Richie Finestra seems to have hit rock bottom. It’s 1973 and the angst-ridden head of American Century Records, once known for his great ear during the early Sixties, has lost faith in the music industry. Just when he is completely convinced that he is truly past his prime and heads to a gritty downtown Manhattan intersection to buy cocaine, he hears noise from a rock concert at the Mercer Arts Center. The guilty party? An up-and-coming band called New York Dolls.
Finestra is the central character in Vinyl, a forthcoming HBO drama from director Martin Scorsese, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and showrunner Terence Winter, who previously worked with Scorsese on Boardwalk Empire and The Wolf Of Wall Street. For this plum role, the producers picked Bobby Cannavale, who won an Emmy playing the short-fused mobster Gyp Rosetti on Boardwalk Empire. Cannavale told Esquire that he has been signed to do the show since 2012.
Soon to Flourish
Vinyl, in its final form, has been the product of an even longer process. Scorsese and Jagger originally intended for it to be a three-hour epic that would have followed two friends in the music business over several decades and cultural eras. When the global economy slowed down in 2008, the project moved around several studios. Along the way, it even became a possible feature for Disney. By the time HBO agreed to take it on, Winter had already reshaped it as a cable TV pilot.
The soon-to-flourish punk, disco and hip-hop scenes came to define New York in the years following 1972, when Vinyl begins. It was also during this period that Scorsese made Mean Streets.
“New York in the ‘70s was at an all-time economic low point. Nothing worked. The subways were falling apart. The crime rate was sky-high. But then, at the same time, culturally speaking, it was a high point,” the director says in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “The early 1970s, and 1973 in particular, was a time of great change in the music industry, and it all started in New York City — punk, disco, hip-hop. So we decided to start there and see where it would take us.”
That 70s Show
Going by its teaser clips, it appears that Vinyl — by focusing on that quaint time when records were pressed, not compressed — might just succeed in depicting a revolutionary moment in music and culture, when a city in a midst of decline was also on the verge of punk rock, inching towards disco and getting the first hint of what will eventually become rap. As a music lover, I really do hope that Vinyl will take its time in setting up characters and plot lines before everything comes to explosive fruition.
The 1970s are proving to be attractive not just to HBO, which is now known largely as the network of Game of Thrones. Netflix’s The Get Down, one of whose creators is Baz Luhrmann, takes place in 1970s New York as well. I’m Dying Up Here from Showtime is set in the Los Angeles comedy scene of that era.
Apart from Cannavale, Vinyl’s ensemble cast includes Everybody Loves Raymond’s Ray Romano as Zak Yankovich, Finestra’s business partner with a decade of music experience; The Wolf of Wall Street’s P.J. Byrne as Scott Leavitt, the head of legal for American Century Records; and The O.C.’s Olivia as Devon Finestra, Richie’s wife and mom to his two young kids.
Nasty Bits
Younger viewers can look forward to appearances by Juno Temple (The Dark Knight Rises), Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (Game of Thrones) and Jack Quaid (The Hunger Games). Ex–The Drums drummer Connor Hanwick plays Lou Reed and James Jagger, the eldest son from Mick’s marriage to former model Jerry Hall, is punk-rocker Kip Stevens, lead singer of fictional band The Nasty Bits.
Among the artists contributing original or previously released songs throughout the 10-episode season are Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, Nate Ruess, Trey Songz and Charlie Wilson. Again, the rock ‘n’ roll drama holds a lot of potential in terms of visuals and music. Cannavale’s Richie says it best in one of the teasers: “Think back to the last time you heard a song that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, made you want to dance, or go out and kick somebody’s ass. That’s what I’m talking about.”