[CaptainCrunch]

All right, so I was sitting around watching a bad made in Canada movie called going the distance, and about halfway through Joanne Kelly sings a cover of Better be good to me, and it got me thinking about performances in movies by real/fake bands. I mean, this is pretty wide open to interpretation, this could be the actors pretend playing their instruments while a real bands music played on the background, or it could be a for real group of actors who can also play. There are some repeat performers in this list as Michael Mckeon keeps showing up. But the one thing that this all has in common is that sometimes you get surprising gems.


1) Spinal Tap


I will be the first to admit that this is not only one of my favorite movies, but favorite bands. Made up of David St. Hubbins, Tufnel, and Derek Smalls and a rotating lineup of exploding drummers they are expertly played by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer. The brilliance of this whole comedy is that while the movie portrayed a band that was struggling, the actual sound track and albums by Spinal Tap are exceptionally strong.





2) Steel Dragon


The movie itself Rock Star is based fairly loosely on the Judas Priest movie as the band throws out its lead singer and replaces him with a lead singer of a tribute band. The band itself is portrayed by Zakk Wylde, Jeff Pilson and Jason Bonham with Dominic West portraying the acting chops. Mark Wahlbergs voice was provided by a couple of different singers. But the sound track was just solid.





3) The BarBusters


Its a shame that more people didn't see this movie. Its a well acted film with Joan Jett showing some real acting chops in it. The movie itself is about a Cleveland Bar Band lead by a brother and sister team portrayed by Joan Jett and Michael J Fox. the backing band includes. You guessed it Michael McKean. The overall soundtrack to this movie is outstanding





4) Josie and the Pussycats


This was the most fake band of the fake bands. None of the actors could play a lick. But it was the band in the back that made this work as they created a solid soundtrack with a bit of crunch. The vocals were provided by Kay Hanley from Letters from Cleo





5) School of Rock.


Sue me but I loved the final performance and some members of this fictional band went on to solid musical careers Joey Gados Jr the lead guitarist and Rebecca Brown the bassist.






6) Eddie and the Cruisers


A fake band backed up by a seriously great band in John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Again this was a solid blue collar sounding soundtrack, really sold by Michael Pare trying to be a Jim Morrison type persona





7) Soggy Bottom Boys


A hilarious retelling of of the Odyssey featuring three convicts on the run. At one point in the movie they create a band called the Soggy Bottom Boys and the soundtrack was exceptional using various Bluegrass talents to provide the music George Clooney outright sold the performances.





8) Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayham


I have to include this in any fictitious movie band category. Mainly because its the muppets, and that band has so many great musical moments.





9) Stillwater - Almost Famous


Imitating a lot of the music that I grew up with in the 70's, the soundtrack for Almost famous was pretty outstanding and you could buy that StillWater lead by Jason Lee was the real thing. Most of the music was written by Nancy William of Heart with Peter Frampton pitching in.





10) The Blues Brothers.


This list goes nowhere without the Blue's Brothers and I saved the best for last. While the John Goodman Dan Aykroyd combination in the sequel was decent. Nothing can ever top the frantic performance of John Belushi in combination with Dan Aykroyd. This band has so many iconic songs to its name from covers to originals.