Todd Rundgren

Utopia is an American progressive rock band, led by Todd Rundgren that toured and recorded from 1973 to 1986. The first two albums - Todd Rundgren's... Utopia and Another Live , featured lengthy, complex and highly arranged progressive rock pieces, performed by a six-piece multi-instrumentalist ensemble. It was made up of Rundgren , Kevin Ellman , Mark "Moogy" Klingman , Jean Yves "M. Frog" Labat , Ralph Schuckett , and John Siegler . Soon after this album was completed, Labat left the band and was replaced by former Moog programmer Roger Powell. The debut album itself contained only four tracks and ran for almost sixty minutes total, opening with "Utopia Theme" - recorded live in concert - and closing with the extended concept piece "The Ikon", which ran more than thirty minutes and took up all of Side two of the album. The live LP Another Live featured new members Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox .
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Nazz was a psychedelic and garage rock band from the 1960s. The band was formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1967 by Todd Rundgren and Carson... Van Osten . Thom Mooney , and Robert "Stewkey" Antoni joined before their first concert, opening for the Doors in 1967. Nazz was marketed by their manager, Michael Friedman, as a teenybopper band along the lines of The Monkees. The group signed with SGC Records, releasing Nazz in October 1968. The album was not commercially successful and neither was the first single, "Open My Eyes" of which the flip side was "Hello It's Me" . "Open My Eyes" was the side SGC Records was promoting, but in Boston WMEX Music Director and DJ Ron Robin accidentally played the flip side. He was impressed and added it to the station's playlist. Reaction was strong and "Hello It's Me" became a number one hit at WMEX in 1968. Several weeks later it was on the playlist of Boston's other Top 40 radio station WRKO and eventually at other stations across the country. SGC Records presented Ron Robin with a Silver Record which reads "WMEX, Where it All Began. Thanks!".
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To date, Ringo Starr has toured with eleven variations of his All-Starr Band where "everybody on stage is a star in their own right." Ringo Starr and... his All-Starr Band is a concept that was created by producer David Fishof. The band has consistently toured for over two decades, and, in similar fashion to Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, rotates its line-up depending on the musicians' projects at a given time. At an All-Starr Band concert Ringo will perform some of his solo and Beatles songs and then each band member will take turns performing hits from their own career.
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Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. At one time public, Ampex is currently a privately held company. Alexander Matthew Poniatoff established the... company in San Carlos, California, in 1944 as the Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company. The name came from his initials plus "ex" to avoid using the name AMP already in use. During World War II, Ampex was a small manufacturer of high quality electric motors and generators for radars that used Alnico 5 magnets from General Electric. Ampex's first offices were at 1313 Laurel St. San Carlos California, "Howard Ave. at Laurel". Near the end of the war, while serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Major Jack Mullin was assigned to investigate German radio and electronics experiments. He discovered the Magnetophons with AC biasing on a trip to Radio Frankfurt which gave much better fidelity than shellac records. Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders along with 50 reels of BASF Type L tape and brought them to America where he produced modified versions.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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