The Rocklopedia Fakebandica

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 gett...

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 fak...

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).