Ra

Utopia: Ra

"...This is an electrified fairytale. If you've never heard of an electrified fairytale, just picture little fairies with wee, tiny electric guitars..."

Narration intro to Singring & The Glass Guitar, from Utopia's album Ra

As Austin Powers would say:

Yeah baby!

I love Todd...and I really love Ra, even though it:

is completely indulgent
would irritates the hell out of some folks &
contains a couple of tracks that are seriously, malodorous stinkers

...but the good part is that Ra:

is so full of energy
has some really fantastic playing sequences
is littered with lots of nutty humor &
wears it's well-meaning hippy-heart flashing in neon on its baggy bishop sleeves

Opening with Alfred Hitchcock's composer Bernard Hermann's Overture, signifying that this is something more than just another album, Ra segues oh-so-smoothly into the Yes-meets-The Beach Boys Communion with The Sun, prog rock at its most commercial.

One look at the cover and we see the sun, dominating an all-red background and on the back, Todd & the boys in King Tut fancy-dress, ancient Egyptians for the day, singing a song of praise to Ra, the sun-god,

"...Ra...
...Climbing the horizon
Rising up the mountain
Shining in the valley below

Ra...
...Giver without measure
Beacon of Compassion
Shining through the spectrum of Life

Day is b-o-r-n
Night is g-o-n-e
One in all
All is one

Communion with the sun..."

Communion With The Sun

Yow! Straight out of Communion and we're into the jerky McCartney-on-acid nuttiness of Magic Dragon Theatre...in which the perfect-pop suddenly stops and we hear dialogue from the imaginary show on at the theatre.

WE HEAR THREE MELODRAMATIC KNOCKS ON THE DOOR, THEN SOME DIALOGUE.

Suspicious Roger: Who can that be at this time of night?

Creepy Todd: I'm sure we weren't followed, Dr Klang!

CREEPY TODD LAUGHS.

...and we're back into the song. Bizarre!

Clunk, back down to earth with a bang for Jealousy...an unimpressive attempt an arena-rock, made worse by an unlistenable, crappy vocal from drummer Willie.

Then it's new boy Kasim trying to channel McCartney, for Eternal Love...and he also unfortunately fails, mainly because the song is a bit limp, despite a valiant acapella section in the middle...

....but the boys pull it all back together for the ridiculous comic-book mysticism of Sunburst Finish:

"...Eye of the sphinx now winks at you
What is he thinking?
Wish that I knew
Wonder of wisdom
Far beyond this mortal comedy..."

Sunburst Finish

Flip the disc over and suddenly we're into a dangerous reminder (remember it's the 1970s and we're in the middle of the Cold War here) with a dramatic reconstruction of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the two atom bombs were dropped during the Second World War:

"...Hiroshima
Nagasaki
Don't you ever forget
Don't you ever f***ing forget..."

Hiroshima

...ending with a sudden nuclear fizz from master keyboard play, Roger Powell! Top marks for being the only men in Rock'n'Roll to try to put the threat of Nuclear war into perspective. Hiroshima may be more of a soundscape + crappy chorus than a song, as such, but its totality is angry and highly political during an era of complacence (Has anything changed?). Nice one, Todd.

And so to Sinring, the electrified and highly problematic musical fairy-tale: The song, clocking in at 17 minutes begins with er...a pixie narrator (engineer, John Holbrook, sped up) who starts with the quote at the beginning of this review...then continues:

"...Once upon a time in a land not far from here, there was a land called Harmony. Everyone in Harmony was happy...and this joie-de-vivre was guarded by their invisible patron, the Muse, Singring but jealous forces...and there are alway jealous forces in such tales, have conspired to capture the Spirit, imprisoning it in a chest with four keys...and casting the keys to the four corners of the earth...so that only four brave and talented individuals might retrieve them.

It is here that our story begins..."

Now, you have to remember that at that time there was no Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings movies yet, no wiccah, no "Spells To Get Your Perfect Lover" self-help books and Fantasy, well, wasn't yet part of mainstream culture, so Todd & the boys were out on their own. You better believe the pixie was problematic!

However, Todd is nothing, if not brave ...and what unfolds in this lovely, melodic prog rock epic is that the four pixie Utopians, each representing one of The Four Elements, travel individually to four corners of the sonic world (each getting a fairly lengthy solo to depict their struggles), fights their battle, wins their key and when they reunite, Harmony is restored.

I believe that the rather elaborate tour in the USA, with the band playing under a giant pyramid and performed Singring in its entirety, was wild. Apparently Todd would slowly scale the pyramid during his Singring guitar solo...

"...The Live Tour was unreal! I think it was when I saw Todd do a flip off the top of the pyramid while playing the chrome-plated ankh guitar! At that time he was on the way to Rock Guitar God! Oh Well!!!!..." Amazon goofy foot "siri"

Laugh if you must...but there really are some not-to-be-missed moments in this peculiar, oh-so-peculiar relic from the 1970s, Ra.

Utopia: Ra

"...Ra was the Egyptian god of the sun as worshipped by Akhnaten. Your prog-rock warning bell should be going off right now but if you're expecting some Emerson Lake and Palmer meets Spinal Tap travesty, rest easy. RA is...a surprisingly tuneful, meaty album, not really that far removed from Rundgren's earlier pop records..." Amazon.co.uk blurb

"...I first heard it 30 years ago and it still rates as one of my favourite albums. The production (like all Rundgren stuff) is spot on and the trademark guitar/synth solo tradeoffs are still in evidence...Basically, your rock collection is not complete without this..." Amazon.co.uk reviewer M. Jones

"...This January 1977 release is an excellent example of how a true artist in this 'golden age of Rock' would use an album as a creative venue; the cover art is magnificent, the running time clocks in at nearly 54 minutes and a collectible insert was a pyramid with photos of the band members on each panel..." Amazon reviewer Mr. Richard D. Coreno

"...there was a schoolboy who discovered an old black plastic disc. He recognised that this was a record from years ago. His grandfather had a box that played the disc....and so he found himself at his grandfather's. Cranking up the power, he heard strange and enchanting sounds flowing from the box. As the disc played, he read the sleeve it came with. The sounds seemed to take him on a magical musical ride...." Amazon.co.uk reviewer R. Guth

Utopia's Greatest Hits

a superb collection of power-pop

For more info, see: