Hello, LI, it's still Todd Rundgren

BY STEVE KNOPPER

Special to Newsday

Todd Rundgren's résumé is ridiculously elaborate: He was a teen guitarist for Philadelphia's The Nazz; played all the instruments on solo power-pop classics such as 1972's "Something/ Anything?"; wrote hits "Hello, It's Me" and "Bang the Drum All Day"; formed progressive-rock band Utopia; produced important albums by The Band, the New York Dolls and XTC; and was the first to sell music downloads, for 1992's "No World Order."

At 63, he's still churning out work, reforming Utopia and putting out two albums in 2011 alone. He runs it all down by phone from a tour stop in Clearwater, Fla. -- a tour that brings him to the NYCB Theatre at Westbury Sunday.

Those Utopia arrangements are pretty complicated. Did they come back quickly?

Absolutely not. This has been like when you are in a shrink's office and you've got this awful problem. They put you under hypnosis so you can recall this horrible experience of your youth. ... We've got lots of complicated little guitar lines. When you just literally play the notes, you're wondering, "Why is this so hard? Was I that much better then?" You suddenly remember, back in the day, you invest all this time in the most economical way to play things. And once those things do come back, it's kind of a revelation.

Your latest album, "production," consists of cover songs of musicians you once produced, from the New York Dolls to XTC, in a modern style. Why?

I had done a guest professorship at the University of Indiana, and we were just having a little back and forth with the Wells Scholars about the differences between the music that I grew up with and what they're . ... One of the students, who went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, opined that if you bore down deep into the records, you hear some interesting stuff going on. I had to admit, I hadn't spent a lot of time trying to bone up on contemporary music. So that's what I tried to do.

What did you find out?

We're in an age of production as high art in terms of making records. There's no musical craze going around, like grunge or punk or even hip-hop at this point. If nothing else is happening, dance music becomes popular. You throw out any sense of performance, any sense that this song needs to be played by human beings. As many instruments as necessary -- the freaking Auto-Tuning, the weird mix effects and things like that. It's just the kitchen sink. Anything goes, in a way.

WHO Todd Rundgren's Utopia

WHEN|WHERE 8 p.m. Sunday, NYCB Theatre

at Westbury

INFO $39.50-$69.50; 800- 745-3000, livenation.com