Why is that sometimes the fictional bands in movie and television are cooler than real bands? Sadly, some of He Said's favorite bands don't even have albums or videos to speak of, because they don't even exist. The fun part is imagining how awesome their full-length records and tours would be. They are fused with the worst and best stereotypes in rock and roll, right down to the awful lyrics and over-the-top stage presence.
For this column, He Said only picked one band from his favorite rock movie, 1998's
Velvet Goldmine since it's already kind of suspect that he likes it so much. It's basically the fictional retelling of the Iggy Pop/David Bowie "love" story, set to music performed by members of Pavement, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Ain't nothing like feeling weird watching Ewan McGregor and Christian Bale having explosive gay sex on a rooftop.
If you always wanted to see a young Obi-Wan Kenobi romantically wailing away on Bruce Wayne, then make sure to Netflix
Goldmine. After the movie, be sure to go play about an hour of
Big Buck Hunter and eat your weight in hot wings. It will clear up any doubts you may have lingering in your head, among other things.
Rod Torfleson's Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuck
Armada was a recurring band on the landmark Canadian sketch comedy show
Kids In The Hall that He Said's mother probably shouldn't have let him watch in the second grade. Characters like the "Squish Your Head Guy" and Buddy Cole warped us for all time, and made life hell for many an elementary-school drama teacher.
Dusty Chandler
What's better than George Strait live? How about Strait wearing a flashy and flamy white suit and a ponytail live? We reconnected with
Pure Country at a girlfriend's house this past summer, and we can't stop watching it now for the earnestness and likeably wooden acting by the Fireman himself.
Blender Children
Not many people have seen
Tapeheads with Tim Robbins and John Cusack, and we want it stay that way. It's fun to see Robbins coming right off the success of
Howard The Duck and Cusack sporting a wicked Errol Flynn 'stache as well.
The Lone Rangers
Airheads was undoubtedly He Said's favorite movie going into sixth grade, and the soundtrack was absolutely brutal and awesome. It had the first Motorhead song we ever owned, and the video for "Born To Raise Hell" featured Lemmy singing with Ice-T while wearing a head bandanna. What more do you want? The film was about a garage grunge band who takes a radio station hostage with squirt guns to get their demo played on the air.
Titannica
HBO's
Mr. Show With Bob & David was a hotbed of fictional musical groups, and Titannica was only one of many that we adored. Who can forget 2001: A New Wave Godessy or Indomitable Spirit, the only band that featured a disembodied head playing the flute with an armless drummer backing him?
Barry Jive & The Uptown Five (nee Sonic Death Monkey)
This actually wouldn't have been too bad of a project, having Jack Black sing old soul standards. We would probably have at least downloaded it or something along the way. Before the band turned to the slow jams, they were called Sonic Death Monkey, which is still one of the coolest band names in history. Also,
High Fidelity is very much
The Notebook for music geeks such as us.
Venus In Furs
Here's a clip from the aforementioned
Velvet Goldmine, with the band Venus In Furs fronted by Brian Slade. We still can't watch Jonathan Rhys Meyers in any movie he has done since without thinking of this character. It kind of puts a damper on watching
The Tudors on Showtime.
Stillwater
We saw
Almost Famous close to a decade ago, and we still want to be in Stillwater. Think about it: you would get to sleep with Fairuza Balk and Kate Hudson, and play righteous jams like "Fever Dog." Every rock writer sees a bit of William Miller in himself from time to time, as do we, naturally.
Wycked Sceptre
Another fictional band from
Mr. Show, Sceptre was a gay metal band that didn't know they were a gay metal band until they were shown their "infamous party tape" by their management team. At the end of the sketch, the band is seen playing their new tune "Getting The Shaft Again" to an arena full of voracious crazed leather daddies on Fire Island. The show was sponsored by Menocu Butt-Plugs, naturally.
Doyle Hargraves' Sling Blade Band
Here's an abusive, alcoholic Dwight Yoakam playing slightly awful rock songs with his neighborhood pick-up band - including Vic Chesnutt and Ian Moore - in
Sling Blade. They didn't even have a microphone, the poor fellas, but they did have a sweet back porch to jam out on. It all kind of makes us wonder what a revved-up garage project Yoakam could do one day.
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