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UPDATED: Stevie Nicks Nixed Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac, Now Her Lead in Rock Hall Vote is in Jeopardy

Roger Friedman
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UPDATED: Stevie Nicks Nixed Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac, Now Her Lead in Rock Hall Vote is in Jeopardy

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: Def Leppard has jumped out ahead of Stevie and has opened a 4,000 vote lead as she drops to number 2 in the online fan vote.

Will landslide take her down? We’ll see what happens soon.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Stevie Nicks may be overtaken any minute now in the fan voting for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by, of all things, Def Leppard.

Nicks has 128,768 to Leppard’s 128,700 at 7pm on Saturday night. But word is just seeping out that Nicks nixed former boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac this year after four decades together.

Stevie’s ethereal image was pretty damaged in the last couple of days after Buckingham filed suit against the group. Then Nicks told Rolling Stone that she was indeed responsible for his ouster. It’s kind of funny and sad. Buckingham and Nicks came into Fleetwood Mac together in 1974. They should have had to leave together, too. But Nicks has been close to Mick Fleetwood in the last few years, and counts on John and Christine McVie, formerly married, to stay silent. (Has anyone ever heard John McVie speak about anything?)

It’s ironic, too, since Buckingham went on tour with Christine McVie last year and made an album with her.

Meanwhile, in fan voting, The Cure, Todd Rundgren, and the Zombies round out the top 5. The MC5 are at the bottom with around 22,000 votes. Most of the people voting probably don’t even know who the MC5 were or why they were important.

Paul Simon Returns to “SNL” Tonight on His 77th Birthday, He Was 34 The First Time Around

Roger Friedman
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Paul Simon Returns to “SNL” Tonight on His 77th Birthday, He Was 34 The First Time Around

It’s all numbers tonight with Paul Simon.

Today he turns 77 years old. The first time he appeared on “Saturday Night Live” he was just 34. He’d already been a music star for over a decade. He was on the second show, in 1975.

His appearance tonight is his 9th. One time he wore a chicken suit. Another time he sang with Art Garfunkel. Over the course of 43 years he became best pals with Lorne Michaels. Chevy Chase was featured in the video for “You Can Call Me Al.”

Tonight’s appearance will be notable in that “SNL” hasn’t had a real classic rock star on in years. The average age of their musical guests is 10. Most of them are unintelligible.

Frankly, Lorne should keep it up– give us Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Sting, Stevie Wonder, etc. The people who are home at 11:30pm would rather see them than… you get the drift.

So happy birthday, Paul. Maybe they’ll drag out the chicken suit.

Box Office: Ryan Gosling’s “First Man” Has a Soft Landing with $5.8 Mil Friday Night, Oscar Chances Slow

Roger Friedman
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Box Office: Ryan Gosling’s “First Man” Has a Soft Landing with $5.8 Mil Friday Night, Oscar Chances Slow

What happened to Damien Chazelle’s “First Man”? There so much enthusiasm for it in Venice and Toronto. I still think it’s a terrific film, and that Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy are wonderful in it.

But somehow the wind went out of the sails on this one. “A Star is Born” took a lot of the attention away. Then critics started writing weird things. Either it was not patriotic, or oddly retro and really patriotic.

The whole flag planting thing didn’t help either. This was sort of like Tim Burton not using the chorus in “Sweeney Todd” because it was “too theatrical.” Chazelle shows the flag after it’s planted, but not the grand moment because he thought it had been done too often. So there’s no lump in the throat moment in an otherwise beautifully made film.

Now “First Man” has had a first night of $5.8 million including $1.1 million from Thursday. The weekend total will be just under $17 million. Universal will have to resuscitate “First Man” with some clever Oscar action– like maybe a late premiere in New York, which got skipped in favor of a gala at Washington DC’s Air and Space Museum.

I’m still bullish on Chazelle, Gosling, and Foy. Get out to a theater this weekend and see this extraordinary effort.

(Watch) Sting, Shaggy “Miami Vice” Video for New Single “Gotta Get Back My Baby” Has 6 Degrees of Melanie Griffith

Roger Friedman
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(Watch) Sting, Shaggy “Miami Vice” Video for New Single “Gotta Get Back My Baby” Has 6 Degrees of Melanie Griffith

Many. many moons ago Sting co-starred with Melanie Griffith in a Mike Figgis classic called “Stormy Monday.” If you’ve never seen it, it holds up really well.

Sting and Melanie have remained friends all these years. Now Sting and Shaggy have a new hilarious video for their hit “Gotta Get Back My Baby” that is literally six degrees of Melanie.

For one degree, the video directed by Michael Garcia is an homage to “Miami Vice,” which starred Melanie’s ex-husband Don Johnson. For a second degree, the video stars Steven Bauer, who is also a Melanie ex-husband, as the police captain who reluctantly lends the bumbling cops his Spyder sportscar so they pursue a sexy villain.

And what does Shaggy say at the end of the video? You’ll have to watch to hear those fateful words.

PS Sting is the rare rock star who doesn’t care for sunglasses. He mentioned that to me recently at his New York show when his manager Martin Kierszenbaum gave him a new pair for his birthday. But that may be the pair that turns up in the video!

Long live Sonny Sting Crockett and Shaggy Ricardo Tubbs!

Hey Z100, play this record!

Thursday Night NBC Network Ratings So Bad, Not Much Different than Daytime Soap Operas

Roger Friedman
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Thursday Night NBC Network Ratings So Bad, Not Much Different than Daytime Soap Operas

Prime time ratings for Thursday night were a little shocking, especially for NBC.

Prime time TV ratings last night on all of NBC and some of ABC were equal to or not much better than the total numbers for daytime soap opera.

Indeed, NBC’s entire slate of new shows last night looked like a scorecard for daytime.

Between 8 and 10pm, NBC shows averaged just 3 million viewers. They were all first run, not repeat. By comparison, “The Young and the Restless” has 4 million viewers, “General Hospital” around 2.6 million. And those are shown during the day, when people are working.

The NBC slate includes “Will & Grace” and “The Good Place,” each of which garners lots of publicity. It’s not like the TV audience doesn’t know how to find them.

On ABC, “How to Get Away with Murder” came back, and was killed. The Shonda Rhimes mystery lured in only 3.2 million fans. ShondaLand’s two other ABC shows had better news, with “Grey’s Anatomy” and its spin off “Station 19” holding 6.5 million. But after that, only half that number wanted to see who got away with murder.

The good news was mostly on CBS, which won the night thanks to “Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” (11 million) and solid showings by the “Murphy Brown” reboot and “Mom.”

 

Ratings info thanks to ShowbuzzDaily.com

Lindsay Buckingham Sues Fleetwood Mac: This Explains What Happened After 2018 MusiCares Radio City Show

Roger Friedman
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Lindsay Buckingham Sues Fleetwood Mac: This Explains What Happened After 2018 MusiCares Radio City Show

Flashback to January’s MusiCares after party at the New York Hilton this past January. Fleetwood Mac had just been honored and played a bunch of songs across the street at Radio City Music Hall with Harry Styles as guest star (they share management).

The crowd from Radio City poured into the Hilton ballroom. A roped off VIP area was set up for the stars of the night. But only one showed: Mick Fleetwood. And he spent nearly two hours on his cell phone, walking back and forth and talking wildly into it. No one from the group joined him. I watched it, everyone at the party was a witness.

Where were Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsay Buckingham? Why did no one show? Who was Fleetwood yapping at on the phone?

Now we know what was going on: Nicks had turned against Buckingham over a perceived slight on stage. This is according to Buckingham’s just filed lawsuit against Fleetwood. Two days after the Radio City Show, he says, he was fired after 43 years and writing many of their biggest hits. Nicks, Lindsey says, thought Buckingham smirked after her song, “Rhiannon,” was played  while they were speaking on stage. Oy vey.

The smirk incident came after a long, failed negotiation to get Fleetwood Mac on the road. Buckingham had recorded a solo album and planned a tour to follow its release. Then the group decided they wanted to go on the road. Buckingham says he asked them to wait until after his tour; they declined. Then he asked to book solo dates on the group’s days off. They said no again.

Fleetwood Mac has always been based on personal conflicts. When Buckingham and Nicks joined the group in 1975, they’d been a couple. The McVies were married to each other. From what anyone can tell, over the last 40 years they’ve all slept with each other, changed loyalties and affiliations. A couple of years ago I ran into Nicks and Fleetwood in New York, and they were a couple. I always thought they were they most self-obsessed, unpleasant group of musicians. They’re a self contained soap opera that has lived on airing their dirty laundry in public. Good grief. All of this comes from the success of just two albums– “Fleetwood Mac” (1975) and “Rumours” (1977) made when Gerald Ford was president.

Who?

Lindsey Buckingham – Fleetw… by on Scribd

R&B Legend Sam Moore Gets Presidential Signing Pen as 83rd Birthday Gift as Music Legislation Becomes Law

Roger Friedman
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R&B Legend Sam Moore Gets Presidential Signing Pen as 83rd Birthday Gift as Music Legislation Becomes Law

How thrilled and proud I am: Sam Moore went to Washington DC yesterday with the RIAA and witnessed the signing of the Music Modernization Act by Donald Trump. (Maybe it’s the one good thing Trump will do in his administration, but he signed it and we thank him.) Sam and his wife Joyce have been in the forefront with Sound Exchange, the RIAA and NARAS to get this bill passed so that he and his peers, with mostly pre-1972 hits, are finally acknowledged and rewarded. Aretha Franklin would be very pleased, so would Frank Sinatra. Their heirs will benefit from this law, as will everyone from Elvis to one hit wonders like Norman Greenbaum and Question Mark and the Mysterians.

Sam turns 83 today, and what a great day to start his 84th year. He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Early admission!), he’s got a Grammy, he’s sung for all the living presidents. Obama and Clinton love him. The Bushes love him. Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sting love him. What’s not to love? Happy Birthday, Sam! We thank you! (Pictured: Sam Moore with NARAS president Neil Portnow)

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s Beloved Third Wife, Lois Driggs Aldrin, Passed Away Last Week at 88

Roger Friedman
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Astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s Beloved Third Wife, Lois Driggs Aldrin, Passed Away Last Week at 88

Just as “First Man” is opening on Friday comes news from its world: Lois Driggs Cannon Aldrin, the third wife of astronaut Buzz Aldrin, has passed away on October 3rd. Like Buzz, she was 88 years old.

Buzz was the second man to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong. He’s played in the movie by Corey Stoll. His first marriage, to the mother of his children, ended in 1974. Aldrin was married to another woman for three years, was single for a decade, and then married Lois. They were together for 23 years when they abruptly divorced.

But Lois’s influence on Buzz was pretty strong. He must have earned a lot of money during that period because when they divorced she got half of everything. I knew Lois, a lot of people did. She was a live wire, and got Buzz out in the world. They went everywhere, to many charity events and parties. They were usually lit like Christmas trees. They had a lot of fun. (I’ve no doubt Buzz’s kids didn’t like that.)

We were all on a shuttle bus once to a charity event for the Starkey Hearing Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. My friend Joyce remembers that as Lois set her foot on the pavement, yours truly quipped, “One step for man, one step for mankind.” Everyone laughed, even Lois. She liked a good time.

I’m moved by the news of her death, not because we were great friends, but because I knew she was a spitfire, a self-starter, and a survivor. She resonated. You can read all about her here. I’ll bet Buzz misses her a lot. She deserved to have her own, separate obituary. She was the kind of star you don’t hear about.

UPDATE Lena Dunham, HBO Face Rare Failure as New Series “Camping” Gets a 20 Percent, Critical Roasting

Roger Friedman
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UPDATE Lena Dunham, HBO Face Rare Failure as New Series “Camping” Gets a 20 Percent, Critical Roasting

I guess now we know why Lena Dunham and creative partner Jenni Konner went their separate ways a few months ago.

The pair knew that they had a turkey on their hands. “Camping,” their new series at HBO– based on a British comedy– is apparently a dud.

read today’s headlines click here

 

Only 6 reviews have shown up so far on Rotten Tomatoes, and they are all negative. The show currently has a zero rating. Its limited run starts Sunday on HBO.

UPDATE There are now 15 reviews, only 3 positive. That raises the rating to a 20.

Over on Metacritic, the rating is 48, ranging from an 80 down to a 25. The Washington Post said the show was “wickedly funny.” But TV Line wrote: “It’s a colossal waste of everyone’s time and talent. Cringe humor without the humor is just cringing.”

Dunham, of course, had a huge success at HBO with “Girls.” HBO almost never has a failure, with shows like “Veep,” “Silicon Valley,” and “Barry” all booming comedies. Fans of Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Divorce” are even waiting for new episodes. HBO also had a massive dramatic hit this summer with Amy Adams in “Sharper Objects.”

But “Camping” sounds like it pitched its tent in the wrong place. At worst, HBO can just play off the episodes and move on to better things.

 

Oscars: “Cold War” Stars Heat Up New York with Polish Film That Took Cannes, Festivals By Storm

Paula Schwartz
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Oscars: “Cold War” Stars Heat Up New York with Polish Film That Took Cannes, Festivals By Storm

This may be premature — ‘Cold War’” is going to become a musical,” said Oscar-winning Polish director (“Ida”) Pawel Pawlikowski this past Sunday evening at Lincoln Ristorante. This was just before he introduced Joanna Kulig, the star of his new film. “Cold War” screened earlier in the evening across the street at the New York Film Festival to a packed house. Filmed in luminous black-and-white, “Cold War” packs a lot of drama, punch and heartache in its mere 84-minute running time. (Pawlikowski won best director prize for the film at Cannes.)

Standing before a grand piano at Lincoln, Kulig sang a bluesy French number and then a Polish folk tune a cappella. Kulig, who looks a little like French actress  Léa Seydoux, proved she sings as well in person as she does on screen.

“Cold War” is the story of star-crossed lovers Zula (Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) that begins in postwar Poland, spans a decade and moves over countries that include Yugoslavia, Berlin and Paris. There’s lots of glorious music and dancing, from Polish folk tunes to jazzy numbers, performed in places that range from smokey jazz joints to grand auditoriums.

Although Pawlikowski may have been joking, “Cold War” would make a great Broadway musical. Like nearly all musicals it’s a stormy love story told through love songs. In fact Kulig, who’s as feisty and bold as her character Zula in the film, was angling for the leading role if it comes to Broadway. “Acting, singing in my own voice, dancing, this is what I like the best — musicals,” giggled the actress.

“Cold War” is a love letter to the director’s parents. He dedicated the film to them in the end credits and the story is loosely based on their tempestuous relationship.

How close did it mirror their story I asked him at the after party?

(A-listers at the after party at included heavy hitters Jodie Foster, Gay Talese, Noah Baumbach, Mira Nair, Marisa Tomei, Salman Rushdie, Joe Wright and Haley Bennett.)

>“My father was a doctor and not a conductor as in the film. What was similar was he was ten years older than my mother and a more mature person at the beginning of their relationship. Then, when they met again in the West the roles were reversed. They did separate several times and married other people and then divorced them and then got back together again, abroad,” he laughed.

“Then they managed to quarrel again and so on, until they got too tired to fight. But this took 40 years, so it was a little bit more messy than this one (in the film.”

This must have been hard on him.

He shrugged. “At the same time they gave me a lot. I was the only child. It was dramatic, maybe traumatic, but at the same time they were really strong characters who gave me a lot separately. Now everything I know and feel about life is so much to do with their presences although I rebelled against them as a teenager. I was sick of their shenanigans,” he laughed.’

Did they see his success?
“Both died in ’89 just before the Wall came down,” he told me.  “They didn’t see the end of the Cold War strangely enough.”
Some comments from the director at the Q&A:
On the cinematography:
“The choice of black and white was largely because there was no good idea for color. Poland in the early 50’s wasn’t terribly rich in color and we wanted the film to feel colorful and dramatic. Black- and-white photography with a little contrast felt like a more interesting dynamic and way of doing it. But basically I had no idea of what colors to use because it was grey, Poland at the time and to come up with some kind of Soviet technicolor type of thing which existed would be pretentious and arbitrary and contrived.”
How the film did in Poland:
 It opened two weeks ago and it’s a huge success in my estimation, I mean over 800,000 people saw it. It touched something.,, It’s not exactly totally accessible. It’s a very eccentric love story, very unusual. But a lot of people project themselves into and recognize something of their lives, plus it’s a rediscovery of folk music had something to do with it as well. The music had a big impact on audiences in Poland.
How the politics align with today:
“Cold War” has a lot of resonances today for sure. It’s set in Stalinist Poland, during a reign of terrors and every relationship was contaminated by the fact that you’re being observed, listened to and spied on. One wrong step and you’re out. … We haven’t got there yet but we have to keep an eye (on things).”
“We don’t know what’s going on at the moment you know? Not just in Poland, but everywhere. It’s a world in transition.
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