Vinyl, it's not TV it's HBO

[FindingNamo]

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.

 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Did you make it through? I have it on my DVR, but I'm not sure I want to give it the remaining free hours of my four day weekend. 

[FindingNamo]

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!

[haterobics]

Oh no... was hoping Cannavale caught a hot ticket with this one, was holding off until tomorrow.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

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.

[FindingNamo]

You know what?  Maybe it's just me.  Vulture LOVED it.  They just raved and raved and raved without even mentioning the single stupidest plot development at which it lost me.  Which, I think you would have to do to be able to rave about the episode.  Just leave it out!

 

And also, we've SEEN the mob violence.  And as much as I love Scorsese, I'm beginning to think he and all of the followers he inspired take a particular delight in portraying the glee their Italian goons feel when pummeling black victims.

[darquegk]

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.

[Roscoe]

So it has come to this.  Scorsese's knocking off BOOGIE NIGHTS.

[FindingNamo]

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.

[Roscoe]

And the first episode ended with one of the silliest attempts at a Big Finish yet -- as in similar moment in THE REVENANT, Buster Keaton had the sense to play stuff like that for laughs, but you know, Keaton was a genius.

[FindingNamo]

"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

[BobbyBubbi]

Glad I'm not the only one. 

I might circle back around to this, as I've done with other shows that didn't catch me initially, but it really didn't grab me. 

I turned it off mid way through the first musical number.

Shame because I really like Bobby. He's so talented and HOT!  

[Roscoe]

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.

[Luscious]

Finally caught up with the pilot episode. Everything about it felt false to me. I'll give it another shot, but unless it improves, I doubt I'll make it through the season. Unless, of course, they give Cannavale a nude scene like the one in Boardwalk Empire. In fact, I think it should be written into his contract that he have a nude scene in every episode.

[Theater_Nerd]

It just got renewed for a second season:

 

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

[Theater_Nerd]

Renewed for a second season after just one episode?!?!?! Not bad! Don't you think? 

[Steve C.]

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... 

[darquegk]

I figured out what has bugged Namo about Scorcese- where most art is liberal in outlook, Scorcese is profoundly conservative. If most art gives and overtly or covertly celebrates giving, Scorcese is pure and unrepentant TAKE. 

[FindingNamo]

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!

[darquegk]

There is a scene in tonight's episode that appears to be a very obvious, very deliberate shout-out to Ayn Rand's most controversial and provocative literary moment. It seemed a little out of place even in this drama, unless you believe Scorcese is crafting a defense of his ethos, not just a period piece.

[FindingNamo]

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?  

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I watched about half of the first episode, but I couldn't get into it. 

[FindingNamo]

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.

 

[darquegk]

It seems that they must be having Cannavalle do two takes, one straight and one "full Pacino," and alternating the cuts.

[Wilmingtom]

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

Source, please.

[FindingNamo]

It doesn't need one.  They obviously would have used the Led Zepplin opener if they could have.  Though they probably would have re-recorded it.