Songs About Bands

That one by Drive by Truckers about how he didn't get to see Lynrd Skynrd live, but caught a bunch of other acts.

Pavement - Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence

My Robot Friend - We Are The Pet Shop Boys
LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House

They Might Be Giants - "We're The Replacements"

CSS - Let's make love
Spearmint - Flaming Lips

Randy Newman - "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band"

(it's about ELO)...

And doesn't Jonathan Richman have a song about the Velvet Underground?

frank black "i heard ramona sing" (the ramones)
frank black "ten percenter" (iggy pop)

"Ballad of the Band" - Felt (Felt)
"The Osmonds" - Denim
"Listening To Marmalade" - Go-Kart Mozart

Does "Smoke on the Water" count?

XXpost. Yeah, Jonathan Richman does "Velvet Underground" ("Not like the rest...America at it's best"!), also "The Baltimores", "Monologue about Bermuda" (re. original Modern Lovers being worse than the Bermuda Strollers) and "When Harpo Plays His Harp".

doesn't Go-Kart Mozart also have a song called "Fuzzy Duck"?

"Smoke On The Water" should count, as two of its' three protagonists (Deep Purple, Frank Zappa and the Mothers, some stupid with a flare gun) are bands...

Shonen Knife "Redd Kross" (+ the Death of Samantha version)
Redd Kross "Shonen Knife"

also Shonen Knife "White Flag" and "Blue Oyster Cult"

I think there was a small circle jerk, if you will, of bands in that clique doing similar songs with bandnames but I can't remember any of the others.

also:

Haywains "Dusty Springfield"
Teenage Fanclub "Gene Clark"

oh wait, those latter two are not "bands", sue me.

Sultans of swing?

that Haywains song is pretty great, by the way...it's no "Kill Karaoke", but still...

Primal Scream did a song called "Motorhead", but I don't think it's about the band...ditto Jesus And Mary Chain - "Supertramp"...

mekons 'curse of the mekons'
mekons 'sympathy for the mekons'
will oldham 'for the mekons, et al.'
don lennon 'mekons come to town'

Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire

Buffalo Springfield Again - Neil Young

jonathan richman, velvet underground
television personalities, velvet underground

entombed, masters of death
darkthrone, canadian metal

metallica, whiplash

nargaroth, the day burzum killed mayhem

sparks, what are all these bands so angry about?

The Figgs, Cheap Cassettes (Motorhead)
The Figgs, This Copy's Mine (Meat Puppets)

Archers of Loaf - "Greatest of All Time"

Nick Lowe, Rollers Show
Motorhead, The Ramones
The Frogs, Wesley Willis
Wesley Willis, The Frogs (and hundreds of other band songs)

Before some mentions Jonathan Richman's "Velvet Underground" for the fourth time (incidentally they played this just as the VU took the stage at Glastonbury in 1992), there's "Jonathan Jonathan" by the Rockingbirds - "I've loved you now for a good few years though we've never really met, I shook your hand at the Hammersmith Odeon and that's something I won't forget"

Most of the album "Mott".

Barbara Manning, Mark E Smith & Brix
Minutemen, History Lesson Part Two
Boston, Rock and Roll Band
Righteous Brothers, Rock and Roll Heaven
Tenacious D, Dio

The Soft Boys - Listening to the Higsons
The Donner Party - Lost in Hoboken (about going to see a band whose name I suddenly can't remember, but it's a real group)

It's the Muskrats.

plus they mention Snakefinger.

"Top Jimmy" by Van Halen (re: Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs)

Primal Scream did a song called "Motorhead", but I don't think it's about the band...

It's a cover of Motorhead by Motorhead, so your call as to whether that counts.

Negativland "U2"

"We are the Clash"

Grand Funk, "We're An American Band"
Abba, "Rock'n'Roll Band"

The Replacements - "Left of the Dial" (sorta), "Alex Chilton" (moreso)

It's a cover of Motorhead by Motorhead, so your call as to whether that counts.

It's a cover of Motorhead by Hawkwind which preceeds Motorhead the band by several years, so it's not about the band. It's about a guy on speed.

They Might Be Giants - XTC vs Adam Ant

Peter Bjorn & John - The Chills

Does the Pet Shop Boys' "Night I Fell In Love," about Eminem, or Hamell on Trial's "John Lennon" count? I love "The Chills" and "Greatest of All Time" plenty, too.

Too Much Joy - If I Was a Mekon
pushing the Songs About Mekons count to 5!

Further pursuit of the dictum "write what you know":

Mekons - Club Mekon
Mekons - Dance and Drink the Mekons

How many posts and no mention of the Monkees?

Does "Joy Division Oven Gloves" by Half Man Half Biscuit count?

There seems to be a whole category of these songs about bands, usually fictional, that lend their subjects an almost mythological aspect in the form of an origin story (e.g. The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton), or other grand(in content or just delivery) narrative. The earliest example I can think of is Johnny B. Goode, but there are probably others.