Vinyl, it's not TV it's HBO

DEAR LORD. I'm trying. I'm trying to get through it. I was with it for the opening NYDolls scene and a bit for Mick Jagger's son's segment but when Led Zeppelin took the stage at Madison Square Garden and opened with an Eddie Cochran song instead of "Rock and Roll" because they couldn't get the rights to the song Led Zeppelin opened with, it started going downhill.

Once Andrew Dice Clay showed up it really started to circle the drain. "You record biz guys, with your college degrees and your big words." Dear god. Make it stop.

Updated On: 2/14/16 at 11:17 PM

Yes. I totally hated the ending. Just terrible.

BUT I did find Samantha Bee's Full Frontal on TBS On Demand and that saved the night!

The preview looks like an SNL parody of an HBO show. Intense close ups with a handheld camera! Sex! People doing coke off of a record! Shocking! No, thank you.

I really do think it's a love-Scorsese-or-hate-him thing. I know, Namo, you've expressed a distaste and increasing unease with the heteronormative genre conventions of unflinching glorified violence, joyless drug use and hedonism with no love and respect. Is this show good? It could be. Is it good for you? I don't think it will be. It's going to be f*cking and punching, and everyone that isn't Our Macho Straight Whiteish Man Who Doesn't Play By the Rules is an object at best. Sex as violence, violence as sex, drugs that just make everything more so.

Quote from my cynical Screenwriting professor: "Art is watching someone who isn't you. Entertainment is watching someone who isn't you get hurt." I suspect this isn't your kind of entertainment, and if I know Scorsese and HBO's house style, you're not gonna find much more to like here.

joyless drug use and hedonism with no love and respect.

No, no, I LOVE that, though I think the mandatory joylessness is where it always goes wrong. But I guess with Scorsese, that's his Catholicism. It was true in Steve McQueen's "Shame" as well. My joke about that movie was with an upbeat soundtrack instead of downbeat dirges it could have been called, "A Particularly Fun Weekend in NYC."

I think for all the "art" and "new golden age of TV" stuff we're always hearing, it's been remarkably one-note about sex and drugs. An artistic take would be able to show how those experiences could hold simultaneous contradictions, including joy and sadness.

(Not quite spoilers: The Dice Clay development and the repurposing of an actual building collapse that happened in real life and killed people [but NOT during a Dolls concert and not so a fictional character could have a rebirth], were where it became, in the words of a New York Dolls song, TRASH.)

And I am conflicted, because there are real life underground characters I knew and loved for years who will be weaved into the story. So it's not quite as easy to walk away from as Lena Dunham was.

Updated On: 2/15/16 at 02:18 PM

"What are you listening to? Suicide? I said, is that Suicide?"

Ratings: HBO’s Vinyl Is Not Exactly Storming the Nielsen Charts

http://www.vulture.com/2016/02/hbo-vinyl-premiere-low-ratings.html

Bobby Cannavale's absolute smoking hotness was the only reason I kept watching to the end of the first episode. He came close to making the damn thing work.

It just got renewed for a second season:

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/vinyl-renewed-season-2-hbo-1201709848/

Bobby Canavale's wig deserves an Emmy award. He is surely flapping through the scenery with that on! But he is totally hot and terrific. He's really into this role. Olivia Wilde is really great too.

As for the show, it seems like it's very loosely based on some truth stories, but NYC at that time in the 70's and 80's , well I just can't stop watching it. Imagine what it would have been like to be there...It's trying to be historical but at times, comes off hysterical. I'm still planning on watching. The language is certainly the most adult of any cable show right now. So $#% you and I'm &*#$ing watching.

I hope they get the music rights to use for real authenticity .... Wow! Want Ads...Honeycombs ?...Slippin' Into Darkness...

Updated On: 2/21/16 at 07:24 PM

Hmmmmmm. I never ever thought of it that way....

Tonight I saw Peter Greenaway's new film, "Eisenstein in Guanajuato" and my first thought was, wow, there are still people making films for adults. Then I thought the movie was just as much a love story to cinema as Scorsese's "Hugo" but a much better film. And now I'm back and my dvr is capturing "Vinyl" and I'm pondering your idea, darque. And I think you're really onto something!

45 seconds into episode two and I'm thinking how cool the credits look and then CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ADAM RAPP.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ETA How can I not watch it when John Cameron Mitchell floats by as Warhol? But how can I continue watching if the not-up-to-the-task Aimee Mann (I presume) is hauled out to impersonate Karen Carpenter?

Updated On: 2/22/16 at 11:38 PM

Episode 3 makes it crystal clear that it was foolish to build this show around Richie Finestra. Another conflicted white dude in crisis snorting lines. So orig. So fresh. So already been done. Oh, a haunted conscience? Because of a pesky little murder? You're a certified Scorsesean anti-hero, dude. So, so snooze.

Then out of nowhere comes another John Cameron Mitchell as Warhol and Olivia whatever as Richie's wife scene and there's honest to god acting and actual moving emotion. Spin these two off. Reboot for season two. Andy and Dev or whatever her name is. They could be a story. So, this viewer felt good for a second.

Then the endless pushing of Mick Jagger's kid's band doing a dishwater cover of The Kinks and Richie's all mad because somebody polished the band up too much so they switch back to "their own music" and I have to tell you it hurt my heart. They were doing "What Love Is" by the late and lamented Dead Boys and presenting it as if it was some proto-punk song in a British accent. I'm sorry. This is the kind of content repurposing that can only come from creators who honestly do NOT give a sh t about music. Stiv Bators and The Dead Boys actually had an interesting real life story including record company drama.

And you know, when The Dead Boys were happening the Stones claimed not to give a crap about punk, even with the explicit responses to it on "Some Girls." Keith Richards was always dismissive of punk. And so 40ish years later it's appropriated and fictionalized as a symbol of authenticity. It is to puke. I am so pissed about it. I saw The Dead Boys three times and this show and it's "realness" was everything they hated.

And darque, now that I think about it, it's another example of the taking. Taking taking taking.

Updated On: 2/29/16 at 10:36 PM

""Rock and Roll" because they couldn't get the rights to the song.".

Source, please.