'Vinyl,’ Backed by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, Looks at 1970s Rock

By DAVE ITZKOFFJAN. 20, 2016



Terence Winter, seated, the show runner of HBO’s “Vinyl,” which stars, from left, Ray Romano, Olivia Wilde and Bobby Cannavale. Credit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times


When we meet Richie Finestra, the protagonist of the new HBO drama “Vinyl,” his situation is dire. It’s 1973, and this beleaguered record-label executive, played by Bobby Cannavale, has lost faith in the music industry, squandered his sobriety and gotten himself in serious trouble.

Yet when he seems to have hit bottom, Richie glimpses new inspiration not far from the shabby downtown Manhattan intersection where he has gone to buy cocaine: a raucous rock concert at the Mercer Arts Center, being played by an up-and-coming band called New York Dolls.

It is no accident that, from its opening minutes, “Vinyl,” with its mixture of grimy reality, nostalgia for 1970s New York and a throbbing rock ’n’ roll soundtrack, feels like a Martin Scorsese movie. Mr. Scorsese, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, is an executive producer of the series and directed its two-hour pilot episode.

Should that pedigree feel insufficient for a narrative about bad behavior, existential crises and the redemptive power of music, Mr. Scorsese is joined on “Vinyl” by Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones and a fellow executive producer on the series, which has its debut on Feb. 14.


Bobby Cannavale in “Vinyl.” Credit Niko Tavernise/HBO

With a cast that includes Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano and Juno Temple, and an aesthetic that mixes fictional characters with actors playing real-life music stars (like David Bowie, Elvis Presley and Lou Reed), the series is ambitious, expensive and — to its creative team — the closest proposition to a sure thing this side of a Led Zeppelin reunion.

As its show runner, Terence Winter, said, when he was invited to participate on the project: “I remember pitching it to myself and going, ‘All right: Martin Scorsese. Mick Jagger. Rock ’n’ roll. I don’t care what it is — there’s no way I wouldn’t watch this.’”

For HBO, which is now the network of “Game of Thrones,” “Sesame Street,” Jon Stewart and Bill Simmons, “Vinyl” is an important addition to its lineup: a way to keep people like Mr. Scorsese and Mr. Jagger in its talent stable, and to guard against encroachments from cable competitors like Showtime and streaming services like Netflix, which are preparing 1970s period series of their own.

To succeed, “Vinyl” will have to fulfill the promise of its sexy subject matter and its superstar producers. And it will have to find a coherent, compelling narrative in a heartfelt if abstract idea about how music defined people’s lives in that era.

As Mr. Scorsese explained earlier this month at the Television Critics Association press tour, to have grown up with rock ’n’ roll means “you see life around you played to that music.”

The goal for “Vinyl,” he said, is “that music becomes part of the narrative, but the whole narrative is like a piece of music.”

For Mr. Scorsese, music has been a persistent element in his fictional features, as well as his rock documentaries like “The Last Waltz” (about the Band) and “Shine a Light” (about the Rolling Stones).

By focusing on the 1970s in “Vinyl,” Mr. Jagger explained in an interview, the series could depict a thrilling, uncertain time in music, when a declining metropolis provided a crucible for punk, disco and hip-hop.

“New York was broke,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of poverty, a lot of rich people and a lot of disparity — all these scenes going on against a background of quite tough and grimy cityscapes.”

Also, Mr. Jagger added: “I forgot about the silly clothes. Some of them were ridiculous, and some were kind of sharp.”

It took a yearslong process to reach this point with “Vinyl,” which was planned as a movie, called “The Long Play,” that Mr. Scorsese and Mr. Jagger had been developing since at least 2000, and which would have followed characters in the music business over several decades and cultural eras.

Mr. Winter, an Emmy Award-winning producer of “The Sopranos” and show runner of “Boardwalk Empire,” was among the screenwriters who worked on “The Long Play.” But in 2008, he said, “The world economy dropped out, and suddenly the phone stopped ringing.”

“The studio was like, ‘Eh, this is maybe not the time to do a three-hour epic period piece,’” said Mr. Winter, who also wrote “The Wolf of Wall Street” for Mr. Scorsese.

Taking a page from “Boardwalk Empire,” HBO’s costly Prohibition-era gangster drama (which ran five seasons and drew about two million to three million viewers an episode), Mr. Winter reshaped the rock project as a cable-TV pilot.

For their male lead, Richie Finestra, the angst-ridden head of American Century Records, the producers honed in on Mr. Cannavale, who won an Emmy playing the short-fused mobster Gyp Rosetti on “Boardwalk Empire.”


Bobby Cannavale and Olivia Wilde in “Vinyl.” Credit Macall B. Polay/HBO

Mr. Cannavale, a star of Broadway (“The _________ With the Hat”) and film (“The Station Agent”), had bonded somewhat with Mr. Scorsese during his “Boardwalk Empire” run.

At an early table read, as he performed one of Rosetti’s increasingly violent scenes, Mr. Cannavale recalled, “Marty starts giggling — giggling, giggling, giggling.”

When Rosetti beat another character to death in the scene, Mr. Cannavale said Mr. Scorsese “lost it — he was crying with laughter and hitting me on the leg.”

Mr. Cannavale’s preparations for “Vinyl” were more extensive and intimate, including meetings with the talent manager Danny Goldberg (who has represented artists including the Beastie Boys and Nirvana); guitar lessons with Lenny Kaye, a founding member of the Patti Smith Group; and lots of time spent with Mr. Scorsese, who helped shape the Richie character.

“He said to me, ‘You’re a big guy, and you put your hands all over people,’” Mr. Cannavale recalled. “Every time I would go near him, I could feel him pull back a little bit. He said: ‘I want you to keep that. I want Richie to be like that.’”

Ms. Wilde, a veteran of TV shows like “House” and “The O.C.,” also sought input into her character, Devon, who is Richie’s wife and a one-time denizen of New York’s decadent art scene.


In conversations with the “Vinyl” producers, Ms. Wilde said: “I am already a fan. But in order to sign up for it, I need to know that you’re not asking me to be the long-suffering housewife. I want to make sure there’s something there.”

Ms. Wilde said she was satisfied not only by the back story for Devon, a former muse and confidant to Andy Warhol, but also by the producers’ attitudes of openness and collaboration.

“This was not a case of, ‘There’s an auteur whose words you are to speak, and you must dot every i,’” she said.

Other co-stars just seemed happy for the opportunity to see themselves reimagined in wide lapels and luxuriant facial hair.

Mr. Romano, the comic star of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” who plays Richie’s record-label partner Zak Yankovich, said that when he submitted his audition tape to Mr. Scorsese, the response he got back was, “He’s never heard of you.”

“I’m not that pompous to think everybody has to have heard of me,” Mr. Romano said with a chuckle. “It just seemed a little odd.”

Still, said Mr. Romano (who has since appeared on shows like “Parenthood” and “Men of a Certain Age”): “It ended up being a blessing. He didn’t have any preconceived notions of me.”

Production for the “Vinyl” pilot began in the summer of 2014 and ran 35 days, during which time Mr. Winter said he left Mr. Scorsese to his work.

(During the making of the “Boardwalk Empire” pilot, Mr. Winter said, he approached an assistant director to give Mr. Scorsese a creative note. “I said, ‘How do I do this?’” he recalled. “And he said: ‘I don’t know. No one’s ever given him a note before.’”)


James Jagger, center, with his band, the Nasty Bits, in the pilot of “Vinyl.” Credit Niko Tavernise/HBO
Mr. Cannavale, who worked 16- to 17-hour days, five or six days a week, playing a frantic and frequently coked-up executive, said the commitment to Mr. Scorsese was worthwhile. “This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “It could have been twice as long.”

Since being picked up as a series, “Vinyl” has become a significant undertaking for HBO, occupying some 11,400 square feet of stage space at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, where the offices of American Century, about 6,400 square feet alone, have been created in intricate detail.

It is a sprawling workplace filled with vintage album covers, ashtrays, Rolodexes and typewriters, and filled with a simulated low-level haze of (presumably) cigarette smoke. On floors above the stages are the show’s production offices and estimable costume department, occupying real estate inherited from “Boardwalk Empire,” which concluded in 2014.

No one would comment on production costs for “Vinyl,” which uses enough new and licensed music that HBO plans to release a soundtrack album for each episode. But Mr. Winter said he told HBO, “Yeah, there’s going to be a big price tag, but the payoff is awesome.” (He added an expletive for emphasis.)

Mr. Winter, who wrote the “Vinyl” pilot with George Mastras (“Breaking Bad”), acknowledged a criticism frequently leveled against “Boardwalk Empire,” that the show took its time setting up characters and plot lines before it came to explosive fruition.

“‘Boardwalk’ was a slow burn, but it was a completely different story,” Mr. Winter said. On “Vinyl,” he said: “You’re shot out of a cannon. It should feel like you’re strapped onto a rocket, and it just goes.”

Should “Vinyl” draw comparisons to a series like “Mad Men,” the AMC drama about a conflicted, hard-living New York executive in an era of social and cultural upheaval, Mr. Winter could only shrug.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said. “I’m sorry. People work in offices. It’s New York City.”

Despite a drumbeat of competition, including coming shows like Netflix’s “The Get Down” (whose creators include Baz Luhrmann, and which is also set in 1970s New York) and Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here” (set in the Los Angeles comedy scene of that era), Mr. Winter was unconcerned.

“I’m not going to pay attention to any of those other projects,” he said.

For Mr. Jagger, the ongoing production of “Vinyl” has been his introduction to one of very few showbiz experiences he has never had before, and a continual lesson in how much to be involved in the process.

“You’re not going to spend every minute of your life on this — that’s not your job,” he said. “But it’s your baby, and you don’t want to give it away. Without getting to be obsessive, you have to keep your hand on the tiller.”

(One further reason for Mr. Jagger to keep an eye on “Vinyl”: His son James is an actor on the show, playing the frontman of an unseasoned proto-punk band. “I didn’t say I insist” on his casting, Mr. Jagger explained. “I just said, ‘Let him audition and see how he does.’”)

Mr. Winter said that “Vinyl” had been another chapter in Mr. Scorsese’s cultural education, too, in learning how to apply a rock fan’s ear to a visual medium and bring his cinematic skills to television.

Reflecting on an early conversation about “Boardwalk Empire,” Mr. Winter recalled explaining to Mr. Scorsese the difference between a mini-series and an ongoing series.

“I said, ‘A mini-series is a finite amount — six, eight, 10 episodes, and that’s it,’” Mr. Winter said. “‘A series is, you do the pilot, and then it continues.’”

Slipping into an affectionate imitation of Mr. Scorsese’s rapid-fire delivery, Mr. Winter continued: “He goes, ‘So the pilot is the movie, and what happens in the series is after the movie? I get it. I’ll do the movie, and then you do the series.’”


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/arts/television/vinyl-backed-by-martin-scorses...

SheRat wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2016 at 4:23pm:


True, but think of it this way. The 70s gave us the Glimmer Twins all decked out in skimpy, revealing clothes. In the 80s they went back to wearing mostly regular stuff.

70s- Mick Jagger unfastening his cat suit far enough down to show that he'd shaven his pubic hair.

80s- Shoulder pads!

Those just don't compare in my mind.

At what point does the culture move from 70s nostalgia to 80s nostalgia? In 2004, I saw one of Keith's daughters in spandex pants and leg warmers and thought we had finally moved into the Xanadu-era, about to go into full-blown Benatar/Lauper/Madonna-ness. The 60s nostalgia in the late 80s/early 90s did not last nearly as long, of course, we spawned Grunge and maybe that's wha killed it.

Do the Millennials have some sort of natural affinity with the Me Generation? This could go a ways towards proving the theory proposed by a few friends of mine that Millennials aren't really a product of us GenX'ers, but are, instead, the products of the late Boomers who waited a very long time to spawn. Thus, the Millennial-blame cannot be laid at our doorstep?

And why doesn't Ecstasy exist anymore? These kids, all they do is "Molly" and damn does that shit suck.

It's funny when you meet a Millennial who longs to disassociate from their generation and wants to identify with the GenX crowd. That amuses me. I was there. And just like in the 60s, there weren't as many of us as they seem to think there were.