Still crazy about Todd Rundgren after all these years

You're a Girl Scout in New Jersey when, over an illicit cigarette one day, an older Scout loans you her copy of Todd Rundgren's "Something/Anything?" Says it "kicks ass."

You're consumed with this wondrous thing, this double album. The photos. The lyrics. The fact that this skinny guy from Upper Darby, Pa., wrote, performed and produced the whole thing himself.

He was a scrawny American Beatle, creating his own American pop songs about love and break-ups, but then other catchy weirdness like "Piss Aaron" and "Slut." He was just what his third album called him, "A Wizard, a True Star," and you felt more grown up every time the needle hit the vinyl.

You take the bus to New York City's Central Park to see him, race to the front of the audience to get as close as you can. You put a poster from his "Todd" album — his lank hair green-blue and pink, his face long and bored — over your bed. You stay with him when he ventures off into the experimental Utopia, and rejoice when he comes back to his pop roots with "Faithful" and "The Hermit of Mink Hollow."

In college, you embrace Patti Smith, the Pretenders, the Ramones, the Clash. But Todd always came first.

Then: You're a 47-year-old hack when you get a press release saying Todd Rundgren is coming to Seattle's Triple Door on July 9. The memories come rushing back. You get lost in your old CDs for days and days and, on the day you are to dial him up, feel like a Girl Scout again.

You recognize his voice when he answers the phone. You call him by his first name, bring tidings from your parents, your sister, your friends. He was the first guy you brought home, after all. And there was that day in Central Park.

"Oh, then you were on 'Sons of 1984,' " Rundgren said of the anthem he recorded there, with the audience singing backup. The very thought ...

Rundgren went on to produce for Badfinger, Patti Smith, the Tubes, XTC and Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell." He even did music for "Pee-Wee's Playhouse."

He was an early pioneer in interactive audio and video. In fact, his video for the song "Time Heals" was the second video ever shown on MTV. And in the late 1990s, he created an online music service called PatroNet, which gave subscribers direct download access to new, unreleased tracks, cutting out record labels.

He even replaced Ric Ocasek to front The New Cars, which toured with a new version of Blondie a few years ago. (Not something he was keen on talking about.)

This year, the wunderkind who called his first album "Runt" turns 60.

To celebrate, Rundgren invited anyone with $300, airfare and a tent to set up on his spread on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for a weeklong celebration.

"Some people are calling it 'Toddstock,' " he said of the party.

The event culminated on his birthday, June 22, with a live performance of his new album, "Arena."

"It's a return to riff-oriented guitar rock," Rundgren said of the album. "It's supposed to make you reflexively pump your fist and wave a lighter in the air.

"The music is about courage, and is, hopefully, reflective of that."

One week after "Toddstock," Rundgren will head out on tour with His Band: guitarist Jesse Gress, bassist Rachel Haden, guitarist and keyboardist Matt Bolton and drummer Prairie Prince.

The live shows will be "a straight-ahead, guitar-rock extravaganza," Rundgren said. "We can't afford the flamethrowers yet, but we'll make up for it with aggressivity."

Longtime fans should know what to expect, Rundgren said.

"And that is, you don't know what to expect."

If, however, you are expecting a medley of '70s and '80s hits that made Rundgren a star — "Hello, It's Me," "I Saw the Light" and "Can We Still Be Friends?" — well, you may be disappointed.

"There may be something for the sweet tooth," Rundgren allowed. "We haven't yet fully focused on old material, but I would say that the usual rules hold: We'll likely play something old, but it would be unwise to expect something specific."

When he's not writing, playing, singing or producing, Rundgren can be found in the kitchen of his home in Kauai, where he lives with his wife, Michele.

He bought land there in 1992, after Hurricane Iniki had leveled both homes and land prices. He finally moved there for good from Marin County, Calif., where he worried that his eldest son, Rex, was "becoming one of Tupac's posse."

Rex, 28, and his brother Randy, 23, are now professional baseball players; another son, Rebop, 16, just got his GED and is headed to college to study music.

At home, Rundgren is a big fan of "The Great Chefs of Europe," and even had a cast-iron stove top, or "French top," installed in his kitchen.

So the man who produced Meatloaf is now all about his risotto, along with a "fresh recipe" for three-bean salad (really?) and beans and rice with collard greens.

Rundgren may have mellowed a bit, "But the reason to come to the show hasn't changed," he said. "We kick serious ass."

Scout's honor.

Information in this article, originally published July 7, 2008, was corrected July 15, 2008. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated in 1992, Hawaii was struck by Hurricane Andrew. It was, in fact, struck by Hurricane Iniki.