The premiere episode of Trust begins with a scene of John Paul Getty III running through a sunflower field in a panic. The scene cuts to a Hollywood party at the Getty mansion in 1973 where a band is playing Pink Floyd’s “Money” before George Getty kills himself with a barbecue fork to the chest in the middle of a dark garage. George was high on a deadly mix of uppers downers and alcohol. This new anthology series on FX tells the sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll story of one of America’s richest families, and the scandal that rocked their oil empire at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.

Created by Simon Beaufoy and directed by Danny Boyle — the team that brought us 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire — Trust offers a peek at American royalty through the lens of a central storyline about a teenage JP Getty III getting perpetually wasted and laid before being kidnapped by Roman Mafiosi and testing the mettle, love, and resources of his extended family including his tight-assed grandfather and namesake, John Paul Getty I.

The big attraction here is the casting of Donald Sutherland as JPG I and Brendan Frasier as a cowboy hat-wearing family problem fixer named Fletcher Chase. I’m planning to cover the series’ episodes here on Insomnia because of the countercultural milieu that JPG III wades through with his bell bottom jeans and long red locks. JPG III is played by Harris Dickinson, and his performance along with those of Sutherland and Frasier form a triumvirate of hubris and humor at the center of this true crime drama that revels in the lifestyles of the decadent and infamous. Sutherland is particularly effective as the family’s parasitic patriarch, and the script serves him especially well in a soliloquy on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean where he explains how the family’s oil-shipping-refinery-gas station-hotel businesses avoid paying any taxes by operating at a loss on paper. JPG III likens the arrangement to a spider’s web while Sutherland laughs through a leer.

In the first episode JPG III appears at his grandfather’s English estate which he shares with a harem of girlfriends. He befriends the old man through their mutual appreciation of art and JPG III gains his namesake’s trust before the publication of a European sex magazine reveals that the boy has fallen for the same sex and drugs vices that killed his uncle and debilitated his father — JPG II befriended the Rolling Stones and partied with them in Morocco. After his grandfather reneges on paying his debts to the Italian toughs, JPG III returns to Rome in hopes of outrunning his family name and his personal troubles.

One of the most effective ways the series evokes its period milieu is through its killer soundtrack which includes tunes by Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up” which pulses through the first episode’s closing scene when gangsters catch up with JPG III.

I’ve been looking forward to this series for months now and this first episode did not disappoint. More on the next episode next week.

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Warhol Superstar Joe Dallesandro made his name as an actor in Warhol productions like Flesh and Trash before finding more mainstream success in supporting roles like playing Lucky Luciano in The Cotton Club. Dallesandro is the “Little Joe” in Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wildside,” and that’s his zippable fly on the cover of the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album.

Today we celebrate Joe’s birthday on December 31, 1948. Here’s a NSFW tribute to Little Joe…

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Felt like taking a break from the horror postings to share a new Rolling Stones documentary that just popped up on YouTube. The Under Review documentaries feature some of the biggest names in music criticism in their career spanning investigations. There are a number of Under Review chapters on the Rolling Stones, and here the Under Review crew examines the so-called Second Wave of the Rolling Stones career, starting with Between the Buttons and ending with the Let it Bleed. The documentary spans from the end of the 1960′s to the beginning of the Stones classic late 1970′s run of records, paralleling the band’s ascendance against the backdrop of the death of the Age of Aquarius.

Here you go…

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This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Yardbird’s debut album Five Live Yardbirds. At first glance, the album appears to be just another British Invasion knock-off packed with blues covers — in fact, the band had just taken over the Rolling Stones’ old residency at the Crawdaddy Club before recording this live collection. The band’s big break came with their second disc and its title hit, “For Your Love,” but Eric Clapton’s guitar on the debut album presaged the group’s claim to fame as a launchpad for guitarists including Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Here is a full-length doc that tells the story of the band, its memorable hits and its outstanding guitarists…

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This past Saturday marked the 45th anniversary of the Rolling Stones’ concert at the Altamont Speedway. The chaotic scene ended in multiple injuries, four accidental deaths including hit-and-run accidents and a drowning as well as the stabbing murder of Meredith Hunter.

Characterized as a kind-of anti-Woodstock, the Altamont Free Concert is now a symbol for the end of the idealism of the 1960′s and the dark side of rock ‘n’ roll that the Stones have always seemed to exemplify. Here is Albert and David Maysles definitive chronicling of the concert…

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Brian Jones is dead. He drowned in his pool in the aftermath of being kicked out of the band. The facts are fuzzy and there’s reason to believe that he may have been the victim of foul play. Brian was a symbol of peace and love, and his passion for the blues will live on in the amazing music he brought to the band that he created.

Here’s a late breaking report…

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Nico was a fashion model, an actress and a siger/songwriter who is best known for her time with The Velvet Underground and her contributions to their debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico. The Warhol Superstar is familiar to cinephiles for her gorgeous turns in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Warhol’s Chelsea Girls.

Christa Päffgen was born in Nazi Germany in 1938. Her father was killed in the war. By the age of 13, she had quit school to sell lingerie. At 5′ 10″ with outrageous cheekbones, she was a star model on the rise while still in her teens.

While taking acting lessons in New York with Lee Strasberg, Nico met rockers like Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Jimmy Page produced her first single and Bob Dylan wrote the song “I’ll Keep it with Mine” for her to perform. An introduction from Jones got Nico into Warhol’s inner circle and the rest is history.

While many are familiar with the first half of Nico’s story, not as many know much at all about the rest of her life. Nico’s solo musical career is full of courageous experimentation and her refusal to be just another pretty face is admirable even by today’s standards. Her drug problems are the stuff of legend and her strange death wraps even the end of her tale in an air of mystery.

Susan Ofteringer’s film Nico Icon sheds light on all of this and more. This rather heavy-handed plot summary at IMDB says it all:

A look into the many lives of Christa Päffgen, otherwise known as Nico; from cutie German mädchen to the first of the supermodels, to glamorous diva of the Velvet Underground, to cult item, junkie and hag. Many faces for the same woman, whom, you realize, just couldn’t bring herself to care enough to live.

Here is the film in its entirety. Highlights include early images of Nico as a young model, the origin of her famous name, lots of post-Velvets interview and performance footage of the chanteuse, and a moving homage by friend/bandmate/producer John Cale who closes the film playing piano in front of two massive Julian Schnabel paintings, giving a haunting recitation of the Nico classic “Frozen Warnings.”

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