During those years and beyond, Utopia produced albums heavy not only on musicality but also on innovation, becoming known for the use of cutting-edge technology in both audio and video. Woodstock is within spitting distance of Bearsville, home of Bearsville Records, the label that carried Rundgren and Utopia from the beginning of their respective careers until 1982. Wilcox explained that he would soon be making final adjustments to a new custom Ludwig drum kit upon his early-April arrival at a rehearsal facility “in of all places, Woodstock, New York, where it all began,” says Wilcox. Later this month, he’ll join old friends and bandmates Rundgren and bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton (and new, last-minute substitute keyboardist Gil Assayas) as the best-known incarnation of Utopia embarks on its first full-scale American jaunt since 1985, with enticing possibilities for Tennessee fans willing to hit the road to Utopia in Atlanta (the Tabernacle, April 28) or Cincinnati (the Taft Theater, May 10). Now a writer and producer of contemporary dance music, Wilcox holds down a day gig creating video game soundtracks as the senior audio director at Las Vegas-based Scientific Games. “My ear perked up to wanting to use drum machines,” says Wilcox, an admitted fan of catchy pop whose commercial inclinations departed somewhat from Utopia’s musical methodology during the earlier phases of the band’s 11-year existence. Wilcox, in a recent interview for the Pulse, recalls initially getting “in trouble with Utopia” over his interest in then-popular dance music by the likes of Prince and Madonna. In 1985, the band did its final 20th-century tour of the States and released the album P.O.V., largely informed by then-emerging digital synth, drum machine and sequencing technology championed in particular by Utopia drummer, songwriter and co-producer John “Willie” Wilcox. Utopia’s shifting membership had settled into a stable four-piece lineup by 1977’s Ra, followed by seven more albums that encompass a breadth of musical and lyrical perspectives. This creatively fertile period would soon see the birth of Utopia, whose first album contained four chunks of thought-provoking progressive rock, one of them exceeding a half-hour in length and sporting a complex musical structure indicative of Rundgren’s own bent toward higher forms of expression and his disregard for commercial expectations. The traditional pop-song formulae that informed enduring radio favorites “I Saw the Light” and “Hello It’s Me,” both Top 40 hits in 1972, quickly became old hat to Rundgren, who in short order alienated much of his growing fan base with a hard left turn toward notably more adventuresome music-making. Debuting on vinyl in 1974 as a six-member band, half of those on keyboards, Utopia was the ever-restless Rundgren’s experiment with forming a collaborative musical unit after briefly reaching the pinnacle of pop success with music he recorded mostly alone, using early multi-track equipment. The story of Utopia, though, must be prefaced with the story, however abridged, of multi-hued artist/songwriter/producer Todd Rundgren. Seekers of forward-thinking pop and rock active between the mid-’70s and mid-’80s were likely to be found on the roads to Utopia, bound for local record shops and concert venues in order to experience one of the era’s hardest-to-define bands. Todd Rundgren, Willie Wilcox and Kasim Sulton of Utopia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |