Todd Harry Rundgren is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the bands The Nazz and Utopia. He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive art. He also produced music videos and was an early adopter and promoter of various computer technologies, such as using the Internet as a means of music distribution in the late 1990s.
New York Dolls is the debut album by the American hard rock band New York Dolls. It was released on July 27, 1973, by Mercury Records. In the years leading up to the album, the Dolls had developed a local fanbase by playing regularly in lower Manhattan after forming in 1971. However, most music producers and record companies were reluctant to work with them because of their vulgarity and onstage fashion as well as homophobia in New York; the group later appeared in exaggerated drag on the album cover for shock value.
A groupie is a fan of a particular musical group who follows the band around while they are on tour or who attends as many of their public appearances as possible, with the hope of meeting them. The term is usually derogatory, mostly describing young women, and sometimes men, who follow these individuals aiming to initiate a sexual encounter with them or to offer them sex quid pro quo. The term is also used to describe similarly enthusiastic fans of athletes, writers, and other public figures.
Steven Victor Tallarico, known professionally as Steven Tyler, is an American singer, best known as the lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the keyboards, harmonica and percussion. He has been called the "Demon of Screamin'" due to his high screams and his powerful wide vocal range. He is also known for his on-stage acrobatics. During his performances, Tyler usually dresses in colorful, sometimes androgynous outfits and makeup with his trademark scarves hanging from his microphone stand.
Almost Famous is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe, starring Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It tells the story of a teenage journalist, played by Fugit, writing for Rolling Stone magazine in the early 1970s, touring with the fictitious rock band Stillwater, and writing his first cover story on the band. The film is semi-autobiographical, as Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone.
Pamela Des Barres is an American rock and roll groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She is best known for her 1987 memoir, I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. She is also a former member of the experimental Frank Zappa-produced music group the GTOs.
Mia Abagale Tallarico, better known as Mia Tyler, is an American actress, model, media personality and socialite.
Something/Anything? is the third album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released in February 1972. It was Rundgren's first album released under his own name, following two records credited to the quasi-group project Runt, and was also his first double album. It was recorded in late 1971 in Los Angeles, New York City and Bearsville Studios, Woodstock. The album is divided into four sections focused on different stylistic themes; the first three parts were recorded in the studio with Rundgren playing all instruments and singing all vocals in addition to producing. The final quarter contained a number of tracks recorded live in the studio without any overdubs, save for a short snippet of archive recordings from the 1960s.
Todd is the fifth album and second double album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released in February 1974 on Bearsville Records. It is the follow-up to the previous year's A Wizard, a True Star and features a comparatively heavier reliance on guitar playing and synthesizers. About half of the tracks were performed by Rundgren alone, with the other half recorded with varying configurations of musicians. In the US, the album peaked at number 54, while lead single "A Dream Goes On Forever" reached number 69.
Hermit of Mink Hollow is the eighth album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released May 1978 on Bearsville Records. All of the instruments and vocals were performed by Rundgren. He intended the songs on the album to be performed on piano with minimal arrangements, apart from the bass, drums and voices, and for the material to showcase his newly refined singing ability.
Utopia was an American rock band formed in 1973 by Todd Rundgren. During its first three years, the group was a progressive rock band with a somewhat fluid membership known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Most of the members in this early incarnation also played on Rundgren's solo albums of the period up to 1975. By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and featured a stable quartet of Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox. This version of the group gradually abandoned progressive rock for more straightforward rock and pop.
Gregory A. Hawkes is an American musician who is best known as the keyboardist and founding member of the American new wave band The Cars. Hawkes is credited with helping popularize new wave and synth-pop in American popular music as a member of The Cars. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest keyboardists of all time.
"Can We Still Be Friends" is a song written and originally performed by Todd Rundgren.
Kasim Sulton is an American bass guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist. Best known for his work with Utopia, Sulton sang lead on 1980's "Set Me Free," Utopia's only top 40 hit in the United States. As a solo artist, Sulton hit the Canadian top 40 in 1982 with "Don't Break My Heart".
Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco was a Los Angeles nightclub located at 7561 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip from late 1972 until early 1975. It catered to the glam rock movement. The club was infamous for widespread drug use and hosting underage girls at parties, but it was also a popular spot among rockstars, including Cherie Currie, Joan Jett, and Iggy Pop.
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress. She began a modeling career at age 14 before making her film debut in Silent Fall (1994); she went on to achieve critical recognition with starring roles in Heavy and Empire Records, as well as That Thing You Do! and Stealing Beauty. She then appeared in films such as Inventing the Abbotts (1997), Armageddon (1998), Cookie's Fortune and Onegin, Dr. T & the Women (2000), and One Night at McCool's (2001). She then played the elf Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003), which became one of the highest-grossing film series in history.
Charis Elisa Michelsen is an American actress, a writer, a former model and a make-up artist. Michelsen worked as a model in New York City in her early adulthood before becoming an actress. She appeared in supporting roles in the films High Art (1998), Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), and Wonder Boys (2000).
Sabel Hay Shields, better known as Sable Starr, was a famous groupie, often described as the "queen of the groupie scene" in Los Angeles during the early 1970s. She stated during an interview published in the June 1973 edition of Star magazine that she had met Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Elton John, and Marc Bolan.
Lori Mattix, sometimes known as Lori Maddox or Lori Lightning, is an American former child model and "baby" groupie of the 1970s. As of November 2015, she is a partner and buyer for the Glam Boutique in West Hollywood. She is perhaps best known for an interview with Thrillist in 2015 in which she made allegations of being involved in sexual relationships with David Bowie, Jimmy Page, and Mick Jagger; these are relationships which would have occurred while she was underage and while the musicians were in their twenties, although her connections to Bowie and Jagger are disputed.
