Later this year, cinemagoers will have the opportunity to watch Meryl Streep play Ricki Rendazzo, the ageing singer and guitarist with Ricki And The Flash, in Jonathan Demme’s latest film.
The Flash are the latest in a long line of fictional bands to appear in films. Accordingly, after the trailer for Ricki And The Flash (who is that familiar-looking guy playing guitar..?) here’s a list of the 20 best fictional bands in the movies… in our humble opinion, of course.
Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner
——
The 20 best fictional bands in the movies are…
1: STILLWATER, Almost Famous
Effectively a composite of a number of bands Cameron Crowe interviewed for Rolling Stone in the early 1970s – Skynyrd, Allmans, maybe the Eagles. The songs played by Stillwater in the film were co-writes between Crowe, his wife Nancy Wilson and Peter Frampton. Jason Lee’s singing voice was provided by Aerosmith collaborator, Marty Frederiksen, while Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready played lead guitar. On screen, Mark Kozelek played Stillwater’s bassist, Larry Fellows.
2: AUTOBAHN, The Big Lebowski
That’ll be Kraftwerk, of course. Flea, Peter Stormare and Torsten Voges are the German nihilists/would-be kidnappers/electronic pioneers. The Coen brothers even went as far as to get a sleeve designed for Autobahn’s sole album, Nagelbett (roughly translated as ‘bed of nails’).
3: BLUESHAMMER, Ghost World
Steve Buscemi’s blues aficionado Seymour goes to see Fred Chatham, an 82-year-old blues veteran play a small bar. “If you really like authentic blues, you’ve got to check out Blueshammer,” he is told. As it turns out, Blueshammer’s “authentic, way-down-in-the-delta blues” turns out to be closer to George Thorogood. Poor Seymour!