AltWeeklies Wire » Culture » Recreation

Fake Bands A to Zorak

By J. Caleb Mozzocco
Columbus Alive | June 30, 2005
T. Mike Childs, a member of comedy troupe the Van Gogh-Goghs, likes fake bands, and he explains on his site FakeBands.com that he feels a duty to catalog them. Why? “It’s the Internet, stupid!” Childs writes. “The Internet was created for such things as this!” And so Childs has assembled the ultimate fake band list, his Rocklopedia Fakebandica, a wonderful waste of time that allows site visitors to pit their own obsessive knowledge of fake bands against Childs.’

Despite pleas that submissions be limited to fake bands from TV and movies, Childs covers pretty much all of the bases. Most heavily represented are shows like The Muppets, Monty Python and The Simpsons, but he also covers H.P. Lovecraft stories (the violinist in The Music of Eric Zahn), comic books (Wolfgang Bang and the Krauthammers from Sonic Disruptors), comic strips (Bloom County’s Billy and the Boingers), soda commercials (the Fantanas from those Fanta ads), videogames (Megabreth from Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle) and animatronic Disney attractions (Country Bear Jamboree).

The entries vary from fake band to fake band. Some are as short as listing their names and where they’re from, others feature Behind the Music-size bios, like Star Wars cantina band Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine holodeck crooner Vic Fontaine. And if you’re not familiar with Fontaine’s work, or that of such unforgettable acts as the Swanky Modes, Stinky Wizzleteats, Wyckyd Sceptre, Enrico Pallazzo, Little Tibia and the Fibulas, Lynn Minmay or the United Servo Academy Mens Chorus, well then it looks like you have a website to visit.
Tags: H.P. Lovecraft, fake bands, fakebands.com, Rocklopedia Fakebandica, Swanky Modes, T. Mike Childs, The Van Gogh-Goghs

Columbus Alive

Founded in 1983, Alive is the Capital City's oldest and only independent alternative and is known for providing a forum for the area's free thinkers. The paper's spirited and original perspective on music, arts and culture distinguish it from the...
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