Thursday, May 19, 2011

Nazz 2.0

Why?
A few years back, former lead singer of fave late '60s cult group Nazz, Stewkey Antoni, decided it would be a good idea to actually bring the band back to the future.  Only problem was, he was the only one who felt this way.  The rest of the group, including cult-figure-who-still-had-hits Todd Rundgren were nowhere to be found.  Who could blame them?  Sure, fans of Todd's are also often fans of Nazz, but when the group was originally on the scene, they were but a blip on the overall radar despite very good reviews as well as albums.

But according to an interview with Stewkey, he had been wanting to redo Nazz for a while.  Health problems sidelined him, but eventually he got back and with a few other dudes in tow, started playing live gigs and trotting out old chestnuts like "Hello, It's Me," "Under the Ice," "Open My Eyes," and "Wildwood Blues" along with newer tracks like "Baby Godzilla."

Nazz 2.0 even went to some trouble making a short promo film to go along with their return:

Nazz promo (embedding disabled)

The big question to all of this is why? If you go to Stewkey's website, the last thing that happened was in 2008. Did the bottom fall out once again for the group, or was it just a matter of no one caring? Did Stewkey have humble aspirations or did he hope to take Nazz higher than before? How distressing is it to have been in a band that could have made it, and then left another band that later became Cheap Trick and did make it?

You got me.