STUDIO WHIZZ OF THE YEAR TODD RUNDGREN

On pioneering visuals, Meat Loaf, new wave and producing Tom Robinson

- Terry Staunton

Tell us about your technological “first” of 1978, the interactive TV concert. 

It wasn’t incredibly sophisticated; the cable station in Columbus, Ohio, wanted to try something new to see how immediate responses from viewers could work. The control boxes they sent out had just three buttons, and we gave the audience a choice of three songs to determine what we’d play next at various points in the show. I guess you could call it an early version of on-demand streaming, and I tried to do something more elaborate in the late 80s, but the obstacle was always major labels not allowing us to put music on servers. They had no economic model to make it worth their while.

Would you agree Hermit Of Mink Hollow saw a return to the concise pop songwriting of Something/Anything?

I can see how it was perceived as that, but in my own mind it was just part of a progression. I’d moved from New York City up to a suburb of Woodstock and