'Almost Famous' director ready for roadies

He chronicled a groupie Rolling Stone writer following a rock band in 2000's Almost Famous. Now Cameron Crowe, an ex-Stone writer himself, is behind a potential new Showtime series about crew members in a rock band.

Roadies is a comedy about "the day-to-day life of a successful rock tour as seen through the eyes of music's unsung background players," the pay-cable network said in announcing it has commissioned a pilot episode for the new project, which would be Crowe's first TV series. He is writing and will direct the one-hour episode as a prototype for a series that would also be produced by J.J. Abrams (Lost) and Winnie Holzman (My So-Called Life), who would executive produce as showrunner. If Showtime gives the series a greenlight, it could surface later next year.

"I love that we're finally doing Roadies," said Crowe in a statement. "J.J. and I have been talking about it for some time. We're fans of crews, those workers up on the rigging towers, or walking feverishly with eight phones on their belt. Those quietly devoted people live huge lives, they're often the real keepers of the flame."