They're Real To Me...

Five great fictional bands that aren't Spinal Tap.

The Be-Sharps
A classic rise-and-fall story, the quartet of Homer Simpson, Seymour Skinner, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Barney Gumble (replacing Clancy Wiggum) rode the barber-shop craze to huge success for one 80s summer. Their Baby On Board remains a classic of American music and won them nods from legends such as George Harrison and David Crosby.

Good enough, need it to be said, to beat Dexy's Midnight Runners to a Grammy.

The Commitments
Well worth checking out in both book and film form, the forerunners of "Dublin Soul" were put together when bassist Derek Scully and guitarist "Outspan" Foster asked their friend Jimmy Rabbite to manage them on the basis that he knew more about music than them as "you were the first in school to get the Frankie Goes to Hollywood album. And you were the first to realise they were shite".

Jim got straight to work and put together a killer line-up built around mentor/trumpet player Joey "The Lips" Fagan, an apparent veteran of many classic sessions, and vocalist Declan Cuffe. Styling themselves as the world's hardest working band, Dublin was taken by the ten-piece group and fame awaited via a jam session with soul legend Wilson Pickett. Tragically, ego and in-fighting brought about an abrupt end to matters, not helped by Fagan working his way through the group's female contingent.

Smeg and the Heads
Oh, the folly of youth. 17 year old Dave Lister really thought his band would be massive, especially with their catchy number Om. Despite a strong set at their local Liverpool boozer, it wasn't to be. Their drummer, a crazed whacked-out hippy called Dobbin joined the police and became a big shot in the Freemasons; bassist Gazza "neo-marxist, nihilistic anarchist" ended up selling insurance.

Lister, meanwhile, joined the crew of the Red Dwarf and ended up three million years in the future and being the last human being alive, meaning he was quite probably the best musician in the universe. However, in one alternate reality, Lister became obscenely rich, never went into space and instead bought three million copies of Om, enough to make it top of the pops.

Josie and the Pussycats
At the risk of sounding terribly laddish, I have a major thing for women who play guitars. And if she's got red hair... well, double bonus points. And if on top of all that she's being played by Rachel Leigh Cook... then I don't care how average the film is. Especially when Rosario Dawson is backing her up on bass.

The Blues Brothers Band
Well, obviously. For one thing, they played throughout the best film of all time, which is a good start. Then, as I noted previously, they had Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn in their line-up. You can't top that.

Their greatest moment came in a reunion concert organised to raise funds to save the orphanage that "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues grew up in. Organising this had been tricky, as Jake had been jailed for sticking up a gas station to cover the band's bar tab, leaving the others to get straight jobs. What might have been the start of a fruitful career was somewhat spoiled when the whole group ended up joining Jake back in the Joint. Their next comeback, minus their frontman, is best forgotten.