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Dynamic, fresh, ready to attack and excite like a psychoactive substance, this Philadelphia-based quartet offered one of the most marvelous chapters of the late 60’s. Their 3 records, specially the indestructible “Nazz Nazz”, which is close to being eternal, personalize that kind of delicacy that rarely ever such powerful bands attain. These guys’ music sensually invaded the gap between the Beatles and Cream, The Who and California’s psycho-west coast, and the young energy that came from their entrails still remains today as the perfect statement of generational implication that every modernity should represent. Because, more than anything, Nazz were a modern band, and therefore, they were visionary, specially if we pay attention to the creamy progressive treatments Rundgrend dug so much. Nazz: Distortion romances and celestial hearts. Natural born guru and soul of the Nazz-sound, Todd Rundgrend was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 22nd of July of 1948. Very early he felt trapped by the music, showing an accurate sensibility for the most varied performances. So he was still suffering from acne when his lank hair looked remarkably long and, hands on guitar, decided to liberate his first ideas with a band named Money, his first musical experience. This project led Todd towards his next step, the bluesy combo Woody’s Truckstop, another transitory entity without any known legacy but some amateur demo-tape songs that got Todd in touch with bass player Carson Van Osten and also made him conscious of his potential creativity. He’s got a respectable technique with the six strings even before getting eighteen years old. His guitar shoots robust, aggressive chords, just like Pete Townshend and Cream’s Eric Clapton his riffs result devastating, and everything he knows about harmonies is coming from the Liverpool fab-four melodic abilities. The Beatles become a strong influence on his work. In addition the little genius seems to have a clear vision of the concepts he’s going to use during his future musical exploration.
Once together, they started by adopting a colourful mod look and decided to look for a short and direct name, which would match the band’s style. They took it from a Yardbirds’ B-side tune: “The Nazz are blue”. Todd’s stuff started taking a really solid shape during the intensive improvisation sessions that at the same time were reinforcing the instrumental unity of a band whose instrumental skill was astonishing.
In a short period of time, with a bunch of compact and explosive songs on their back, The Nazz did their first live shows supporting The Doors and frequently played the local club circuit, getting the support of an audience that was amazed by the band’s sophisticated and virtuous performances, mixing a terrific 50/50 of melody and hard rock rage. John Kurland and his management agency decided to move the band from Philadelphia to New York. Kurland was well known into the music business and was interested in signing a band with a powerful guitar sound, as he was bound to think that it was actually possible to take some profit out of the stylistic avalanche of that era by representing a band like The Nazz. Once representation matters were taken care of, Nazz offer their real debut in Boston, Massachussets, in January 1968, getting flattering reviews that brought them their first contract on a new label named SGC, the result of a merger between the powerful Atlantis and Columbia. Under the protection of such a corporative giant, they lock themselves up in the studio and start recording their music. The self titled first record, recorded and mixed in Los Angeles under Todd Rungrend and Michael Friedman’s supervision, hits the streets during the middle of the year and the reviews agree to consider it as an excellent masterpiece. Full of vitality and teenage energy, Todd immediately adopts the role of the band’s cerebral totem. The only single taken from the LP was the song “Hello it’s me”, with the colossal “Open my eyes” as B-side, an election that didn’t take a long time to attain good positions in the charts. The first song was a floating pop treatment of aquatic atmospheres with a Brian Wilson touch on the harmonies, featuring soft percussions and a dusky piano. On the contrary, “Open my eyes” detonated all of the internal strength of the band’s most energetic side. A power-pop explosion with thick guitars and lunar melodies that, emerging from a riff with a The Who touch, achieved high levels of magnetic psychedelia. All of it done with exquisite elegance. Even when the two songs on the vinyl slice were definitely great, the content of the album stored more gems, like “Back of your mind”, a Cream-manic piece where Todd’s guitar surfs the hyperspace. On the same level are “Wildwood blues”, “Lemming song” and “She’s going down”, guitar driven scenes that forecasted what would happen with the 70’s American Hard Rock. What was clear from then on, and so they thought after a bunch of masterly performances all over the country was that The Nazz shined more intensely on stage, and that the studio just wasn’t enough to catch all of their potential. Lending an ear to the rare bootleg recordings that can be found, it’s easy to figure out the spooky intensity of their live performances and the magnetism of their rehearsals. Later on they went back to the U.K. in order to work on their next album, the essential “Nazz Nazz”.
The band had almost absolute control over this second album, with Rundgrend harmonizing all the work. Around that time he knew a lot about studio techniques and had also learnt to write and read music. The richness of the new compositions becomes then huge with titles like “Forget all about it”, which opens the record and still remains as one of the top pop creations of the late 60’s. Everything in “Nazz Nazz” achieves extreme dimensions.
Some of the stuff not included on this record was later published as “Nazz III”, already without Todd and once the band disappeared. In spite of getting terrific support from the media and the fans, “Nazz Nazz” couldn’t fix what was unfixable. Internal problems and different opinions about the band’s stylistic future put a sad end to the miracle. Rundgrend quit the project before the release of the next album. The band continued to play live for six months recruiting Greg Simpler and Craig Bolan. Antoni re-recorded Todd’s vocals for the next album, and even though it is definitely not unworthy of the band’s quality, “Nazz III” is the most weak and disperse of the three records, even when its addictive properties were far better than a whole lot of over-valued bands that appeared later, surrounding the music industry under the rules of their creators. With all the members going their own way, The Nazz became history. Like many of the bands of that period, they left a magnificent legacy in a short time.
Todd Rundgrend, Philadelphia’s wizard, would start his own solo career, and become a reputable producer, would record some albums on his own and later form the irregular Utopia, generating afterwards a whole bunch of solo albums free from any kind of stylistic impositions, where still today continues to explore several forms of expression expanding his out-of-this-world talent. And it is funny to realize how this man, a sound craftsman somewhere between anxiety and inspiration, even after producing solemn pieces of work, songs and records full of pop talent, hasn’t been yet able to do better than he did being an adolescent, a product, without any shadow of a doubt, of an emblematic era for those who still had something to say and, driven by their geniality, knew how to say it. Warning: Failed opening '/home/swmagazi/sonicwavemagazine-www/in/0105/sumario.inc.php' for inclusion (include_path='./:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/swmagazi/sonicwavemagazine-www/backstage/contenido/index.php on line 356 |
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