fictional bands

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I'm about to teach Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, a novel centering around the fictional band Coyote Springs. I'm wracking my brains trying to come up with other novels in which make believe bands feature prominently. So far all I have are the Paranoids (Crying of Lot 49) and the Hawklords (Time of the Hawklords (and they're not really fictional, anyways)). Can anyone tell me more?

― Otto, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:40 (twenty years ago) link

sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:41 (twenty years ago) link

Lo/Rez in William Gibson's Idoru

― BrianB, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:59 (twenty years ago) link

Cinniblount, is that a novel? Or do you mean the fictional band on the Beatles album?

― otto, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:00 (twenty years ago) link

The illuminatus trilogy has a huge list of fictional badns but theya aren't really central.

How about Ian Bank's Espidaer Street?

― tigerclawskank, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:01 (twenty years ago) link

Powder, which is all about the Grams

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:02 (twenty years ago) link

PF Kluge (of Dog Day Afternoon fame) - Eddie And The Cruisers

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:03 (twenty years ago) link

marvin berry & the starlighters

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:04 (twenty years ago) link

Uhh, Eddie and the Cruisers is a real band, I have all their albums.

the Beatles of Backbeat?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:06 (twenty years ago) link

Uhh, Huckleberry, there is no Santa Claus.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:11 (twenty years ago) link

How about Ian Bank's Espidaer Street?

Not to nitpick, but respelling it as Iain Banks's Espedair Street may make it easier for Otto to find it... ;-)

Excellent call otherwise, the band (Frozen Gold, "I had tried to get them to change the name, honest") can hardly be more prominent.

― OleM (OleM), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:13 (twenty years ago) link

the jerk offs from charles romalotti's salad days (which i haven't read).

― brian badword (badwords), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:14 (twenty years ago) link

there is that novel 'girl' by blake nelson that's all about the punk rock scene in portland (oregon). it was first serialized in sassy, and it fit in kind of perfectly.

― maura (maura), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:14 (twenty years ago) link

Beyond The Valley of The Fabulous Stains

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:14 (twenty years ago) link

One of the best examples might be found in Jonathan Coe's excellent novel 'The Dwarves of Death'.

― Rick Spence (spencerman), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:19 (twenty years ago) link

Not from a novel, but....

The Shunned were a fictional band in my city during late seventies punk days. Posters use to appear for their shows that were to be at vague local locations (ex. - "at the Shoe Store"). Many locals believed them to be real for a while, and were intrigued. They even had fictional members (Dick Chocolate, Jet Yellow, Doomy Number).

― peepee (peepee), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:19 (twenty years ago) link

thomas pynchon had some kind of punkish band in Vineland,.
they were Billy Barf and the VOmitones.

― dz, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:24 (twenty years ago) link

There was a fictional gangsta rap group in Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days (based on NWA), I can't remember if they had a name in the book, but he had half a chapter about writing an article about them.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:48 (twenty years ago) link

Two band names I remember from a Mark Leyner book are Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros and Mental Agassi.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:56 (twenty years ago) link

The protagonist of Don DeLillo's _Great Jones Street_ is a rock star who's leaving his band ... I can't remember what the band is called.

― Brad Cahoon (Brad C.), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:14 (twenty years ago) link

whatever happend to Mark Leyner?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:15 (twenty years ago) link

Good question. He seemed to disappear after that "Tetherballs of Bouganvillea" book.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:20 (twenty years ago) link

VTO, from salman rushdie's "the ground beneath her feet"

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:25 (twenty years ago) link

the various bands and singers in nick hornby's "high fidelity"

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:28 (twenty years ago) link

the title characters in roddy doyle's "the commitments"

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:34 (twenty years ago) link

brad: the singer's name is bucky wunderlick.

― bucky wunderlick (bucky), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:39 (twenty years ago) link

a fictional band
just ain't shit unless they got
their own action figs:
http://216.97.102.200/classics/bill_ted.jpg

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:44 (twenty years ago) link

and whaddaya know, even then...

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 19:46 (twenty years ago) link

What about the Commitments

― Mitch in Magic City (ano ano), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 22:12 (twenty years ago) link

There was a fictional band called Bottlecap in the execrable Our Noise (an ill-advised indie-rock novel). Honestly, a very painful read.

― Christian Rawk (Christian Rawk), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:00 (twenty years ago) link

haha, let me google franklin bruno's review of that....

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:01 (twenty years ago) link

http://www.matadorrecords.com/escandalo/4/shallow.html

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:02 (twenty years ago) link

Valis by Philip K Dick featured a rock star called Eric Lampton. As I recall it he and his wife Linda were channeling an ancient alien ubermind through the body of a 2 year old girl via the use of electronic musician Brent Mini's Synchronicity Music. Something like that anyway.

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:15 (twenty years ago) link

Salman Rushdie's "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" centers around two fictional rock musicians and their relationship. One of his weaker books tho, fer sure, the music stuff (lyrics, invented history, titles, etc.) is just not believable at all.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:28 (twenty years ago) link

Ivan & The Terribles from "Motel Hell." Farmer Vince makes a plywood cow run in front of their van on a lonely country road. They wreck, and wake up buried to their necks with their voice boxes surgically removed. Then the fattenin' begins.

― Andy, Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:00 (twenty years ago) link

alan moore's ABC comics stuff has some piss-weak fictional band bits in it

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:38 (twenty years ago) link

zenith? oh lord

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:40 (twenty years ago) link

no one's ever done this right, have they?

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:40 (twenty years ago) link

I'd never read that review before. I had thought the "novel" had passed without notice. I don't even know how I ended up with a copy. Thanks Gygax, that review made my night.

― Christian Rawk (Christian Rawk), Thursday, 4 December 2003 03:08 (twenty years ago) link

oh, and there's deathtongue/billy + the boingers, the band from berke breathed's Bloom County comic. (they started as the former, and renamed themselves the latter in an attempt to go wholesome after a lawsuit.) the book comes O(came?) with a 7" flexi of a couple of the tracks.

― bucky wunderlick (bucky), Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:34 (twenty years ago) link

Jem & the Holograms

― jamesmichaelward (jamesmichaelward), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:16 (twenty years ago) link

two years pass...

Beyond The Valley of The Fabulous Stains

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Sunday, 26 February 2006 21:26 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

I think I'm gonna go see "The Fabulous Stains" movie tonight--

Mark Jenkins says in the Washington City Paper-"Never before seen in Washington nor nearly anywhere else this 1981 punk satire has a reputation as an intriguing disaster. Laura Dern had to sue to be emancipated from her mother,Diane Ladd, to appear in the film, which was directed by music producer and label boss Lou Adler and co-written by Jonathan Demme and Nancy Dowd." With members of the Sex Pistols and the Clash Tuesday, May 8 (7:00pm)for FREE at the Library of Congress Pickford Theater.

From the LOC website:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (Paramount-Red Stripe Films, 1981). Dir Lou Adler. Wrt Rob Morton (= Nancy Dowd). With Diane Lane, Ray Winstone, Peter Donat, David Clennon, John Lehne, Laura Dern. (87 min, color, 35mm)

preceded by:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band [Trailer] (1978). (color, 35mm)
Kitten with a Whip [Trailer] (1964). (black & white, 35mm)
The Legend of Frenchie King [Trailer] (1971). (color, 35mm)

and:

The Fabulous Stains--Behind the Movie (1999). By Sarah Jacobson and Sam Green. (12 min, color, DVD)

One of Hollywood's few forays into punk cinema, The Fabulous Stains was shelved by Paramount after disastrous previews. Considered too repellent for release, it however gained a cult following via cable in the mid ‘80's. Hailed by one writer as a "teen trash classic," this vitriolic satire/drama is about the rise and fall of an all-girl punk band. Stuck in a dead-end Pennsylvania town, 16 year old Corinne (Diane Lane) takes inspiration from touring British band The Looters (Ray Winstone and members of The Sex Pistols and The Clash) and forms The Stains. Despite its flaws and contrivances, The Fabulous Stains is a must-see document of the early ’80's. Washington, DC theatrical premiere.

Preceded by The Fabulous Stains--Behind the Movie , an "excavation of an early-80s rock movie almost lost to obscurity" (Sam Green), which revisits the history of a "clumsy, cursed Hollywood effort [...] to capitalize on the rising visibility of girl power in the punk movement." The short documentary features interviews with several principles, including Lou Adler, Fee Waybill, and scriptwriter Nancy Dowd (who wrote Slap Shot).

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:02 (sixteen years ago) link

oh, awesome! i'm gonna try to go, always wanted to see that.

― pretzel walrus, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:05 (sixteen years ago) link

Free but RESERVATIONS may be made by phone. Call (202) 707-5677 during business hours (Monday-Friday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm).

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:11 (sixteen years ago) link

great, thanks for the heads-up

― pretzel walrus, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:15 (sixteen years ago) link

i miss mark leyner...

?Faux-Real!= pretty fake band.

― edde, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:18 (sixteen years ago) link

Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns, from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. i don't know about featuring prominently, but they are the most popular band in the Metaverse.

― Mr. Hal Jam, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:25 (sixteen years ago) link

Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns, from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. i don't know about featuring prominently, but they are the most popular band in the Metaverse.

Ha! I was just going to mention this one. They are obv. an homage to the Paranoids from Crying of Lot 49.

― Bill in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:30 (sixteen years ago) link

oh, and there's deathtongue/billy + the boingers, the band from berke breathed's Bloom County comic

Used to love that stuff.

― the Dirt, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 16:20 (sixteen years ago) link

Horror Hospital from Dennis Cooper's short story "Introducing Horror Hospital" and the graphic novel "Horror Hospital Unplugged"

― earth mystery, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 17:59 (sixteen years ago) link

Spinal Tap, Silicon Teens, The Rutles, Gorillaz

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 10:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Wow no mention of Heaven 17 from Clockwork Orange!?

― Trayce, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 11:13 (sixteen years ago) link

Just around 40 people saw "Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains," at the Library of Congress last night. That included me, "pretzel walrus," and recent DC transplant Kid Congo Powers (onetime member of the Cramps). The movie's far from great but is definately worth seeing--the Brit punk makeup likely suggested by consultant Carolyn Coon (Brit punk author); the flawed but admirable attempt at feminist and diy uplift; the humor both intentional and unintentional; and getting to hear "We're the Professionals" sung over and over and over by both the Looters(Ray Winston, Paul Simenon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook) and the Fabulous Stains. The trailers and the 'making of' short were entertaining also.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 12:07 (sixteen years ago) link

Young Diane Lane and Laura Dern. Wow.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 12:10 (sixteen years ago) link

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