As told to the Awizard list by Mark "Moogy" Klingman...
Part 2
2/5/99
"Dust in the Wind" was one of my earliest ballads. I never really sang it with my band at the time, (Moogy and the Rhythm Kings). Too rangy, too slow. But, Todd always liked it. When he was recording "Something/Anything" one man band tracks, he surprised the hell of me by telling me, he was going to record it.
The song was recorded the same day and with the same musicians as "Hello, It's Me". That Sunday in 71 or 72. We recorded three songs for side four of S/A. Todd called me on a Friday or Saturday giving me almost no time to find all the musicians for that fateful recording session. I was his music contractor on that session (that means I had to pick, find and hire all the musicians, which included (Mike and Randy Brecker and Rick Derringer).
All three songs were recorded live with no overdubs!! The third song was "You really left me sore". "Dust in the Wind" was the only song on S/A that TR didn't write. And the first time he had as a solo artist ever recorded something he didn't write. It was tribute to our friendship at the time, that he gave me that big break.
"Dust in the Wind" was really inspired by the James Taylor song, "Something's Wrong'" (on his first album, which was on apple). I was friends with James at the time and used to see his band "the Flying Machine" at the niteowl cafe every nite, They were paid $12 apiece at the end of each nite and worked there for almost a year. The bridge to "Something's Wrong" went "Like dust in the wind, you're gone forever". That's where I stole the title. This was a few years before Kansas's "Dust in the Wind", (not my song). Bob Dylan had a song on an early album with the title, "When my ship comes in"...
Ah, ha! It rhymed with "wind"! The song just came out after that, and it was really based on nothing personal. As I reviewed the words, it's really about a person's last statement on his or her deathbed. For all the pain the dying person has caused, he is sorry, truly sorry. But in the end it's dust...meaningless. So I guess the message of the dying person is life is meaningless... but, I don't really agree with that.
I think what I meant at the time, All the pain you've caused in your life. Leave all that behind you now. It's too late to change it, so accept it. Some songs just write themselves, and afterward I can just listen to it and wonder "what the hell was I thinking???"
Chorus-- "I have lied, I have begged, I have cheated,
And I know my ship won't be coming in.
But as I lay me down to take my rest,
I see that it was dust in the wind"
Moogy
2/5/99
About M. Frog, after he got his walking papers from Utopia, I heard that M. Frog went to Africa and hung out with the dictator Idi Amin. I heard Amin had his arms broken for some supposed insult, and afterwards they became great friends. This would be back in the late 70's or 80's. This is second hand info, but I have heard variations of it several times over the years.
Moogy
2/5/99
The songs Runt "thrashed thru"? I definitely remember, "Broke Down and Busted" and a Gram Parsons songs that was done by "The Flying Burrito Brothers" called "Hot Tamale #2" I played it for Todd and we ending up doing it in Runt. He sang it. The opening line was "You love me and you sew my clothes". I think we did "Who's That Man" from the 1st TR album. Maybe a "Who" song. Devils Bite, maybe...I'd have to see the titles of the songs from Runt to say which songs we massacred.
Moogy
2/5/99
Yes, I'm recording. And I have been over the years. I plan to offer my CD's over a website to be announced soon. I'll let you know. But I have a body of work that I'm now getting ready to start pressing.
Moogy
P.S. Isn't Seattle the home of Grunge Rock and the late Kurt Cobain? I toured there playing with Bo Diddley, of all people, a few years ago. It was a fun town.
2/6/99
Wow!! Someone has one of 75 cassette copies of my 1994 album, "Last Days' Jam". Those cassettes were given to just a few people. Moogy and the Mojo's was the Lower East Side's main political rock band and played constantly at Tompkin's Square Park and on WBAI radio between 1988 and 1994.
Many times police riots broke out after TSP concerts featuring our performances (and that of other bands) and some of these riots made worldwide press. The song "Tompkins Square Uprising" (on last days jam) is about the anti-curfew riot in Tompkins Square Park of 1988. After the May Day concert of 1990 where Moogy and the Mojos shared the bill with many other radical bands. The police charged the stage at 9 PM to enforce a sound curfew, beating up performers and promoters in front of thousands!! This resulted in the May Day riot where 29 people were arrested on felony assault charges against police officers.
The trial of the May Day 29, went on for 6 months, and such activist attorneys as William Kunstler and Ron Kuby represented the defendants. In the end, only one person in 27 was found guilty of anything.
Songs on "last days jam" like "only the outlaws are free" and "One kiss before I Die" are about living on the Lower East Side during these turbulent times.
The Beatles song you asked about is a live rendition of "the Ballad of John and Yoko!" This was taped at CBGB's in 1993 features a 16 year old Sean Lennon on Background vocals and lead guitar!!!!!!! It was very strange indeed having Sean harmonize with me on the lines "the way things are going, they're gonna crucify me!" His father's fateful words being sadly proven true!
I brought the tape of Sean's performance with my band over to Dakota, where I played it for Sean and his mom, Yoko. She said it reminder her of john at the cavern!!
I'm gonna try to put Moogy 1 and 2 and "Last Days jam" on sale on the silvermoon music website. Negotiations are ongoing. Gonna have my own website in several months as well.
Moogy
[Is that you saying "Comin' at-cha!" on the count in?]
2/8/99
Yeah - I cracked most of the adlibs on the live side of S/A.
Moogy
2/8/99
I sang lead and we made two Moogy albums, though neither were called Moogy and the Rhythm Kings. They were called - Mark "Moogy" Klingman.... and Moogy 2. The first was for Capitol and the 2nd was for EMI Europe and was released only in Holland! The personnel of the band Me on the keys and lead vocals and sole songwriter, Ralph on the keys and bg vocs, John Seigler on bass and bg vocs and John Siomos on drums. This is the same band that did "A Wizard, a True Star".
After Runt and the WMMR band, Todd put together Utopia to Promote S/A. Dave Mason (of Florida not England) was the keyboardist for the Short-lived 1st Utopia band, which was Todd, Mason, and the Sales Bros. This band only lasted several gigs, and bombed live. Then Todd recruited my Band Moogy and the Rhythm Kings. Siomos joined Peter Frampton and I brought In Ellman. The rest as they say, is history.
Moogy
Walter
Dave mason to the left. Tony sales on top and Hunt sales on the bottom.
Moogy
Photo from the Phonographic Record Magazine, March 1973
( From Gio Bruno)
( From Gio Bruno)
(You Gotta Have) "Friends" is a song that I wrote with Buzzy Linhart in the early 70's. It quickly became Bette Midler's theme song from her earliest gigs. She has since recorded it no less than 5 times on three of her albums!... Others have recorded it (Barry Manilow etc.) and sung it in films... Diane Keaton in "Lemon Sisters" and most recently, Meryl Steep and family sing it in "One True Thing".
Todd Rundgren built Secret Sound in my loft apartment, at 147 w 24th St. in Manhattan in about 1972 or 3. All his and my albums were recorded there for several years. Till about 76 or 77 when Todd moved all his recording facilities up to Woodstock.
[Why wasn't the album released until 1978?]
It's just one of those things, Utopia was big, and I was more into being a band member than a solo artist, and I was busy working on Bette Midler's album, producing it for over a year. That's when I got back to my thing even if only in small doses. Moogy 2 only came out in Europe, Holland to be exact. I toured for a few gigs and did a lot of press at the time over there. Nothing much came of it.
I did a series of interviews with Todd for my cable TV show of the early 80's. It was called "Manhattan Alley", about 1980 or 1981. But that was it. Haven't seen him in quite some time.
I'm still in the biz, I have a recording studio where I work with various artists and getting ready to press some CD's of my music...I don't talk to any former band members, though I did bump into Kasim at some jams over the last few years. Saw him last about 6 months ago.
Moogy
2/17/99
The funniest thing about "Friends" was that Sam Gorden (My publisher and Todd's as well) wanted Tiny Tim to record it as a follow-up to his novelty hit, "Tip Toe thru the Tulips". Once that idea failed, the tune sat 'til Buzzy Linhart sang it, when he would open for Bette Midler at the Continental Baths. She heard him do it and adapted it as her theme song. Back then... maybe 1971. Sam Gorden was Albert Grossman's publishing head. He handled all Bob Dylan and the Band songs. I just thought it was funny that he would think of Tiny Tim as the only artist who could cover, "You gotta have Friends"!!
Better Midler is a whole other story!! But the biggest thrill of producing her album was setting up and recording the Bob Dylan duet on that record. I bumped into Dylan at a bar.... and talked him into it. Now that's a long story!!!!!
That' s also the one time, I ever saw Todd blow his well-known cool. I was still in Utopia at the time, and he was extremely impressed that I had produced Dylan. It's the only time in my life that he ever asked me about anyone, "What's Bob Dylan really like?". He wanted to know. It totally stunned me. I had scored big points with TR. Though him and Dylan were managed by the same man, Todd (by 1975) had only met Dylan once and briefly, at that.
Moogy