Todd Rundgren 1: Nazz

Countless American bands were influenced by the British Invasion, and most of them were never heard from past their first hit single, if at all. When Nazz comes up these days, it’s almost always because they included a songwriter and guitarist named Todd Rundgren.

They took their name from an obscure Yardbirds B-side, and that was just one of their touchstones. Somehow they got signed to a Monkees-adjacent label distributed by Atlantic, and were immediately hyped in magazines like Tiger Beat before they’d even finished their first album. If any of those teenyboppers bought their eponymous debut unheard, did they like it? The cover of Nazz is a direct cop from the Beatles, while the back depicts them in fringe, corduroy, and kerchiefs with mod haircuts. Only the inner gatefold said who was who, the singer named merely as “Stewkey”. A few paragraphs from Jon Landau, about five years before he met Bruce Springsteen, add hype.

The music sits on two sides of the spectrum: Who-stained, acid-inspired rock and Bacharach-tinged pop not dissimilar to the Association. In the first category, the single “Open My Eyes” turns the “I Can’t Explain” chords into the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run” for a psychedelic classic. “Back Of Your Mind” is nice and trashy, and “Wildwood Blues” descends into some very out-there tape effects. On the softer side there’s “Hello It’s Me”, its first incarnation dreamily crooned by Stewkey, and “If That’s The Way You Feel” is remarkably similar. “Crowded” shows that Todd wasn’t the only one who knew how to craft AM radio ear candy.

If anything, Nazz suffers from a muddy mix, which led Todd to become even more dominant in the studio for the follow-up. He was writing and even singing more, and had to be talked out of releasing a two-record set. What did come out as Nazz Nazz begins like the first album, with “Forget All About It” something of a retread, and Todd taking over the keyboards and vocals for the driving “Not Wrong Long”. “Under The Ice” and “Hang On Paul” are cool extended guitar workouts, and “Kiddie Boy” is R&B with a horn section. “Gonna Cry Today” fills the “Hello It’s Me” slot in more ways than one, with only “Letters Don’t Count”, bookended by a glass harmonica effect as the only other ballad. The album’s ambition is crystalized by “A Beautiful Song”, the multipart symphony that takes up almost twelve minutes at the end of side two, comprised of layered guitars and keyboards, as well as horns and strings. The vocal-and-piano section is lovely, and overtaken by the instruments that came before. But there’s simply no explaining “Meridian Leeward”, which can’t decide if it wants to be a twisted fairy tale or an allegory about police brutality; either way, it misses.

By the time Nazz Nazz came out, Todd had quit the band with the intention to make his fortune in engineering and producing. (Bass player Carson Van Osten followed; he’d end up working for Disney as a respected animator.) That was that for a couple of years, until Todd had started getting notice on his own. So the label strongarmed Stewkey and drummer Thom Mooney into compiling Nazz III from everything that was rejected from the second album. (The two also hooked up with a couple of guys in Illinois who had a band called Fuse that would one day evolve into Cheap Trick, but that’s another story.)

These aren’t necessarily cast-offs; the biggest difference is that Stewkey is singing most of the tracks, and there are more slow tunes. There are a couple of oddball tracks, like the cover of Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Kicks” that wasn’t supposed to be on any album, and “Loosen Up”, a brief send-up of Archie Bell and the Drells that’s funny the first time you hear it. Carson contributed the meandering “Plenty Of Lovin’” and “Christopher Columbus”, both mostly notable for the guitar work, which also comes through on the more rocking “Magic Me” and “How Can You Call That Beautiful?” Mostly we can hear Todd’s infatuation with Laura Nyro on several tracks, like “Only One Winner” and “Resolution”, culminating with the lush, yearning “You Are My Window”.

The albums aren’t masterpieces, but they do fit into the bigger picture, and start the Todd trajectory. Because of his connection, Nazz would become somewhat beloved as cult heroes and early power pop icons. Rhino even reissued their albums in the ‘80s, a few years before doing the same with Todd’s solo catalog. Eventually, 2002’s Open Your Eyes anthology crammed all three albums onto two discs, but shuffled the order completely, and added their unreleased cover of “Train Kept A-Rollin’”. Seven years later, all three albums were reissued with bonus tracks, like outtakes and demo versions with Todd singing what Stewkey would emulate, and in a set called The Complete Nazz, which was exactly that. But some people wanted more, so the oddly named Lost Masters & Demos presented the complete proposed Nazz Nazz double album sequence and a collection of alternate mixes from preserved acetates. While interesting—especially if you’re used to hearing the tunes in other contexts—it’s no White Album. Sometimes the label is right.

Nazz Nazz (1968)—3
Nazz Nazz Nazz (1969)—3
Nazz Nazz III (1971)—3
Nazz Open Your Eyes: The Anthology (2002)—3
Nazz The Complete Nazz (2009)—3½
Nazz Lost Masters & Demos (2022)—2½