Lindsey Buckingham: TV Star

[elle]

article from a bit ago, before the series first aired -

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/23/media/roadies-showtime/

Cameron Crowe's 'Roadies' hits flat note in Showtime debut
by Brian Lowry @blowryontv
June 23, 2016: 7:24 PM ET

Showtime's Roadies

The mere mention of Cameron Crowe doing his first TV series, "Roadies," surely caused enthusiasm among cultish devotees of "Almost Famous," the writer-director's semi-autobiographical ode to the music industry and fandom.
Still, the initial episodes of this Showtime dramedy never really find their groove, despite appearances by a number of well-known musicians. In that, the show shares a ho-hum quality with "Vinyl," which hit a different but equally deflating rut chronicling the music industry in the swinging '70s.
As with that HBO project, "Roadies'" gaudy creative auspices only magnify the disappointment. Beyond Crowe, who wrote and directed the premiere, the murderer's row of talent on the marquee includes "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" director J.J. Abrams and Winnie Holzman, whose credits include the musical "Wicked" and series "My So-Called Life."

Starring Luke Wilson and Carla Gugino as tour managers whose frequent squabbling seems to hint at a more complicated relationship, "Roadies" isn't bad, exactly. But nor does it feel particularly distinctive or even remotely fresh.

RELATED: HBO cancels 'Vinyl' in about-face from earlier renewal

Indeed, the various flare-ups that occur have a too-familiar quality, and the writing a sitcom-y bent. When Gugino's Shelli meets the big boss after having walked in on Wilson's character in bed with his daughter, she awkwardly tells him the girl is "truly lovely. I saw her naked."

The characters don't really pop either -- again, in part because they feel like such obvious archetypes. That includes the gnarled old pro who has seen and done it all and the wide-eyed newbie, choosing between film school and chasing her dreams in this colorful world.

Crowe clearly possesses a terrific feel for this world's abundant quirks, as well as an inherent love for the music. And it's fun to see performers like Lindsey Buckingham do a little acting before belting out songs. (The Head & The Heart, Reignwolf, Jim James and Lucius are among others slated to appear.)

Cameron Crowe's 'Roadies' premieres on Showtime

That said, "Roadies" is so light as to feel almost wispy. And the contrast between the show and the grim, brooding drama with which it's being paired, "Ray Donovan," is about as stark a contrast in TV styles as one could imagine -- like Metallica touring with Celine Dion.

As with "Vinyl," the mix of music and drama (or here, mostly comedy) simply doesn't work as well as hoped. And despite the high notes, there are too many places where "Roadies" falls flat.

"The music is good," Shelli counsels one of her young charges. "And you meet some great people."

Judging by "Roadies'" first few sets, that is, alas, about half right.

"Roadies" premieres June 26 on Showtime.
CNNMoney (Los Angeles)
First published June 23, 2016: 5:51 PM ET

[elle]

another article comparing various music-related series and what doesn't work for them (i just realized reading these articles that Vinyl was cancelled after initially renewed for another season)

http://uproxx.com/tv/why-cant-tv-cha...drugsrockroll/

Why Is It So Hard For TV Shows About Music To Get It Right?
BY: STEVEN HYDEN 07.06.16

There’s an old axiom attributed to Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, Steve Martin, Miles Davis and many others that’s long been a favorite of self-hating rock critics: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Put another way: It’s easy to sound stupid when you’re talking about music. In fact, it’s pretty much inevitable that somebody will think you’re a moron no matter what you say.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just a problem for rock critics. In fact, it’s probably worse for TV writers. From The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana, from Zack Attack to Jesse and the Rippers, capturing the essence of pop music in fictional television shows has for decades proven frustratingly elusive. All the intangibles — the bristling sound of a live concert, the aloof carriage of a pop star, the digressive arc of a passionate debate among music geeks — often feel slightly (or wildly) wrong on television shows. And yet these details are essential for verisimilitude. Unconvincing lip-syncing, pained on-stage posturing, or a reference to the wrong Iggy Pop record are as conspicuous on music TV shows as wonky-looking special effects on Game of Thrones.

The most successful pop-related show on television, Empire, has addressed this problem by bringing in ringers to help with the music (Timbaland, Jim Beanz) and, perhaps more important, utilizing a soap-opera format that gives the show an outrageously operatic emotional tenor. As silly as Empire can be, its emotional truth rings true. Empire might not closely resemble the real-life pop industry, but watching it often feels like listening to pop music. (This is also true of Nashville, recently canceled by ABC and more recently revived by the cable network CMT.)

Any successful pop artist must have an intuitive understanding of what the audience wants from the music they love, and the same goes for TV shows about pop artists. Of all the many problems with HBO’s $100-million one-season wonder Vinyl, one of the biggest flops in TV history, this issue might have been the most profound. As a 38-year-old straight white male raised on classic rock radio, I couldn’t totally hate Vinyl — I am the core demographic for subplots about contract negotiations with Led Zeppelin and jokes about England Dan and John Ford Coley. But even I couldn’t stomach the pontificating of the show’s lead character, Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale), about how rock and roll with balls and grit can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, motherf*cker!

The premise of Vinyl — a man who does cocaine all day long and hangs with Alice Cooper is inherently important — was fatally flawed for a TV show in 2016. Whether it was due to ignorance, arrogance, or a toxic mix of both, the makers of Vinyl didn’t understand that an anachronistic character like Richie must be explained, and his supposed awesomeness contextualized, for contemporary audiences.

I wonder now if Vinyl would’ve worked better as a comedy in the mold of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or this year’s underrated Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, both of which use parody as a trojan horse for sharp insights about the highs, lows, and middles of pop stardom. Vinyl would’ve required just a slight nudge to become a full-on farce. Think about when Richie declares in the pilot, “I had a golden ear, a silver tongue, and a pair of brass balls. But the problem became my nose and everything I put up it.” That’s funny, especially coming from a blowhard in a leisure suit. Richie could have been a rock and roll Ron Burgundy, if only Vinyl had understood its own joke.

Roadies-Feature
SHOWTIME

Like Vinyl, Roadies was seemingly designed for a person with precisely my sensibilities. Created by Cameron Crowe, former music journalist and the writer-director of Almost Famous (i.e. the Top Gun of rock criticism), Roadies stars Luke Wilson, Carla Gugino, and Imogen Poots as crew members on tour with the Staton-House Band, an arena group that resembles a cross of Kings of Leon and Stillwater, the fictional band from Almost Famous. But whereas Vinyl was set 40 years in the past, Roadies is about a troupe of true believers fighting to keep the rock dream alive in the present.

As I watched the pilot for Roadies shortly before the show’s premiere last month on Showtime, I looked for signs of promise. I cheered for Poots, a great young actress who deftly upgrades what could’ve been another of Crowe’s Manic Pixie Dream Girls to a more dignified Grounded Cynic With a Heart of Gold. And I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t get chills from a shameless episode-closing montage set to Pearl Jam’s “Given to Fly.” (Crowe is nothing if not a master of shamelessly emotional moments set to rock songs.) Plus, Luis Guzman plays a bus driver named Gooch. How could I dislike this show?

But after watching the first three episodes, Roadies left me feeling unsatisfied, as well as weirdly guilty about not liking it more. Crowe’s intentions, as always, seem noble and kind-hearted. He loves music, darn it, and he’s created characters to proselytize about it on his behalf. Roadies is the kind of show that will stop for a few minutes to dote rapturously on a performance by indie-folk group the Head and the Heart. (Through Crowe follows this up with an incongruous joke about Mumford & Sons, which is like hating on Journey because you’re an REO Speedwagon purist.)

But still, this show is so gentle and non-threatening! Criticizing Roadies is like screaming obscenities at All Songs Considered. (Each episode even has a designated “Song of the Day” that identifies the artist. Shout-out, Frightened Rabbit!) The problem with Roadies is that Crowe seems interested in little else beyond the music, including anything remotely resembling dramatic conflict or witty jokes. In the second episode, a subplot is devoted to the consternation Poots’ character feels about the band using a TelePrompTer. Perhaps aging rock stars having their lyrics fed to them is still a big deal for Crowe, but the rest of the world has moved on.

Then there’s this week’s doozy of an episode, starring Rainn Wilson as a Bob Lefsetz-like blogger who slams the Staton-House Band in his online column, and is subsequently invited to join the band on the road to shore up the bad publicity. Apparently Crowe’s background as a Rolling Stone writer didn’t inform his depiction of Wilson’s character, a typical asshole critic caricature who cackles ominously while typing mean things on his computer. (Though, in fairness, Crowe makes Lefsetz’s prose read better than it does in real life.)

Crowe himself was notoriously deferential to rock stars as a journalist. (After recently re-reading his 1976 Rolling Stone profile of David Bowie, I was surprised to not once see the word “cocaine,” in spite of Bowie’s obviously coked-out behavior.) But he could stand to be a little — well, “meaner” is the wrong word, so let’s just say that Roadies could use an infusion of reality. Part of what makes Almost Famous great is that Stillwater is clearly not intended to be a capital-G great band. The band members are petty and egotistical, and it’s implied that they won’t last beyond a few more years. To use one of Crowe’s favorite words, those shortcomings give Almost Famous authenticity. On Roadies, however, the characters aren’t afforded the space to live and breathe. It treats rock and roll like a mint condition LP collection that never gets played, only bragged about.

Sex&Drugs&RockAndRoll
FX

During its first season on FX in 2015, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll seemed like another example of a rock and roll TV show playing in the wrong key. Star and creator Denis Leary plays Johnny Rock, an over-the-hill rock star whose band the Heathens flamed out in the early ’90s. One night in a nightclub, Johnny hits on a woman young enough to be his daughter, and then discovers that she really is his long-lost daughter, Gigi (Elizabeth Gilles). She has tracked down Johnny because she wants him to reform the Heathens and help her become a pop star.

With his peacock hair and lanky frame, Leary could credibly play a rock dude playing out the string on his career. But little else about Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll made sense from a music-perspective. Why would Gigi ask her estranged rocker father of all people to be her Max Martin? How could Dave Grohl credibly claim that the Heathens — whose aesthetic is essentially “Buckcherry lite” — were an influence on Nirvana? Why does Johnny reference Greg Dulli several times per episode? (Greg Dulli is to Denis Leary what Lindsey Buckingham is to Cameron Crowe.) Plus, the dialogue could be very clunky. (My favorite, courtesy of Joan Jett’s memorable cameo: “The whole music scene is talking about you and I had to come down myself to see what all the noise is about.”)

But Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll grew on me by the end of season one, in part because it didn’t take itself all that seriously. Instead, it just felt like a good hang — I grew to like the characters, particularly Flash (John Corbett), the Slash to Johnny’s Axl, and Ava (Elaine Hendrix), Johnny’s girlfriend and a former Bon Jovi groupie. Now in its second season, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll remains solidly low-stakes summer viewing, though now with an unexpectedly progressive streak that balances out the consistently crass humor. (Hello, semen-in-hair jokes, we’ve missed you since There’s Something About Mary 18 years ago.) In the first five episodes of season two, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll evolves from a show about Johnny trying to get his groove back to an endearing story about Gigi and Ava’s mother-daughter relationship, and the ways they influence each other to take control of their lives. As Ava’s career starts to take off in a surprising direction, Johnny is forced to confront middle-aged obsolescence, the biggest modern-day rock problem of all.

Presenting a world where women can exist outside of the lives of their boyfriends and bandmates seems a lot better, and truer, than this kind of show is normally capable of. It’s certainly leagues beyond the caveman gender dynamics of Vinyl, which romanticizes an era best left in the rearview. And no matter its occasional clumsiness — did I mention the semen in hair joke? — Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll at least has perspective on what a band like the Heathens signifies in 2016: Not a whole lot, but that’s okay, because it’s only rock and roll.

[elle]

[why not release all those instrumentals, Lindsey??]


http://evigshed.com/lindsey-buckingh...big-love-live/

Lindsey Buckingham Releases ‘Big Love (Live)’ off of Official ‘Roadies’ Soundtrack

July 8, 2016 Music, News


Lindsey Buckingham released the third track Big Love (Live) off of the Roadies Official Soundtrack album via Republic Records and Stardog Records. Listen to it exclusively on Apple Music here.

The legendary guitarist and GRAMMY® Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee delivers a stunning new rendition of the Fleetwood Mac classic for the soundtrack. In addition, he appears on the next episode of ROADIES to perform Big Love and Bleed to Love Her Sunday, July 10, 2016 on Showtime.

[sodascouts]

Has anybody been able to listen to "Big Love" on iTunes yet? I can't seem to find it. When i click on the link, it just takes me to a page instructing me to download iTunes (which I already have).

"Big Love" again, eh? Oh well. It's Lindsey. I'll take it. I'm excited about the other songs we'll get to hear!

[michelej1]

ABC News Radio, July 10, 2016

http://kwbe.com/abc_classicr/lindsey...abcid35730631/

Fleetwood Mac‘s Lindsey Buckingham makes a guest appearance as himself on the third and latest episode of the Showtime comedy series Roadies, which premieres tonight, July 10, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

The singer/guitarist’s cameo include solo performances of two Fleetwood Mac songs he wrote: the 1987 hit “Big Love” and “Bleed to Love Her,” which appeared on the group’s 2003 studio album, Say You Will.

You can check out a preview trailer for the episode, including a brief clip of Buckingham, at the official Roadies YouTube channel.

A new live version of “Big Love” has also been chosen as the third single from the upcoming Roadies soundtrack album, which is scheduled to be released on August 26.

The show was created by award-winning filmmaker Cameron Crowe, and takes a humorous look at a group of music-loving roadies and their lives working behind-the-scenes in the concert industry.

[michelej1]

Lindsey was pretty good. The funniest part was when they showed the guy hallucinating that Lindsey was in flames and he said, "You're on fire" and Lindsey said: "thank you."

When he said 'I love you as the years go by, I may say it less but I mean it more,' it reminded me of him and the Macsters and I wondered if he ever said "I love you" to them.

I mean I know he says more casually that there's a lot of love there, but I mean one to one, does he say to any of them, "I love you."

Yes, I can imagine Lindsey just walking the halls backstage gently strumming NGBA, IRL.

Michele

[elle]

Thanks #LindseyBuckingham for getting Bill out of a jam…literally. #SHORoadies pic.twitter.com/uCKkSXxqTY

— Roadies (@SHO_Roadies) July 11, 2016

[elle]

"Might have snuck out pre-show to catch brilliant Lindsey Buckingham... I mean damn!" Rick @StatonHouse @SHO_Roadies pic.twitter.com/4tiB8URmGn

— Christopher Backus (@_cbackus) July 11, 2016

All hail the great #LindseyBuckingham. Honored to have you join us last night. #StatonHouseBand pic.twitter.com/PKl7TzFPUF

— Staton-House Band (@StatonHouse) July 11, 2016

@rickinblackuk @Sethmolitoris Lindsey Buckingham on fire. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/eiogc0JKlZ

— (((teeging))) (@teeging) July 11, 2016

[michelej1]

That was so funny.

Michele

[elle]

ep3 songlist also here - http://www.theuncool.com/2016/07/11/...e-3-song-list/

Thanks for tweeting with us! Here’s a track list of all the songs in tonight’s #SHORoadies: https://t.co/4iLcDRlPNL. pic.twitter.com/klSl5umCCZ

— Roadies (@SHO_Roadies) July 11, 2016

[elle]

short vid of LB walking backstage noodling NGBA, on fire, and Big Love live -

@SHO_Roadies S01E03 clip
starring @rainnwilson,@JacqeulineByers & #LindseyBuckinghamhttps://t.co/6Jqly0UlSR

— Doomsday Machine (@Radu_Vladislas) July 11, 2016

[elle]

Some moments from last nights ROADIES on Showtime. Lindsey was on quite a bit of the show... And FUNNY! Try showtime for free at www.sho.com #lindseybuckingham #fleetwoodmac

A video posted by FLEETWOOD MAC NEWS (@fleetwoodmacnews) on Jul 11, 2016 at 4:40pm PDT

[elle]

"Bend me over and mount me like a mid evil alpaca Lindsey Buckingham" THIS SHOW OMG pic.twitter.com/03qL0IOjXD

— ☽ Damn Skippy ☾ (@Jasmine_Leslie9) July 12, 2016

[michelej1]

That little bit of NGBA reminds me of a tape we have from one of the tours and Lindsey is having a conversation with someone and he is constantly playing the guitar while talking to Richard or whomever about something. Like he's talking about a tv show, while playing the guitar and it is SO annoying. I would have just snatched that guitar right out of his hands.

Michele

[elle]

Michele, somebody screencapped that love you more - say it less quote -

Lindsey Buckingham dans l'épisode 3 de ROADIES! Définitivement amoureux de cette série. D’une douceur incroyable... pic.twitter.com/VcZ7tO9amr

— Luc CK (@41SWANS) July 13, 2016