So, Bowie is too decent a person and too consistently successful in his career to warrant a Hollywood smear-job? Well, I’ll be leaving now, I’ve seen it all.
Just kidding; thanks for the explanation. It seems solid.
That was great!
I think the recording of Ziggy Stardust might make a good movie: one hit wonder and serial chancer comes off a couple of flop albums and has one last throw of of the career dice. Naturally, he decides that commercial success means dressing up as a hermaphroditic alien rock star messiah and hiring a bunch of brickies from Hull. And the rest is musical history.
I love that video!
See, now you’ve isolated a struggle and triumph, so yeah, Ziggy Stardust could make a compelling film.
By any chance would reaper man have all night every night? I just ordered the Criterion blu-ray of the movie.
As far as bands that would make for an awesome bio-pic, how about Parliament-Funkadelic? Just imagine the scene when the band is tripping balls and then drive into the middle of a hoard of zombies that are filming Night of the Living Dead.
I’ve heard of the Meatmen but not familiar with their work. I am, slightly, with Ian MacKaye and Fugazi; their music isn’t my cup of tea but I admire MacKaye for standing up for what he believes in.
As for the one-day BOC biopic “More Cowbell”, today is Eric Bloom’s 74th birthday. 
Boards Of Canada get a picture now?
The Meatmen were/are a punk rock band focused on being as gratuitously offensive as possible, but with a sick sense of humor about it all too. For instance, their song about John Lennon, One Down Three To Go. Their shows didn’t devolve into riots, tho, because of the obvious tongue-in-cheek nature of their lyrics and stage presence (think of Fear, but without the relentless direct antagonization of the audience).
Tesco also started Touch and Go, a punk rock fanzine which he eventually sold to a friend (Corey Rusk of The Necros) who turned it into a record label that did quite well for 25 years or so before being significantly downsized by Rusk about 10 years ago now.
Tesco moved to DC when he sold the zine to concentrate on music and fronted a number of bands over the years, often reforming The Meatmen. So tangential people include Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Henry Rollins, Steve Albini, Jesus Lizard, etc., etc.
Well, so much punk rock in this thread, even New York punk rock, but nobody suggested a Ramones biopic yet? You’d have the whole New York punk scene, the CBGB’s, high drama, an almost dysfunctional bunch of people making some of the greatest noise in rock ever, bandmates stealing each other’s girlfriends, almost too much for one movie.
I believe you could tell a similarly great story about Richard Hell, too.
I personally know so much about the Ramones that no dramatization would ever appeal to me, so I didn’t suggest it. I know that my perspective isn’t nearly universal tho.
Now you’re talking!
Would it include his brief marriage to Patty Smyth, singer of the 80s pop band Scandal who is now Mrs. John McEnroe?
Factoid: When they met, neither had ever heard of the other. They met at a record industry function and married a few months later; she had never followed the punk scene, and he did not watch MTV or listen to Top 40 radio.
Looks like we’ve got our answer: Motley Crue: The Dirt. Coming to Netflix next month.
Piano Man
Billy Joel does not get the accolades he deserves, being overshadowed by he two other B’s (Bob & Bruce).
Now that could actually work, if it focuses on the circumstances that led to his writing the song “Piano Man”. For those who don’t know it, BJ got some kind of record contract that hamstrung him: they didn’t allow him to record or perform, but because he was under contract, he couldn’t work for anyone else, or work independently. So he worked independently anyway, under the name Bill Martin, in a bar where all the stuff in the song played out.
(I especially like this idea, because it would officially settle the question “What is a real estate novelist?” Duh: a guy who works in real estate and claims to be writing a novel. Which never gets finished because he’s always at the bar. But I’ve seen people come up with the most ridiculous interpretations.)
P.S. Do you mean Bob Seger? Bob Dylan’s not a contemporary of BJ or Springsteen, though I admit he casts a long shadow.
I’d at least watch the first half with Peter Green… before the entire band other than Mick & John went bonkers/burnout/addicted.
But we don’t need to encourage Hollywood. They just love to jump on a bandwagon, even as a result of one successful film. So I’m betting the “suits” there are fast-tracking as many Band Bios as they can.
In time for Christmas, watch for:
“The Karma that Bit the Chameleon”
“Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd”
“Tangled Up In Blood On The Tracks”
“Bay City are-they-really-Rollers?”
“Oy, mate! Dunna pronounce the K!: The Mark Nopfler Story”
And a gritty Netflix film, “Scotch & Soda: the dark truths behind The Kingston Trio”.
By the way, here’s Scotch & Soda… pretty tasty for 1958.
There was the movie CBGB from a few years ago with Malin Akerman as Debbie Harry. Of course setting it in CBGB allows for some amazing cameos. FTR, the movie was directed by Randall Miller. He was the shitstain who was directing the Allman brothers based movie Midnight Rider.
Joss Stone?
How about Phil Ochs biopc Power and Glory? I’d like to know more about his life, because I have been a big fan of his music for years.
I’d love to see a biopic on Eric Clapton, but it would have to be fairly long to stuff in everything. His musical affiliations alone would be a full movie: Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, the Yardbirds, John Mayall, Blind Faith. Add in that his “sister” was actually his mother, the romantic relationships, the addictions, and his crash and resurgence after the death of his little boy, and you’ve got yourself a movie.
I’d go to see it twice, I would.
Hasn’t Hollywood been producing musician and band biopics since forever? Off the top of my head, I can think of the following:
The Buddy Holly Story (Buddy Holly, 1978)
La Bamba (Richie Valens, 1987)
Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis, 1989)
The Glenn Miller Story (Glenn Miller, 1954)
Amadeus (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1984)
Ray (Ray Charles, 2004)
There are undoubtedly others I cannot think of right now, but those should provide good examples of how Hollywood is not currently producing musician/band biopics because of a bandwagon. It’s just doing a genre of films that it’s been doing for years.