A One-Sided Relationship

The Radio.biz Music Blog – Entry #4

I’ve been in a long-distance, one-sided relationship for over 47 years. At least, I’ve always thought of it that way.

You see, it all started in my hometown of Canton, Ohio – somewhere around 1979. I had an ok childhood in this ok middle class suburban neighborhood, but it wasn’t all that exciting. I’ve always jokingly said, if Canton were a color, it would be beige. 

I’m an only child, but I have a cousin, Greg, who’s 12 years my senior, who was like a big brother to me. And he lived right up the street. Greg was really cool. He was not beige. He looked like Peter Frampton from the cover of the Frampton Comes Alive record. He had long blond hair. He wore shirts unbuttoned down to his belly button and gold chains. I wanted to be like Greg.

Greg liked music. He played the drums. He was a DJ on his college radio station. He had a great record collection and an awesome stereo setup in his basement.

And his favorite musician was Todd Rundgren.

If you’re under the age of 45, you probably won’t know who Todd Rundgren is. If you’re over the age of 45, you also might not know who Todd Rundgren is. Anyway….

One day, while looking through Greg’s record collection, an album called “Adventures In Utopia” caught my eye. I could see on the cover that this was a Todd Rundgren project. And it looked like something different, something from another planet. I asked Greg about it. He said, “That’s Todd’s band. I don’t like it as much as his solo stuff.” 

I asked him if I could borrow it.

It was something different. It did seem like something from another planet. These songs sounded different from the 1970s pop hits that I had heard from Todd, like “Hello It’s Me” or “Can We Still Be Friends.” I liked it. I wanted more. I became a fan. 

I continued borrowing records, recording them on cassettes, and started buying Todd and Utopia records of my own.

I was hooked.

In the fall of 1982, I started High School. It was a Catholic high school, and the boys had to wear dark pants and white collared shirts. I had short hair – we all did. I was on the golf team. I wore cardigan sweaters. Sometimes I wore skinny ties. AND, for some reason, the High School allowed us to wear buttons. So I did. I wore Todd and Utopia buttons. And I still have some of them today.

These buttons were significant  because that’s how you found “your people.” 

Dave Jaroneski and John Markovic had older siblings who were Todd fans, and they had Todd buttons. We found each other. We all played guitar and started jamming in my basement, where my parents let me build a stage and put up lights. Dave and John would come over, and we’d try to play Utopia tunes. I started to imagine being in Utopia. I pretended that I was Kasim Sulton, Utopia’s bass player, and started to dress like the band, too – including wearing white shirts and skinny black ties.

The time finally came to see our musical hero in concert. It was May 19, 1984. Utopia was playing at Lakeland Community College, on the east side of Cleveland. It was two days before my 16th birthday. My parents drove my girlfriend and me, along with Dave and John, up to Cleveland for the show. We dressed up and wore our skinny ties, just like Utopia. During the opening act, a fuse blew, and the sound system went out. There was about a 2-hour delay before Utopia even started their show. We were in the arena for about 5 hours. My parents waited in the parking lot the entire time. Leaving the show that night, I think I knew that this was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. 

After seeing Todd and Utopia a few more times in high school, I had accumulated a few concert T-shirts. So, when I got to college, I wore my concert t-shirts. Typically, these were the baseball jersey style t-shirts with the color sleeves. When you saw someone on campus wearing a concert t-shirt of a band you loved, a conversation immediately started. That’s how I found more of my people. I met Dan. I met Pat. I met Mel. I met Tom. I met Rog. They were Todd fans too. Concert t-shirts were the new buttons.

Just like my cousin Greg, I started doing college radio, and I played Todd on the radio every chance I could.

And I continued to see him in concert – every chance I could.

Flash forward to 2012. I’m living in State College, Pennsylvania. I’m still in radio – still playing Todd on the air every chance I get. I was on the Board of the State Theatre, a local 500+ seat venue, and TODD CAME TO TOWN.

I leveraged my media career to secure an interview with Todd to promote the show.

I talked to his longtime manager, MaryLou Arnold, who gave me Todd’s number in Kauai.

I HAD TODD’S PHONE NUMBER!!!

I think my hands were shaking as I dialed the number.

A woman answered. “Aloha”

I said, “Is this Michele?” You see, when you love a musician as much as I love Todd, you know who he’s married to.

It was Michele.

I explained who I was and that I was calling for my scheduled interview with Todd. She told me that he was in the shower and I should call back in about 15 minutes.

My hero takes showers!

I called back 15 minutes later and had a really nice half-hour conversation with Todd. And did my best not to ask fanboy questions.

I called Greg and asked him if he’d like to come to State College to see the Todd Show. He came to town for the show. We got tickets in the 2nd row.

Since I was on the Board at the State Theatre and everyone knew what a huge Todd fan I was, they asked me if I’d like to go out and do the intro for the show. 

I would. And I did.

I walked out on stage to greet the crowd using the exact microphone that Todd would be using and welcomed him to the place where I had built my life and become part of the community. 

Since I had done the interview with Todd, I got a backstage pass. I asked MaryLou if I could get a 2nd pass so I could bring someone back with me. She agreed.

And, of course, I took Greg.

I can’t describe the feeling that I had being able to give Greg the gift of hanging out with the colorful, larger-than-life musician whose music he introduced me to over 30 years before.

Greg brought a Todd t-shirt from 1974 that he had Todd sign. We hung out in the green room for a little while. Greg ate a cookie. Todd said that he was just trying to get a beer, but we had a lot of stuff for him to sign!

If you had told the 11-year-old me back in 1979 that someday I would be hanging out backstage after seeing Todd in concert, having a conversation with him, and doing it with my cousin who introduced me to Todd, I would have never, ever believed you.

You see, being a Todd Rundgren fan takes effort. You’ve got to commit. Todd typically doesn’t do greatest hits tours. Todd continues to release new music, different music, never like the thing he did before. You’ve got to keep up with what he’s doing. It’s not easy like being a Rolling Stones fan. 🙂

There are really two types of Todd fans: the ones that only know the early hits – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out at the end of a Todd show and heard someone complain to their spouse, “I didn’t recognize 90% of that shit!”

And then there are the die-hards who keep up with all of it. The true Todd fans are a special breed. When you’re a true Todd fan, you’ll pay to hear him read the dictionary. You love everything he does. Of course, you love some things a lot more than others.

What all started with that Utopia show in 1984 has grown to now having seen Todd in concert somewhere around 40 times. I’ve met him 5 times and interviewed him twice.

After all these years of being a fan and attending his shows, I’ve come to believe that after a nuclear war, the only survivors will be cockroaches and Todd Rundgren fans.

“A dream goes on forever…”

Who are you in a one-sided relationship with?