Forgotten Bands part five – Utopia
| Posted in Writer's Block
Todd Rundgren was already an established solo artist by 1973 when he formed Utopia to play some of his more indulgent and experimental music live. Albums like Runt, Something/Anything and A Wizard, A True Star had established him as one of the most eclectic songwriters of the whole ‘singer-songwriter’ generation that the early seventies had produced. Utopia, with its multi-instrumentalist, six-piece line-up, was unashamed prog rock from the start.
Their first album – called Todd Rundgren’s Utopia – contained only four tracks, one of them 20 minutes long, and it wasn’t until the band settled on its permanent line up a couple of years later with Rundgren, Roger Powell on keyboards, Kasim Sulton on bass and drummer Willie Wilcox that the music started to become more accessible. The songs – now written and sung by all four members - became more concise, but still varied in style and contained the core power-pop element that would see the band through its entire career. Utopia’s 1977 album, Oops!Wrong Planet contained a blue-eyed soul classic with ‘Love is the Answer’ and the band would close their shows with ‘Just One Victory’, another anthemic Todd song from A Wizard, A True Star.
They also recorded an album of pastiche Beatles songs called Deface the Music, which any fan of the Rutles ought to listen to. The songs are so close to certain Beatle tracks it’s unnerving. Utopia’s music continued to become less indulgent and more uplifting, culminating in 1982′s brilliant pop masterpiece, the album simply called Utopia. Although disregarded by all except Todd’s fanbase as far as sales were concerned, songs like ‘Neck on Up’, ‘Bad Little Actress’ and ‘Feet Don’t Fail me Now’ proved that Rundgren was a masterful pop melody writer. The video for the last track – in which the band cavorted around in insect costumes – was played continuously on MTV. Still, mainstream success eluded Utopia even though Rundgren’s solo career was in full swing. There’s a DVD available called Live at the Royal Oak from 1982 which shows the band at their best – great songs, faultless playing and of course, Todd Rundgrens’s peerless singing voice.
After breaking up in 1986, Roger Powell toured with David Bowie for the live album Stage, and worked as protege for synthesizer legend Robert Moog. Willie Wilcox became a senior composer and sound designer for NBC Universal Television from 1999-2005, wrote and programmed for Stacey Q and wrote and produced music for television, film and artists. Bassist Kasim Sulton toured as a band leader for Meat Loaf, and performed with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Hall and Oates and others.
Todd Rundgren continues to record and perform solo. In this first clip he’s playing Eric Clapton’s ‘Fool’ psychedelic SG which he’d bought from singer Jackie Lomax who’d been given it by George Harrison. Clapton had simply left the guitar at Harrison’s house. Rundgren later sold it at Sothebys and it’s now in the hands of a collector.
Tags: prog rock, todd rundgren, utopia