The Nazz
Encyclopedia
Nazz was a psychedelic
and garage rock
band from the 1960s. The band was formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, in 1967 by Todd Rundgren
(lead guitar) and Carson Van Osten
(bass guitar). Thom Mooney
(drums, formerly of the Munchkins), and Robert "Stewkey" Antoni
(vocals, keyboards) joined before their first concert, opening for the Doors in 1967.
band along the lines of The Monkees
. The group signed with SGC Records, releasing Nazz in October 1968. The album was not commercially successful and neither was the first single, "Open My Eyes" of which the flip side was "Hello It's Me
" (#41 Canada). "Open My Eyes" was the side SGC Records was promoting, but in Boston WMEX Music Director and DJ Ron Robin accidentally played the flip side. He was impressed and added it to the station's playlist. Reaction was strong and "Hello It's Me" became a number one hit at WMEX in 1968. Several weeks later it was on the playlist of Boston's other Top 40 radio station WRKO and eventually at other stations across the country. SGC Records presented Ron Robin with a Silver Record which reads "WMEX, Where it All Began. Thanks!".
After a brief trip to England in October 1968, cut short by visa problems, Nazz recorded their second album, originally entitled Fungo Bat in Los Angeles in late 1968 and early 1969. (A fungo bat is a special baseball
bat used only for practice; it is not intended to hit pitched balls.) The album was originally intended as a double album but was shortened to a single LP before being released as Nazz Nazz
in May 1969. Much of what was cut was experimental, piano-based Rundgren material, heavily influenced by singer/songwriter Laura Nyro
- a far cry from the group's original Beatles
-Who
-Yardbirds
-Cream
derived sound. Disillusioned, Rundgren departed the group, along with Van Osten, soon after.
The band continued to tour during the rest of 1969, recruiting Craig Bolyn (guitar) and Greg Sempler (bass). Mooney departed at the end of the year, but Stewkey continued to tour in 1970 using the Nazz name. 1n 1971, without the full band's knowledge or consent SGC released Nazz III
, in which most of Rundgren's vocals from the old 'Fungo Bat' tapes were replaced by Stewkey. Stewkey and Mooney later reconnected and played with Fuse
for a brief period using two monikers, Fuse or Nazz, depending on where they were gigging. Mooney would leave again, and Fuse evolved into "Sick Man of Europe", and later (without Stewkey) Cheap Trick
. Mooney eventually played with a variety of groups including the Curtis Brothers, Tattoo and Paris. Rundgren went on to have a successful career, releasing several albums as a solo artist and others with the band Utopia. Ironically, Rundgren's biggest solo hit was an up-tempo version of Nazz' first unsuccessful single, "Hello It's Me" from his 1972 Something/Anything?
album. As of 2006, Stewkey has been performing as Nazz again with an all new line-up.
The group gained wider recognition thanks to the inclusion of "Open My Eyes" on Nuggets (1972), the genre-defining anthology of American 1960s garage punk
and psychedelia compiled by musician Lenny Kaye
, and the three Nazz LPs were reissued by Rhino Records on LP in 1983 and subsequently on CD.
In 2009, Spectra Records
released 3 albums by Nazz. They were "Nazz vs. Todzila," "13th and Pine' and "Hello It's Crazy Me."
from their album Roger the Engineer
. That song, in turn, took its title from Lord Buckley
's comic monologue
, "The Nazz," which is a re-telling of the tale of Jesus
of Nazareth
.
It is also often erroneously said that the band took its name from a line in David Bowie's song "Ziggy Stardust
," but Bowie wrote the lyrics in 1972, four years after the release of the first Nazz album in 1968. Bowie used the term as a slang noun in the sense of "top dog" or "coolest." (“Ziggy played for time / Jiving us that we were voodoo / The kids were just crass / He was the nazz / With god-given ass”)
Although the group's name on all records and press materials is simply "Nazz" (without the definite article
), in practice they were almost always referred to as "the Nazz." Band members regularly used this form of their name in radio commercials for their albums and shows.
Another band was briefly called the Nazz, releasing just one single before renaming themselves Alice Cooper
.
The term "Nazz" is also slang for "fool" in Nadsat
.
(Contains both Nazz Nazz and Nazz 3 albums on 2 CDs and many unreleased tracks)
Psychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
and garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
band from the 1960s. The band was formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, in 1967 by Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...
(lead guitar) and Carson Van Osten
Carson Van Osten
Carson Van Osten is an American comics creator and musician.Van Osten studyed at the Philadelphia College of Art. In 1966, he played in the band Woody's Truck Stop, before forming the rock group Nazz with Todd Rundgren in 1967. Van Osten was the band's bass guitarist. He quit The Nazz in...
(bass guitar). Thom Mooney
Thom Mooney
Thom Mooney is an American drummer.Strongly influenced by the British invasion during the sixties, he was a founding member of the East Coast rock group Nazz, along with guitarist Todd Rundgren, who later went on to have a successful solo career...
(drums, formerly of the Munchkins), and Robert "Stewkey" Antoni
Stewkey
Robert "Stewkey" Antoni is the former lead vocalist and keyboardist for Nazz, a Philadelphia-based band, notable for featuring future rock star Todd Rundgren, which played psychedelic rock as well as garage rock.Other bands Antoni was involved with include Fuse and Sick Man of Europe alongside...
(vocals, keyboards) joined before their first concert, opening for the Doors in 1967.
Career
Nazz was marketed by their manager, Michael Friedman, as a teenybopperTeenybopper
The term teenybopper was invented by marketing professionals and psychologists, later becoming a subculture of its own. The term describes a young teenager, particularly a girl, who follows adolescent trends in music, fashion and culture. The term was introduced in the 1950s to refer to teenagers...
band along the lines of The Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
. The group signed with SGC Records, releasing Nazz in October 1968. The album was not commercially successful and neither was the first single, "Open My Eyes" of which the flip side was "Hello It's Me
Hello It's Me
"Hello It's Me" is a Billboard #5 hit song composed by Todd Rundgren that has been recorded numerous times, and would become Rundgren's best-known song.- Background :...
" (#41 Canada). "Open My Eyes" was the side SGC Records was promoting, but in Boston WMEX Music Director and DJ Ron Robin accidentally played the flip side. He was impressed and added it to the station's playlist. Reaction was strong and "Hello It's Me" became a number one hit at WMEX in 1968. Several weeks later it was on the playlist of Boston's other Top 40 radio station WRKO and eventually at other stations across the country. SGC Records presented Ron Robin with a Silver Record which reads "WMEX, Where it All Began. Thanks!".
After a brief trip to England in October 1968, cut short by visa problems, Nazz recorded their second album, originally entitled Fungo Bat in Los Angeles in late 1968 and early 1969. (A fungo bat is a special baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
bat used only for practice; it is not intended to hit pitched balls.) The album was originally intended as a double album but was shortened to a single LP before being released as Nazz Nazz
Nazz Nazz
Nazz Nazz is the second album by American rock band Nazz, released in April 1969 by SGC Records.- Recording :After a brief trip to England in October 1968, cut short by visa problems, Nazz recorded their second album, originally entitled Fungo Bat in Los Angeles in late 1968 and early 1969...
in May 1969. Much of what was cut was experimental, piano-based Rundgren material, heavily influenced by singer/songwriter Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...
- a far cry from the group's original Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
-Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
-Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
-Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
derived sound. Disillusioned, Rundgren departed the group, along with Van Osten, soon after.
The band continued to tour during the rest of 1969, recruiting Craig Bolyn (guitar) and Greg Sempler (bass). Mooney departed at the end of the year, but Stewkey continued to tour in 1970 using the Nazz name. 1n 1971, without the full band's knowledge or consent SGC released Nazz III
Nazz III
Nazz III is the third album by American rock band Nazz, released in 1970, one year after the group disbanded. The songs on the album consisted of tracks recorded in late 1968 and early 1969 for an intended double album, to be titled Fungo Bat. When a single album was released instead, an album's...
, in which most of Rundgren's vocals from the old 'Fungo Bat' tapes were replaced by Stewkey. Stewkey and Mooney later reconnected and played with Fuse
Fuse (band)
Fuse was an American rock band, formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1967, when Rick Nielsen proposed the merging of two local bands: 'The Grim Reapers' headed up by him with Joe Sundberg and 'Toast and Jam' consisting of Chip Greenman, Craig Myers and Tom Peterson later known as Tom Petersson...
for a brief period using two monikers, Fuse or Nazz, depending on where they were gigging. Mooney would leave again, and Fuse evolved into "Sick Man of Europe", and later (without Stewkey) Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...
. Mooney eventually played with a variety of groups including the Curtis Brothers, Tattoo and Paris. Rundgren went on to have a successful career, releasing several albums as a solo artist and others with the band Utopia. Ironically, Rundgren's biggest solo hit was an up-tempo version of Nazz' first unsuccessful single, "Hello It's Me" from his 1972 Something/Anything?
Something/Anything?
Something/Anything?, released in 1972, is Todd Rundgren's third solo album. It peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold three years after its release, and remains the singer-songwriter's best-selling album...
album. As of 2006, Stewkey has been performing as Nazz again with an all new line-up.
The group gained wider recognition thanks to the inclusion of "Open My Eyes" on Nuggets (1972), the genre-defining anthology of American 1960s garage punk
Garage punk
Garage punk is a fusion of garage rock and punk rock. It is fast-paced lo-fi music characterized by a dirty, choppy guitar sound—usually played by bands who are on independent record labels or who are unsigned...
and psychedelia compiled by musician Lenny Kaye
Lenny Kaye
Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer and writer who is best known as a member of the Patti Smith Group.- Early life :...
, and the three Nazz LPs were reissued by Rhino Records on LP in 1983 and subsequently on CD.
In 2009, Spectra Records
Spectra Records
The Spectra Music Group is a United States music company founded in February 1997 comprising the independent record company Spectra Records—which is based in the United States and Canada.-Labels and projects:...
released 3 albums by Nazz. They were "Nazz vs. Todzila," "13th and Pine' and "Hello It's Crazy Me."
Origin of the band's name
Nazz took their name from the song "The Nazz Are Blue" by The YardbirdsThe Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
from their album Roger the Engineer
Roger the Engineer
Roger the Engineer is an album by the English blues rock band The Yardbirds, released in 1966. It was produced by bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and Simon Napier-Bell. It was the only Yardbirds album with all original material...
. That song, in turn, took its title from Lord Buckley
Lord Buckley
Lord Richard Buckley was an American stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and hip poet/comic...
's comic monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
, "The Nazz," which is a re-telling of the tale of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
of Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
.
It is also often erroneously said that the band took its name from a line in David Bowie's song "Ziggy Stardust
Ziggy Stardust (song)
"Ziggy Stardust" is a song written by David Bowie in 1972 for the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The name Stardust was inspired by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy...
," but Bowie wrote the lyrics in 1972, four years after the release of the first Nazz album in 1968. Bowie used the term as a slang noun in the sense of "top dog" or "coolest." (“Ziggy played for time / Jiving us that we were voodoo / The kids were just crass / He was the nazz / With god-given ass”)
Although the group's name on all records and press materials is simply "Nazz" (without the definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
), in practice they were almost always referred to as "the Nazz." Band members regularly used this form of their name in radio commercials for their albums and shows.
Another band was briefly called the Nazz, releasing just one single before renaming themselves Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
.
The term "Nazz" is also slang for "fool" in Nadsat
Nadsat
Nadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-influenced English...
.
Commercial releases
- Nazz
- (SGC RecordsColgems RecordsColgems Records was a record label which existed from 1966 to 1971. It was a joint venture between Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures, and RCA Records, to issue records by The Monkees and other artists affiliated with Screen Gems. The label would also issue soundtrack...
- SD 5001 - October 1968 / reissued by RhinoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
- 1983 (LP/Cassette) & 1988 (CD))
- (SGC Records
- Nazz NazzNazz NazzNazz Nazz is the second album by American rock band Nazz, released in April 1969 by SGC Records.- Recording :After a brief trip to England in October 1968, cut short by visa problems, Nazz recorded their second album, originally entitled Fungo Bat in Los Angeles in late 1968 and early 1969...
- (SGC RecordsColgems RecordsColgems Records was a record label which existed from 1966 to 1971. It was a joint venture between Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures, and RCA Records, to issue records by The Monkees and other artists affiliated with Screen Gems. The label would also issue soundtrack...
- SD 5002 - May 1969 / reissued by RhinoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
- 1983 (LP/Cassette) & 1988 (CD))
- (SGC Records
- Nazz IIINazz IIINazz III is the third album by American rock band Nazz, released in 1970, one year after the group disbanded. The songs on the album consisted of tracks recorded in late 1968 and early 1969 for an intended double album, to be titled Fungo Bat. When a single album was released instead, an album's...
- (SGC RecordsColgems RecordsColgems Records was a record label which existed from 1966 to 1971. It was a joint venture between Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures, and RCA Records, to issue records by The Monkees and other artists affiliated with Screen Gems. The label would also issue soundtrack...
- SD 5004 - July 11, 1971 / reissued by RhinoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
- 1983 (LP/Cassette) & 1988 (CD))
- (SGC Records
Compilations
- Best of Nazz
- (RhinoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
- RNLP/RNC 116 - 1984 (LP/Cassette) / R1-70116 1989 (CD))
- (Rhino
- Thirteenth and Pine
- (Distortion Records)
- Open Our Eyes: The Anthology
- (Sanctuary RecordsSanctuary RecordsSanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest independent music management company in the world...
2002)
- (Sanctuary Records
Box sets/rarities sets
- Nazz Nazz/Nazz 3: The Fungo Bat Sessions
- (2006)
(Contains both Nazz Nazz and Nazz 3 albums on 2 CDs and many unreleased tracks)