Nazz
Nazz

After fifteen thousand and some reviews, is there anyone who feels like making a kind of ranking of the most underrated rock artists on DeBaser? I'm sure each of us would have more than one name to propose and put at the top of the parade. I, who have tried to bring some out of the darkness (Ocasek, Mould, Ant), the first name that comes to mind is that of Mr. Todd Rundgren. Not that there aren't any reviews about him (there are a total of 6), but what is there seems little in the face of a forty-year career.

At the end of the sixties, together with bassist and friend Carson Van Osten, Todd recruits Thom Mooney on drums and Robert Antoni, known as "Stewkey," on keyboards but especially on the mike, creating the Nazz. His first band would have the target of an American boy band, and the musical references are those right for living fringes. No Dylan, no flowers, no politics, no folk, but rather Beatles, Yardbirds blues, Small Faces playfulness, rock Who... The voice of "Stewkey" Antoni is sometimes Daltrey's, sometimes Lennon's, sometimes Steve Marriott's... The sound, despite revisiting many standards of the era, is fresh and almost current, just listen to the splendid opener "Open My Eyes" (Who) or the wild "Wildwood Blues".

A moisturizing cream of psychedelia, a thin veil, is spread over all the tracks; a bit of glam self-indulgence, in early Thin White Duke style, especially in those slow ones, like "If That's The Way You Feel"; vocals in great and continuous emphasis, drums at the forefront, ahead of almost everything else. Excellent "When I Get My Plane", with that rumour of guitars on which a constantly rolling Morgan travels, stuff that seems like Michi De Rossi. In this specific episode, therefore, more progressive rock than psychedelia, but it's known that Rundgren (the sole author of all the tracks, but maybe it was not necessary to write it) will use all the styles in the world, mix them in his hat, he who is "the wizard", and will always draw something tasty from it.

In "Lemming Song", among Rolling Stones rhythms and metrics, an instrumental acceleration with solos from all instruments, in Cream style. Final curiosity, the presence of "Hello It's Me", a ballad "smeared" with psychedelia that a few years later was re-proposed by Rundgren in a mid-tempo version, piano and trumpet (and a nice whistle would have fitted well too), a big hit worthy of Burt Bacharach's classics. The version in this debut is very slow, dreamy, and even seems longer than the second, although it is half a minute shorter. For those like me who sometimes find themselves whistling it in the shower as if it were "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", it will be difficult to get used to the 1968 Nazz version, but I am convinced that, put one in front of the other, and brought to the attention of those unfamiliar with both, the slow one would not look bad.

A record that has a sea of debts to pay, an astronomical sum to correspond to London power pop, but which undoubtedly stands out for the validity of the melodies, which sometimes seem easygoing but are complex, which sometimes seem fake but are honest and true, which appear convoluted when they are linear and linear when instead they are convoluted... That when it seems like magic is a trick, and when it seems like a trick, instead maybe it really is magic. "Nazz" is the debut of a little wizard, the Harry Potter of rock. Forty years and forty records ago.