By AREA RESIDENT and FRED JESKE
It was very nearly August/Everywhere?
After spending four years building the biggest, most captivating door he could build, Jordon Zadorozny finally heard opportunity knocking. At 25, the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and recording artist found himself in a Los Angeles recording studio putting the finishing touches on his third, still-unnamed album for Dreamworks Records. No mean feat when you consider Zadorozny hails from the small eastern Ontario town of Pembroke, Ontario, where just six years earlier he was putting in hard bar time playing Soundgarden and Steve Miller covers in local dives, where he was best-known as the eldest son of two local bluegrass and Celtic musicians.
As pre-adolescent dreams of hockey stardom settled into more captivating reveries of late-night California studio life, Zadorozny began his recording life at home at age 12. Helpful was the fact that his parents owned the local musical instrument store, so access to instruments, microphones and recording gear was not the insurmountable task it would have been for the average 12 year old in 1985. Four-track recordings became eight-track recordings, which eventually became demos for the first Blinker The Star album — first under the moniker King Louie Katz, then upon landing in Montreal in 1992, Blinker The Star. The first two Blinker albums, released by A&M Records in 1995 and 1996, were scattershot, ecstatic, influence soaked expressions of mid-’90s alt-rock. Blinker The Star became a solid touring unit but by 1998, Zadorozny was beginning to hear the call of California and more importantly, California record making. He set out to make his grand statement. His Purple Rain. His Rumours. His Green Mind.
He was about to make the incredible power-pop album, August Everywhere. Those who know the album love it. It takes them back to a time, but also follows them wherever they go. They lecture friends about it. But even diehard fanatics are probably not aware that this beautiful, Beatles and XTC-influenced record was very nearly produced by Todd Rundgren.
In the summer of 1998, A&M agreed to fund a “let’s see how it goes” situation whereby Zadorozny, with producer Ken Andrews at the helm for a second time, would record three songs with a full budget and then mutually decide whether to proceed. When Andrews and Zadorozny turned in the masters to the label, it was clear this album was going to be quite a departure from its predecessor A Bourgeois Kitten, and nothing at all like the scrappy self-titled debut.
Zadorozny had managed to convince the label to use Andrews as producer. The A&M A&R rep assigned to Blinker knew Jordon was a massive fan of Rundgren and suggested they could get Boy Wonder to work on their new boy wonder’s big album. At the time, Jordon was in Pembroke, with drummer Kelli Scott. They were told Rundgren was at his home studio in Woodstock, N.Y., and they were welcome to go pay him a visit.
A surreal eight-hour road trip quickly followed before the pair arrived in the hippie and skater-strewn streets of downtown Woodstock. This was the dawn of the widespread consumer cellphone era, and there still was no use for those in the decidedly rural part of Eastern Ontario Zadorozny called home. So he stopped and began dialing Rundgren’s number from a grocery store payphone. He was still pecking digits when he happened to notice a rather tall man walking out of the store with brown hair streaked white, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. Come on. It had to be him. He decided to shout: “Todd!”
It was indeed the man himself, the wizard and true star. With his Ottawa Valley conversational charm, Zadorozny introduced himself and kept his cool. Rundgren was in the middle of an album mixing job, so the pair forged a plan to meet up later at a local restaurant.
Scott, JZ and Todd got a table on a back patio which served as a shared space for a few local haunts. Rundgren became distracted by a lively gathering nearby and explained it was actually the wedding reception of King Crimson bass player Tony Levin. After popping over for a bit he returned to give Zadorozny’s music a listen. Rundgren liked the songs but wondered why they decided to stop midway through recording to seek his involvement. He told them he’d be happy to make the record, but suggested they didn’t need him.
So, they stuck with Plan A: Andrews. August Everywhere was released a year later clothed in a Storm Thorgerson sleeve and earned a solid and enduring reputation as a musician’s record. One still wonders just what would have been different if Rundgren had been involved. But we can bang the drum all day about that.
• • •
Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
