Todd Rundgren's Utopia Video Studios
Bearsville, NY - 1979

Winter 1979 at Todd Rundgren's original Utopia video studio, Bearsville NY (next to Woodstock) in Bearsville Recording's building.

We had just come from Roger Powell's house in Woodstock, where he had demonstrated some new algorithmic composition techniques he had been working on using Cubase on an Atari system. At Bearsville here, Roger was showing us what one of the first private experimental video facilities was all about. As I recall, Todd was working on his visualization of Tomita's "The Planets", which was later released on RCA laser disc. This shot shows the extensive equipment cluster, but the opposite end of the room was several massive "sets" with small claymation type otherworldly scenes and landscapes set up, which is where the video sequences were being shot.

Being the music fan I was, it was mindboggling to me to be standing in Bearsville, and to think of everyone who had recorded there ... Todd, The Band, Bob Dylan, Paul Butterfield, Meatloaf, and innumerable others.

From left, Greg Simms from Bell Labs with whom Larry was fooling around with digital synthesis at the time, John Simonton, myself and Roger Powell, then a member of Todd's band Utopia.

Photo by Larry Fast, © 1979