Spin doctor: Vinyl soundtrack has gems, including Julian Casablancas

As a reward for enduring Martin Scorsese’s car-crash television drama Vinyl, there is always the soundtrack.

Julian Casablancas, lead singer of the Strokes, will be at Splendour in the Grass.

Director Martin Scorsese’s take on the 1970s music industry, the television drama series Vinyl, enjoyed mixed reviews, although now that the first season has ended it appears to these eyes and ears that there is no car-crash TV remaining of such high calibre.

There is the soundtrack, though, which in its documenting of that pivotal period of pre and post-punk in New York includes some rewarding moments, among them a contribution from someone who is about to grace these shores in one of the headline acts at Splendour in the Grass. Strokes singer Julian Casablancas, who has expressed previously his love of New York’s Velvet Underground with recorded cover versions of the Lou Reed-fronted band’s Run Run Run and White Light/White Heat, takes on the Velvets’ Venus in Furs for the soundtrack. The collection also features tracks from Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop and Chris Cornell.

It has been a tough year so far in terms of much admired musicians leaving us too early. Prince’s death last week was no less of a shock than David Bowie’s in January. Sadly Prince wasn’t the only famous muso to lose his life in the past seven days. Also passing on were veteran American guitarist Lonnie Mack, who influenced many other guitarists including Keith Richards and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and who enjoyed a burst of fame in the 1960s with instrumentals such as Memphis and Wham. He was 74. One of the earliest exponents of smooth soul, Billy Paul, also passed on this week, aged 81. Paul became an international success on the back the classic hit Me & Mrs Jones in 1972. It remained his biggest success. Congolese legend Papa Wemba, sometimes referred to as the king of rumba music, collapsed and died during a performance in Ivory Coast. He was 66.

A much revered Australian muso, Hungarian-born bassist Jackie Orszaczky, not only enjoyed success with recordings and performances until his death in 2008 but also helped launch and develop the careers of many young jazz, blues and rock musicians, particularly in his home city of Sydney. One of them, You Am I’s Tim Rogers, remembers him this way: “Jackie was so patient with us lunkheads,” he says. “He let us feel that we weren’t the troglodytes we regarded ourselves as. He did everything (with us) at a pace and rhythm that humbled me. For a short while I was let into his orbit, and I only hope I learnt something from his warmth and generosity.” To celebrate Orszaczky’s career and his contribution to Australian music, the inaugural Jackie Orszaczky Music Lecture is being held at Sydney’s The Basement on May 10. The first lecture will be delivered by musician and broadcaster Lucky Oceans. A band featuring Orszaczky’s widow, singer Tina Harrod, as well as gun players such as drummer Hamish Stuart and bassist Dave Symes, will perform Orszaczky material on the night.

Nominations are now open for this year’s National Indigenous Music Awards, which will be held in Darwin on August 6. To mark the 25th anniversary of Yothu Yindi’s Treaty, the theme of this year’s NIMAs will be protest songs. The performers for the event, yet to be announced, will be mining that source of material.