (which was guiltily my case). You also received a laminated press-pass kind of ticket. No paper tickets, just something you can hang around your neck all night, and afterwards, makes a lovely souvenir. There was money, paper and all sorts of merchandise flying around. Which is why this intrepid blogster was recruited into assisting with doorman duty, opening the door for those who were outside, and making sure the door returned closed due to the wind in an effort to retain heat, make sure no pertinent papers were lost, etc.

The way I viewed this evening was, I was attending the show as a fan first and foremost, being a reviewer became a lesser priority. We were all enjoying our participation in what are mostly considered to be unique, highly coveted events to get into.

Then after the dinner, and after people had to schlep from the dinner location to the PBAC, we had to wait in the outer room of the gallery. Many of the women were heard to complain about how windy it was during the walk over. At the start of the evening, those few of us waiting for things to get rolling were treated to some instructions from what was to be considered the opening act. Not a musician or musicians, but rather two highly devout Rundgren fans, who were exchanging wedding vows as part of the New Year’s Eve festivities.

When I teased this review a few weeks ago, I told you there were going to be surprises.

While we were waiting in the foyer, a young woman came out with video camera in hand and made an announcement that things were running slow and that the start time for things had been pushed back to half passed eight. Not really a big surprise, concerts in general have usually started quite late. Whilst talking to the folks, I interjected some fun by screaming “Run! Run while you still can! Run, man, run for all you’re worth…” She immediately started up her camera and announced “Take two.” So naturally, the consummate performer I am…

The bride claimed her hair was not done yet, and that costuming had to be completed, so they would be off to have that done in an effort to bring things back on schedule.

What a unique idea for a wedding!!! When I was married, it was done in a ceremony that until 09-11-01, most considered unromantic, but has recently usurped Las Vegas as one of the most romantic wedding venues of all time. I was wedded beneath the now non-existent World Trade Center twin towers in Manhattan’s City Hall. Bare-bones justice of the peace and a very nice gentleman from the Islands we grabbed out of the hallway to witness the ceremony.

This ceremony was the total antithesis of that, and only slightly reminiscent of the traditional religious services. The groom’s costume was designed to resemble a tin soldier, perhaps more precisely a toy soldier, something you would see from a Christmas toy movie. The bride was quite the sight to behold. A handsome couple, they are obviously in love with each other and obviously in love with Rundgren (weren’t we all that night?). Where else would the bride be adorned with a train with what looked to be embroidered replicas of each and every Rundgren album cover, right up to Arena? This show ending the tour for that album, she was current-to-date with all of the legitimate releases. I was impressed by inclusion of Up Against It which was the album of all the demos for the off-off Broadway show mentored by Joe Papp which was rumored to have been written as the Beatles third movie. These people were hard-core; it felt good to be amongst my own!

To Joyous and Resplendent, (please know I don’t arbitrarily print people’s full or correct names out of respect for privacy and protection from action) please know that my comical hesitations towards your event were only meant to add humor to the palpable excitement. May yours be a joyous and resplendent lifetime, filled with happiness and every good wish to you both! If you wish to let the good readers of Prex in on your most unusual event, please feel free to contact me through this site and we will direct people towards any YouTube postings on top of all the terrific coverage provided by the companion of the charming woman from University Cottage Club. But I will address those kind folks in a bit.

I myself will be married for eleven years in February and I wish you both ten times that amount of time and one hundred times that in fun, laughter and love.

To get back to the ceremony, they both entered from the back of the room, at the top of the stairs down the aisle towards the stage. The groom first, and after a few words, the bride who took her time going down these stairs, it allowed for every one to see the albums on her train, plenty of photos, but most importantly, she got to cherish her special moment.

Good for her!

More remarkable was the duo waiting for them under the mock arch. The interpreter, Rachel Haden, also played a little bass later on in the night, and she was interpreting for Triple P: Pope Prairie Prince (PPP)!!! Dressed in a black and red “pope’s” outfit, replete with big old clumsy hat, he savaged his way through some pidgin Italian in the form of a ceremony (Was he saying anything remotely akin to a wedding ceremony? Was it really funny stuff that we were missing? Is he really ordained to officiate a wedding? Who cares? It’s Prairie Prince!).

There were vague and not-so-vague sexual innuendos made, but I won’t go into them as they would just look like *** and *** and *** and *** and *** and ******** and **********.

Once we were able to decipher that PPP had concluded the ceremony, some interesting things followed, such as the one word blessing where the attendees were encouraged to shout out one-word wishes of a positive nature for the newlyweds. I offered up ‘prosperity’ as my wish/blessing. We can use some of that in these interesting economic times. Another interesting occurrence was the malfunctioning of Kasim Sulton’s stage mic as he was to perform Utopia’s “Love Alone” from Adventures In Utopia. So Prince came up with the brilliant idea of using his mic for Sulton to sing in for this one song. Well, that was a good idea except for the fact that the hand held mic that Prince used was not designed to fit into the mic clip on the stand in front of the keyboard Sulton was playing. So always an on-his-feet-thinker, Prince stood there, and held the mic up to Sulton’s face as he sang! For the whole song!

It was going to be one of THOSE nights…

At this juncture, I want to readdress the good folks sitting next to us, the woman from the Cottage Club (I was remiss in writing down her name, ***) and her companion, whom I suspect put up pretty much the entire show on You Tube. If his screen name there is praisetodd, then it was. From the angle, and the fact that you can hear both my companion and myself heckle Todd and the boys quite nearby, I would say it’s a safe bet that this was the gentleman sitting to the woman from UCC. Hello to you both, please contact me through this site and we can further our guitar discussion, I did manage to pick up “Bardo”! It was additionally refreshing to sit next to someone who has similar motives as mine. I know I am first a fan, second a reviewer, and now, in addition, a guitarist trying to learn an album from Rundgren almost specifically designed for us guitarists to play.

I got my money’s worth, and then some.

Now here is the unique feature regarding this particular show, this particular event, I was given the chance to review video tape of almost the entire event, nearly start to finish. I want to thank who ever posted on YouTube with the praisetodd handle, please know that you aided and assisted in the writing of this blog. But this also presented me with a dilemma: Where do you draw the line? What gives you, the reader, the best possible representation of the show? My notes, handwritten, honest snippets of the song/show, video taped captures of the event? How irresponsible of me is it to just pawn you off on YouTube? Then I could always refer you back to the review I did earlier in 2008 for the pre-release phase of the tour from the Borgata in Atlantic City. The shows will be similar, perhaps at the NYE show the band will be better rehearsed, as well as the addition of Sulton. The camera will include my companion, myself and several others chiding Rundgren for being obviously drunk. But that was the great thing about this show, we expected it to be poorly behaved, it was not too bad, so we were all pleasantly surprised. The people filming didn’t care if we were busting ***, they were doing so as well.

I did not have much time to chat with the good folks around us, as the lights went down at 10:44, only fourteen minutes late! Joyous and Resplendent’s tremendous ceremony didn’t hold us back at all!

He came on stage and after a brief wax political, made it perfectly clear that this was not a show, but more a party. The band were fine with that as this was the last show of a year or better tour, as I mentioned, pre and post release, and the band as well as Rundgren were looking to blow off steam. But first, there was this pesky business of playing some party, ringing in the New Year, then partying.

Such is the life of your over-achieving-under-appreciated-genius-type rock star…

One of the staples of Rundgren’s career, from the seminal Something/Anything album (and my least personal fave album) comes the Utopia-adopted “Couldn’t I Just Tell You”. I say Utopia adopted as there was one thing you could count on in this ever decreasingly trustworthy world. You knew *** well that “Couldn’t I Just Tell You” was followed by “Love Is The Answer”, “One World” and then “Just One Victory” were the last four songs of a Utopia show. This version was a little slower in tempo, but I can write if off as last show of the tour, played it for over 30 years, drunk as all get out. Maybe not the last one as the song was slower, but tight as hell. He was surrounded by a crack-squad of accompanists. None of them were able to find the first few notes of Todd’s solo, due to a technical malfunction but the song recovered nicely.

Oops, Wrong Planet’s “Love In Action” followed up and was quite the bar to raise above Sulton’s head as the defacto keyboard player. This was Sulton’s first attempt at a Roger Powell keyboard part. I must be honest, he did an outstanding job and held up the keyboard and guitar parts he played admirably. I also have the feeling this review is going to be highly redundant as this band had its inebriated act together.

In fact Todd questioned as to whether he was the most inebriated member of the band during his cover of The Call’s “Walls Came Down”. He’s been playing some charged covers on latter tours. “Walls…”, “Lunatic Fringe” from Red Ryder, and more that I am sure I am forgetting, as well as the host of Beatle songs that he got rights to do in conjunction with the Abbey Road Beatles Tribute Tour with Alan Parsons, John Entwhistle, Ann Wilson of Heart, as well as being the musical director for Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band version 2, and despite the fact that he had a short lived postal feud over John Lennon’s treatment of a cocktail waitress at the Troubadour in Los Angeles during Lennon’s famed “Lost Weekend”. But Lennon did say he was regretful of the fact that he was unaware of Rundgren’s presence at the club as he would have wanted to show his appreciation for Rundgren’s music.

But Rundgren’s version of the song was equally charged as was Jesse Gress’ guitar solo. It is fun to hear Rundgren’s interpretation of other’s people songs. It has always tempted me (if I had the time) to suggest one of Rundgren’s songs to Peter Gabriel as part of Gabriel’s ‘Scratch My Back’ project which invites fans of artists to suggest songs by those artists and in exchange Peter would offer that artist rights to one of his songs for them to cover, each garnering publishing, performance rights, etc. THAT would be interesting, Rundgren’s version of “Shock The Monkey”!

Back to Rundgren originals, “Black Maria” again from S/A, was referred to by Rundgren as his “cleansing workout ritual”. The song is contained to a riff, but the riff is often accentuated by power chords around solos. Rundgren solos were flamin’ (as they say on TMZ), but in the middle of all the tight, powerful bombasts and blazing solos, a tech had to run over the Prince’s drums to make an adjustment under the ride cymbal somewhere. Undaunted, Rundgren’s cleansing ritual went undeterred.

The next song is actually a Nazz song, and has made resurgence into the set list since the power trio tours promoting One Long Year. Perhaps it was the reunion with Philadelphia that prompted this version to be outrageously magical. With the addition of Sulton’s vocals, which bring the songs he does vocals on a much appreciated depth and resonance and the deep flanged guitar solo Rundgren provided, this was perhaps the quintessential live version, and with Rundgren doing vocals, perhaps the penultimate version overall. This uber-version had them dancing in the aisles upon Rundgren’s urging and to his satisfaction.

This gig is nuts already.

Then a standard from Faithful well known to Todd fans, “Black And White” was presented. This tune gave bassist Rachel Haden (best known for her continued work with The Rentals, charting with their `90’s hit “Friends Of P”) the opportunity to take a break, although short-lived as she return to join the band with backing vocals and the all-important tambourine. Somehow I couldn’t help feeling that this was a waste of her talent. Then after researching Ms. Haden a bit I found my suspicions were correct. She’s played with the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Beck, and various projects with members of Weezer among others.

It was nice to see Kasim playing bass and all, but since I knew of his gig as a keyboardist with Cherry Vanilla, I have for the most part always regarded Sulton as a multi-instrumentalist. Her vocal contributions were appreciated in any event. The only complaint against Ms. Haden’s playing is when she would switch over to he Music Man bass, the sound was noticeably distorted. She would play her new Lakeland bass for most of the night, but when that Music Man came out I would cringe before the first note would sound.

Some of this distortion may be attributed to the fact that the PBAC may only seat about two-hundred people; the volume level was set to full arena!! This may have also been contributory to a monster solo from Rundgren.

It was time to appease all the history buffs, archeologists, grey-haired Geritol grandfans in the crowd (the pricey cost of the event was beneficial in weeding out most of the undesirables) with the moldy oldie “I Saw The Light” also from the hit yielding S/A of 1972. The audience was most receptive to this piece of ancient tripe. I guess in an effort to vitalize a dead horse, Gress and Rundgren play the harmony leads from the album with nearly precision licks. But inebriation tends to hamper most players’ precision, perhaps they were either so well rehearsed that it didn’t matter or we are dealing with players of significantly higher caliber than we originally thought. I say a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B.

Rundgren has the right to yell out “Look at all the hot women! This song must be a babe magnet!” Then he went on to proclaim that we were all in attendance at Philadelphia’s most exclusive venue this New Year’s Eve. He then explains the dilemma of starting the replication of the entire Arena album so close to midnight.

With an eye on Kasim Sulton’s watch, and a mouthful of some kind of intoxicant, Our Hero pressed on with his mission to bring in the New Year on time (this word will have significance later) and let loose “Mad”. An almost album perfect production done live. One would be remiss in not expecting this from one of the industry’s most intuitive, inventive and intellectual producers of our time. My hope is for him to produce many more acts and leave an even greater influence on future generations.

Knowing Rundgren’s propensity for louder volumes, I can’t help but wonder if Rundgren passed word on to the mixer operator to boost the main at certain points, such as the end of “Mad” and other spots. But I mention “Mad” as the most blatant boosting of end-volume. “Mad” started out hard and got bolder!!!

The beginning of “Afraid” was a bit stunted, and the bass was distorted yet it was tight as it could be. Like I said earlier, this review will be constant repetition of how tight the band was. Rundgren even displayed his dancing skills during the clean funk guitar part as the intro to the “Why suffer for nothing…” break. The backing vocals at that part and to the end brought out those famous Rundgren harmonies. That’s what this gig was all about, having fun! No reason the artists shouldn’t party with the guests.

In the spirit of having fun, we encounter “Gun.” Gun is a thinker kind of tune, whilst presenting the problem of irresponsible gun ownership from the perspective of the irresponsible gun owner. More fun was to be had especially during the vocal and riff break of “this is my rifle and this is my gun.” It seems inebriation got the best of the band and they were unable to enunciate in unison and this just cracked Rundgren up. After going through that part to the vocal part espousing the love the gun dunce has for his pistol, Rundgren was still so busted up he couldn’t get the vocals out for laughing.

A good time is being had by all.

During the solo done by Gress, Rundgren cuts up by mock-kissing Kasim Sulton on the mouth (almost) and concludes his shenanigans by doing the bump with Haden. After this fun fest, Rundgren attempts to make an excuse for his behavior by deriding the band as “a bunch of pot heads and drunks except for Sulton”, and then further explains that they “have to do the drugs he doesn’t do in order to maintain balance”.

In order, “Courage” came next and it came on strong and was again production perfect. The most remarkable part repeatedly is the fact that the musicians and production techniques are almost album perfect. The album had some interesting production techniques, I have protracted this review enough, investigate the techniques used by heading over to a vital Rundgren source, the TR Connection, Google that and read the interviews section. This version of this song was record-perfect, and it has heavy production on it. This is the one that you think Hall and Oates might have done.

The opening strains of “Weakness” sounded gorgeous except for the bass being a tad too heavy. But THIS is what live music should be. Rundgren was free to over play the solo and loved it. Prairie Prince was hard at work counting some of the odd time signatures. He held it together as the version was recording perfect, harmonies are tight, every aspect was in place. It is getting awfully hard to critique this event, at least from the negative perspective. I did not imbibe in the celebratory inebriations so my viewpoint was not intoxicated.

Now we have the scourge of Arena, “Strike”, I remain indifferent to this song, but I find my self in the minority. The audience came to life for this track. UGH! But I will give Rundgren credit, the solo was note perfect to the CD. The fact that this was the last show of the tour really shows.

To make up for the lackluster “Strike”, we have “Pissin’”. The song was tight with minor variances in the solo and vocals obviously things get changed to keep things fresh. I’m just bummed that they sounded like they were getting tired of one of my favorite songs from the disc.

Now we veer from the track list of Arena for the special occasion music. This is going to be one of those instances where I have to recommend you should go to YouTube and look up Todd Rundgren NYE “Auld Lang Syne”. Rundgren complained that he wasn’t going to do it, Sulton goaded him on, and the next thing you know, Rundgren was flailing his way through the Pidgin English that is “Auld Lang Syne”. This version started off as a slow, plodding typical version, soulful as is Rundgren’s want. Then Prince and Gress decided to hop it up and reprise the song with a faster, a more rocking, arena feel.
The funny part was TR and Co. started “Auld Lang Syne” 6 minutes before midnight. So there was a lot of mis-counting and second guessing as to when the midnight hour would hit. So a few seconds before midnight, perhaps twenty or so, Rundgren queued Sulton to trigger the sequencer part for “Today”.

I told you the word time would have significance. It does so in the fact that the first song we all heard in 2009 was “Today” which reuses the word repeatedly. A sequenced version kept things tight in light of the fact that Rundgren continually ad-libbed phrases into the song such as “we gotta kiss this year good bye” and then into the first lyrics. As bottles of Champagne were passed out to the audience, one was diverted to Rundgren who took a swig and as the bottle foamed up he handed it off to Prince who was the recipient of a Champagne bath as the bottle leaked all over his kit. I didn’t hear any mics hiss with Champagne bubbles, but it did require a towel to clean off tom heads.

More fun!

But after that vocal breakdown, when things were to come together after Rundgren asks “Why not here, why not now…TODAY!”, things hit an all time bombast where band and PA explode with power.

After the song, Rundgren is treated to an errant kiss from a fan. I think we know where the line from “Pissin’” comes from “You don’t know what personal space is.”

“Bardo” begins and sort of drags in terms of tempo. It is an unhurried song, but the tempo was a bit slow. This may have been the inebriated state of Todd and Co. Sulton stood near Gress for the majority of the song, to keep the riff tight. But when all the three guitars of Rundgren, Gress and Sulton play the riff together, it sounded almost intimidating.

Ascending chords bring us to “Mountaintop”. While I missed the mid-pass filter on the lead vocal, Rundgren’s interpretation was close. As Haden does squats during the intro before the second verse. Ever the cheerleader, Rundgren encourages us to participate in the obligatory fist pump during the drums and vocal break, chanting “Higher higher” in between vocal lines. Ever the lemmings, we do participate.

With virtually no count in, the band (eventually) come together for “Panic”. Randy the roadie has to yet again adjust something under Prince’s kit as Gress needs to change guitars, yet none of this stops the song.

Don’t help to panic.

The version itself was a clear copy of the album version, technical difficulties aside, barring room and mic elements.

Seemingly on instinct, Rundgren and Haden hit the first note/chord of “Manup” in perfect sync. This was a great indication of the precision of the version. And what a barnburner version this was. I am resplendent in redundancy. Tight tight tight.

After the Arena furor died down, we were exposed to another gross revision of “Hello It’s Me”. I refuse to comment on this but I did enjoy the fact that Rundgren forgot the words. I further enjoyed the flubs by Sulton and Haden. Rundgren threw this version to the dogs by ad-libbing some humorous lyrics after the band comes to a halt. At that point the band just didn’t get it. The end vocal ad-lib was nice to hear. Harkens back to the days before his voice dropped.

After Rundgren denies an audience request, saying “You can’t have everything”, we are brought to a close with A Wizard A True Star’s “Just One Victory”. A slightly slower “holiday” version, we are invited to do overhead clapping for the very tight chorus break. I don’t know about the rest of you Rundgren fans, but this song ALWAYS bring a chill to my spine. In part it depresses as I know this is the last song of the night. But the beauty and the anthemic nature of the song, just pumps you up for the drive home.

But, as Rundgren tells us, after bringing the song to the one-footed twirled conclusion, we aren’t going home. In fact, he is right, for billed with this event, included in the festivities is…

THE AFTER PARTY

After the band left the stage we were filtered out down the steps immediately behind our seats and led to PBAC’s “Café” area for the after party. I maintained a vigilant position to watch the interactions and it was truly fascinating. To watch Rundgren fans from different parts of the country come together to talk all things Rundgren was a joy to behold. I did interact minimally, with many of the fans, and I was surprised I did not see more people I recognize, especially from the Scranton area. There exists a mighty contingent in that area, many of whom I consider good friends.

I did strike up a special relationship with someone who was lending assistance to the PBAC staff, his name was Donald, and I must apologize to him as I am unable to contact him as his email returns to me as undeliverable. I want to pick your brain about jazz; I can exchange knowledge of Progressive rock for barter. I may have even jeopardized his chances at working there again as my companion and I monopolized his attention all night long after the show. Even more so as his first attempts to get me back stage to see Rundgren were thwarted by the organizers. We were in the dressing room, but dismissed before we had a chance to talk to Rundgren. Donald was so taken with us he more or less gave us the keys to the kingdom. Donald said “You know where he is, I’m not going to stop you.” I hope I don’t get anybody angry with this. I’m just reporting the truth.

Naturally, I did follow the promoter’s advice and only talked to his road manager, Mary Lou Arnold-Gress (yes, she is married to Jesse Gress) regarding an interview for PREX. Best I can tell you is, keep you fingers crossed, although my companion DID see her near the exit WITH the writing samples I gave her in-hand.

I would not be totally denied as coming out of the back door we were just excised from, out strolls Kasim Sulton himself. After a brief conversation at the concession stand, he strolls back to that same door and says directly to me, “Hiya buddy”. This was a nice surprise, (he must have remembered us from dinner) but even more of a surprise, Sulton was the only member of the band to join the party. When he rejoined the party, my companion ushered me to take a picture of her with him and vice versa. She got him to sign our freshly purchased copy of his soon to be released Live DVD (which I will be reviewing in my next installment) and unfortunately, he was called back to the concession stand. What a very nice gentleman! I am so sorry I used to bust his chops when I would see him with Utopia and whenever he would forget lyrics or make other flubs, we would roast him verbally. While I did manage to meet Rundgren with Utopia, and again during the Second Wind tour, I was still not satisfied with being rebuffed.

But I am resilient, my companion is stubborn and willful, she MADE me go in to where we first saw Rundgren and got in again.This time, I asked “Can we get some pictures before we are trapped by Mummers?” Rundgren replied, “Trapped by Mummers… That could be a show.”

A Rundgren-Boule production. We are in the development deal stage.

Pictures were taken, pleasantries kept to a minimum, as this man had just toured all over this stinking planet and he wanted to let loose (even more so). I then explained to Rundgren that I will be writing a review of the show for the Princeton Record Exchange. Rundgren looked at me quizzically and said “Why bother?”