The Rocklopedia Fakebandica

Johnny what's the deal boy, Is your band for real, boy? Real songs about fake musicians named John and Johnny. And you thought we couldn't be any more niche!

We flip the script this week to talk about real musicians recording real songs. Real songs that just happen to have fake bands in them. From Alexander's Ragtime Band to Ziggy Stardust, here are some of the best.  

It's Hall of Fame time again!  This time, we throw the doors open and induct a lot of fake band superstars. Because let's be real, there's only so much that Fred Armisen and Lynda Carter can talk about with the losers that T. Mike and Alan keep nominating. It's about to get crowded in the Hall!

In our first episode devoted to folk music (if you discount our Bob Dylan ep), we discuss the many fake bands and artists in Songcatcher, Inside Llewyn Davis, and The Ballad of Wallis Island.

We follow up our DJ A to Z episode by talking with deep house juggernaut DJ 35X.  We learn about his process for creating his songs, his use of artificial intelligence to make that vision a reality, and we take a tour of the DJ 35X Universe and the many fake bands that live there.

It's time to talk about the scandalous immigration policies of this nation. Specifically, the onslaught, the invasion, of DJs infiltrating our fake band world. Every day, another 2.7 fake DJs enter our movies and TV shows, taking jobs away from the hard-working fake rock bands and fictional crooners that built this grand fake band database.   And honestly, we love it. More content for us! 

We celebrate the greatest movie sequel ever ever EVER by talking about angelic and demonic fake bands. And if we need help, we'll call for famed symbologist Robert Langdon, of course. It's Angels and Demons, this week on the Rocklopedia Fakebandica!

Este episodio de la Rocklopedia Fakebandica habla sobre las grandes bandas falsas mexicanas de la cultura pop. Hablamos del mariachi, de Rebelde y de muchas otras bandas increíbles. ¡El Traductor de Google es nuestro amigo!

We celebrate Willie Nelson's 92nd birthday and his newest release, Oh What a Beautiful World, in the only way we know how: blathering about his roles as a fake musician in Honeysuckle Rose, Songwriter, and Waiting for the Miracle to Come.

In honor of Easter weekend, we consider one of the most important questions of this most holy of holidays: how many rabbit musicians could we come up with? The answer may surprise you. Or not. We don't know what surprises you, frankly. 

On April 1, 2025, Val Edward Kilmer, a legend of the silver screen, passed away at age 65. We honor his life the only way we know how: talking about the fake band roles in his illustrious career, from Top Secret! to Song to Song, via SNL, The Salton Sea, and Ghost Ghirls. 

On this episode of the Rocklopedia Fakebandica, we get off our Asteroids and answer the Call of Duty, to Dig Dug through mountains of video game bands to bring you the best of the Pac, Man.  And if we do it right, it won't take us a Fortnite, maybe just an hour. Wii Golf tomorrow, but today it's Video Game Music A to Z

Celebrate April Fool's Day and the one-year anniversary of the podcast with The Autopian co-founder Jason Torchinsky and a whole bunch of musical hoaxes.  Or… maybe this podcast has been a hoax this whole time!

In honor of the 20th anniversary of the premiere of NBC's The Office, we discuss David Brent, Scrantonicity, Andy Bernard, and the other fake bands and musicians from both the UK and US versions.

This week, we skip the green beer, pinching, and shamrocks and instead get our craic from the fake Irish musicians in Once, Sing Street, and Flora and Son. 

This week, we discuss the greatest fake band of the 2020s, or at least our favorite. It's time to talk about the band Lady Parts, the all-Muslim woman punk band from the show We Are Lady Parts!

Hey cool cats, grab a $5 shake and your “I Like Ike” paraphernalia and come celebrate our 50th episode with a look at fake bands in the 1950s.

This week, we mark the coming of Ramadan by doing what three old white guys do… we act like we know what we're talking about with respect to Islam. At least you'll learn about Taqwacore and hear K'naan rap some of Don Dellilo's dope rhymes.

On this episode of the show, Alan is on a break and Charles and T. Mike also take a break—a commercial break. In light of the big game last week, we're talking about some big fake bands coming out of the advertising industry. 

Join us on a speedrun through an alphabet of fake hip hop acts in movies, TV, albums, textbooks, and…police actions.

This week we celebrate Australia Day by going to where the women glow and the fake bands thunder. Join us as we get under 20th Century Oz, Garage Days, and The Sapphires.

Hey hosers, it's time to head back to the Great White North as we talk fake bands in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. 

This week, we celebrate Inauguration Day here in the US by giving 50% of the population exactly what they want: a little more information about Canada.  We're deep diving into the Scott Pilgrim Universe, where we discuss his life, his loves, and the many, many fake bands.

We go classical this week with a look at PDQ Bach, his work, his legacy, and whether we should record a full episode just about him.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine/Listened to a podcast in your prime, didn't you? Sure you did--you listened to this week's show about Bob Dylan's fake band movies.

Join us as we end 2024 with a movie filled with sex and drugs and rock and roll, and bad decisions, and a distinct possibility that none of us makes it to the next year.  Should be fun. Also, we make bold fake band predictions for 2025!

We are deep, deep, DEEP in the holiday season right now. And while some of us were a little too Bob Cratchit-ty and wanted the time off to be with their families, Charles said no, let's slap together a podcast with three random holiday movies with fake musicians in them. Here it is!

Join us on a trip back to the late 1970s, the era of disco, stagflation, and holiday specials where there's really no Christmas content at all. Instead of jingle bells and chestnuts, we had washboards, cigar boxes, and washtubs.

Grab three to five friends, gel your hair, unbutton your shirts, practice your harmonies, and work on your dance moves, because it's time to run through 26 fake boy bands, one for each letter of the alphabet.

We continue our multi-part series on the fake bands of Saturday Night Live with a discussion of the year that almost killed the show, the long fruitful years after,...and the year that almost killed the show. Kinda like a Double Stuf Oreo, except instead of double stuffed, it's octuple stuffed, and instead of being sandwiched together with cookies, it's sandwiched together by turds. Good luck getting that image out of your mind!

This week, we celebrate that day long ago in Plymouth, Mass., when Americans broke bread with some illegal immigrants. Or Pilgrims. Maybe we should call the immigrants  Pilgrims. Anyway, we choose to mark the holiday by discussing Native American fake bands in pop culture. Because let's face it: Native Americans are the reason we have Thanksgiving in the first place. And it's also hard to find fake bands filled with Pilgrims or turkeys.

This week's writer introduced the world to the hardest-working music geek in all of Ireland, the great Jimmy Rabbitte. While Jimmy may think he's shite, possibly overproduced, and less musical than And And! fecking And, we are all fans of novelist Roddy Doyle, the third member of the Fake Band Hall of Fame's latest class of inductees!

The Fake Band Hall of Fame's new members are two of the biggest TV stars of the past 50 years. Plus, they have also played fake musicians on TV, in movies, on streaming, and even in video games. Please welcome Lynda Carter and Lily Tomlin to the red, fake carpet!

With the election right around the corner, we look at politics and fake bands, and the warnings that Hollywood keeps giving us, over and over again. Get out and vote, then listen!

It's Halloweek, so we're going to discuss one of the scariest things to ever haunt the world: the many heavy metal fake bands that occupied those “metalsploitation” films of the 1980s. We discuss three of them and wonder if we are wetting our pants from fear...or just age.

This week, we talk about one of the people that shaped popular culture  and changed the world forever. His music and his showmanship are still iconic to this day, and his face adorns as many velvet paintings as Jesus. It's one for the money… two for the show… three to get ready… fake bands go!

In the second of our two-part exploration of fake Beatles-related bands, we grapple with the possibility of other fake universes themed on bands. And then you can actually hear Alan's blood pressure shoot up as he talks about 2019's Yesterday.  

In the first of this two-part episode of the Rocklopedia Fakebandica, we wonder once again if we have to explain who the Beatles were. Instead, we use three movies to do it for us. Join us as we discuss the movie versions of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Across the Universe.

In episode 1, we declared that  A.I.-generated songs do not count as fake bands. So why are we discussing the case of Michael Smith, who allegedly used thousands of A.I.- created songs to bilk millions of dollars from music streaming services? Find out on this week's Rocklopedia Fakebandica!

On this episode of the Rocklopedia Fakebandica, we tackle the hard hitting questions, like is there more to life than being cool? Do we still got it? And were the 1950s really Happy Days? Special guest Galen Black helps us sort it all out!

Join us for obscure references, vague reminiscences, and some of the most obscure fake bands we've discussed as we dig into the early years of The Simpsons.

Neat, sweet, a groovy podcast/You're invited, come along…um, cast. Yes, it's time for the most-requested fake band so far, Josie and the Pussycats!

The long hot summer is almost over, and each and every parent can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It's Back to School time! We talk about student bands, a school of rock, and the most important question of all: how does Oingo Boingo fit in?

Marissa Flaxbart, creator of the Sweet Valley Diaries podcast, joins us for a belated tribute to Francine Pascal, creator of the Sweet Valley High series of young adult novels (and a few fake bands, too).

Take a ride on the Korean Wave as Charles and two guest experts (Michal Cohen and Kelli Rempel) delve into the fake bands in Doona!, Hospital Playlist, Castaway Diva, and Lovely Runner.

This week, we supplement our usual brand of gibberish with exciting new forms of gibberish from the far future (The Jetsons) and the exotic, erotic, episodic(?) world of Sweden and/or the Muppets Theatre.

Our 20th episode (woot!) focuses on two recent shows that took us way back to the '90s heyday of girl bands: Girls5Eva and Queens.

Every hero (and supervillain, we guess) has an origin story. This week, we present the story of the guy who created the site that birthed the podcast whose description you are reading RIGHT NOW! 

They say that everyone dreams of being a rock star, but what do real rock stars dream about?  They dream about being real fake rock stars, of course.  We discuss how Jimmy Cliff, Huey Lewis, Paul Simon, David Bowie, and Ludacris made their fake-band dreams a reality.

In this guest star-filled episode, we create six fake band supergroups. Whose is the best? And why is it Alan's? Dammit Charles, stop letting him write these episode descriptions!

This week we dive into the story of the most famous Liverpudlian foursome of all time! No, not those guys--we're talking about Eric Idle and Neil Innes's Rutles.