Todd Rundgren, you may be surprised to learn, doesn’t own a cell phone.

This fact might be unremarkable, except that an embrace of new technologies is the only unifier of this pop eccentric’s winding, four-decade career. As a prolific recording artist and producer, Rundgren was an early adapter of the synthesizer, and one of the first to realize its pop-music possibilities. On his mid-’70s solo albums and with his prog outfit Utopia, he pushed the limits of how much music an LP could hold. His Dali-loving 1981 video for “Time Heals” was the first to employ computer graphics; several of his mid-’90s albums were CD-ROMs; and he was an innovator of the internet as a music-distribution tool.

“I’m kind of selective about the technology I adapt for my lifestyle,” Rundgren said in a phone interview last week (he borrowed a friend’s). He was in Cleveland, rehearsing for his current tour, on which he’s reproducing in full his 1973 magnum opus A Wizard, A True Star. Rundgren and his band will perform the album at the Music Center at Strathmore on Thursday night.

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I headed to Chesapeake Beach last weekend equipped with the essentials: sunscreen, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and Chopteeth’s self-titled debut. Sunscreen was unnecessary (the day, though steamy, was overcast), the pillars a bit heavy (WWI Turkish politics ≠ beach reading). But man, the Chopteeth was right on the money. Whether funky-murky (”Dog Days”), feel-good-shimmery (”Upendo”), rappy (”No Condition Is Permanent,” feat. Head-Roc), or pseudo-political (”Struggle”), the disc’s ten tracks never fail to deliver blood-pumping, Afrofunking goodness.

And how ’bout onstage? From our last write-up:

Chopteeth is a fearsome live act, especially when Anna Mwalagho steps up to the mic to add a gradual, shimmering Swahili lyric to “Upendo.” Maybe the band’s decided that there’s no percentage in edge (it bleeps guest MC Head-Roc, who lends a verse to “No Condition Is Permanent”), but it’s hard not to get swept up in its urgent beat. And if you still need more grit in your groove, Justine Miller’s snarling trumpet pits Maynard Ferguson acrobatics with the deep syncopation of Fela’s great bands.

Catch ‘em this Friday at the Strathmore; deets below the jump.

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“I used to be a younger one and now I am one of the older ones,” said 55-year-old Juan de Marcos Tuesday night to a mostly full Strathmore as he was introducing his band, the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Marcos’s age comment was a reference to the Buena Vista Social Club, whom he helped put together and played with in the 1990s. Marcos, who conducts, arranges, and plays the tres (a small guitar-like instrument) had toured and recorded with a version of the Afro-Cuban All Stars back then that included a mixture of old and younger Cubans who played traditional Cuban dance ala Buena Vista but with a few more modern touches. After being unable to get past Bush era visa restrictions, Marcos has put together a new 14-member All Stars that include Cuban musicians mostly in their 30s and 40s who live around the world and could obtain visas to play in the States.

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