September 25 – Not The First Time Upstate NY Got Psychedelic

Yesterday we looked at how Rick Rubin helped lift the Red Hot Chili Peppers up in their career by producing one of their early albums. Today, same outline, different band and producer. On this day in 1982 we heard what happens when a veteran American rock producer began to work with a rising British post-punk/new wave outfit. The results were quite good, as any Psychedelic Furs fan will tell you. The Todd Rundgren-produced Forever Now came out 37 years ago today.

For the Furs, it was their third album in as many years, and like the Chili Peppers mentioned yesterday, there’d been some turmoil leading up to the record. In the Furs case, it was two members quitting prior to the recording, and difficulties with the drummer, Vince Ely, who wasn’t present for many of the demo sessions and would quit soon after the recording was finished. This left the band as essentially a trio, led by singer/ writer Richard Butler and his brother Tim.

Rising Brit producer Steve Lillywhite had produced the first couple of P. Furs records, but for this one he was busy at the time, and the band rather wanted a different take on their sound. The label liked the idea of David Bowie as producer, and he was on record as being a fan of the Furs, but he too was busy (presumably putting together Let’s Dance) and they didn’t want to wait around for an opening in his schedule. Not to mention, according to Richard, the media were already making too many comparisons between them and Bowie and he didn’t want to accentuate the similarities.

They opted for Todd Rundgren and flew over to the States to record at his New York State studio over a 6-seek period. Rundgren, as ever, was full of ideas and challenges to the band. He at once seemed to streamline their sound a little yet add all sorts of elements simultaneously, including his own keyboard work and backing vocalists (which the band wasn’t pleased about.) Among them were ’60s veterans Flo & Eddie, from the Turtles. Butler thought them superfluous and too “establishment”, but their voices stayed, including on the single “Love My Way”. When he heard the demo of that, “Flo” (Howard Kaylan) said “we have got to sing on this one – this is the f** hit!”

He was close to right. “Love My Way” was the first Furs song to chart in North America, hitting #44 in the U.S. It did marginally better at home for them, making #42 . It was a biggie in New Zealand where it broke into the top 10. The song itself has had a great after-life, with use in movies like Valley Girl and the Wedding Singer and is probably aired more on radio now than it was in the early-’80s.

The album itself met with mixed reviews and so-so sales. It hit #4 in New Zealand, #20 in the UK.There it was given a boost by having one of their concerts in October broadcast live on the BBC. It didn’t impact American charts much, but eventually did go gold, something the two prior ones failed to. “Love My Way” was big on college radio and stations like CFNY in Canada, and “Sleep Comes Down” also got them MTV airplay.

Rolling Stone at the time gave it a 3-star rating, noting that Richard “Butler’s voice carries” the album and his voice was either “ineffably fascinating (or would cause people) to run from the room upon hearing his unique vocal cords.” While they considered it “alluring” they felt only “Danger” stood out, “the most ferocious, impassioned song the Furs have ever recorded.” Tim Butler would later say it was his favorite album of theirs and it was them at their “most psychedelic.” All in all, an interesting album with some great tracks that, as Entertainment Weekly would go on to note later was “a shaky move toward their eventual mainstream success” in the form of their next album, 1984’s Mirror Moves.

December 22 – Hello, It’s Runt

“Runt” had a big day on this day in 1973 – Todd Rundgren’s (Aka “Runt”)’ great “Hello It’s Me” peaked at #5 on Billboard, making it, not surprisingly, his biggest hit to date.

Rundgren grew up in Philadelphia and quickly grew to become a versatile musician capable of playing just about any instrument it seemed. He joined a couple of bands there while still a teen, most notably Nazz. It was with them that he recorded the original version of this song, the first one he ever wrote, in 1969. That version was a little slower and more psychedelic than the one we know that became a hit in the ’70s.

After striking out on his own, he quickly developed a following with the early-’70s hits “We Gotta Get You A Woman” and “I Saw the Light”. He became increasingly creative, talented in the studio and on any number of instruments and tired of working with other musicians who didn’t share his energy (large amounts of Ritalin and pot “caused me to crank out the songs at an incredible rate” he says of the period) or visions. He came to work for Bearsville Records at their studio in upstate New York and help produce albums from Ian and Sylvia, Paul Buttersfield and Jesse Winchester (whom he helped Robbie Robertson of The Band with) before getting to work on his third album, Something/Anything? .

He decided at first to do that album entirely on his own, and seeking a change of pace and inspiration, took off to L.A. to record it. He wrote and recorded a good chunk of the opus there all by himself, including the hit “I Saw the Light”. But an earthquake caused problems at the studio, causing him to retreat back to Bearsville where he finished off what ended up being a 90-minute double album. While he had no help on sides 1 through 3 of the LP, side 4 in New York, he tried to record as a live record, but in the studio, and therefore he utilized a number of session musicians including Rick Derringer on guitar, Randy Brecker, one of Blood, Sweat & Tears’ great horn-virtuosos and Vickie Sue Robinson (who later had a hit with “Turn the Beat Around”) among the backing singers. Side 4 he termed “Baby Needs A New Pair of Snakeskin Shoes – a Pop Operetta” and included “Hello It’s Me”.

The album earned him his only solo gold record in the U.S. and won rave reviews. Rolling Stone, for example, graded it 4.5-stars when it came out calling it “perfectly composed.” Later the publication would rank it as the 117th best album of all-time, naming it his “tour de force” which “demonstrates his command of the studio …over a kaleidoscope of rock genres.”

The command of the studio’s served him well. Since then he’s produced a large number of popular and well-received records including Meat Loaf’s Bat out of Hell and XTC’s Skylarking. Between his own work and his band Utopia he’s put out some 18 more studio albums since Something/anything? but few have rivaled it in sales or acclaim. He was on the fan ballot for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last month, but lost to Def Leppard and Stevie Nicks. While neither his recording nor his production work in themselves may merit it, his combined influence on pop music should get him his recognition there soon!

“Hello It’s Me” remains one of the more popular singles of the early-’70s and among the myriad of artists to cover it are Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, as well as John Legend on a Gap (jeans) promo CD.

Sep. 25 – We Know What They Meant With ‘See You’…

Oh those ’70s. When else could an invitation to a casual one-night stand sound so innocent and sweet? England Dan and John Ford Coley hit #2 on this day in 1976 with their biggest hit, “I’d Really Love To See you Tonight.”  It was also a top 5 in Canada and at #26 in UK their biggest there as well.

The smooth-sounding SoCal pop set the duo up for a short run of success; they’d later score 3 more top 10s and be a strong presence on adult contemporary radio until their breakup around the start of the ’80s. “England Dan” , aka Dan Seals was the brother of Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts, and went on to a reasonably successful country career in the ’80s but passed away from cancer in 2009. He got his nickname, “England”, from his fascination with the Beatles and periodic habit of putting on a fake English accent during his teen years.  His school days friend from Dallas, John Ford Coley (actually Colley, but he dropped an “L” to make sure his name was pronounced right) more or less disappeared from the music scene after their last hit, the Todd Rundgren-penned “Love is the Answer” dropped off the chart though.

Sep. 18 – A Big Helping Of Meat Loaf 40 Years Ago

One of the most iconic of ’70s songs topped out on the chart this day back in 1978. Meat Loaf’s epic baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-sex- “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” hit #39 on Billboard. Which is quite surprising considering how well-known and oft-played on radio the lengthy tune is. Presumably people just wanted to buy the LP instead; Bat Out of Hell has sold well over 30 million copies worldwide, 14 million or so in the States and at 25X platinum is the biggest-ever in Australia.

At 7:55 it is one of the longest songs ever crammed onto a 7″ single in the US; many other countries got a much shorter version with the baseball content edited out. The innuendo-laden play-by-play (“he’s out-no wait- safe, safe at second base…”) is provided by famous Yankees commentator Phil Rizzuto and other well-knowns helped out on it too. The girl who sings the counterpoint to Meat Loaf is actress Ellen Foley (Night Court, Cocktail) ,the drummer was Bruce Springsteen’s drummer Max Weinberg and the producer, as well as a background singer was Todd Rundgren. Bassist Kasim Sulton, who was in Rundgren’s band, did the bass and says “I remember distinctly saying to myself ‘this is just the biggest joke…I cannot believe these people got a record deal!” They did, and it paid off! An interesting example of how savvy Meat Loaf and Co. were was that they shot a video for it- this was pre-MTV remember- and had it played in theaters that were playing The Rocky Horror Picture Show which he acted in.