Christopher Guest’s fake documentaries about music are marketed as entertainment but they also raise serious questions about music history and the problem of authenticity. Working as a collaborative writer, director and actor in This is Spinal Tap (1984), Waiting for Guffman (1996) and A Mighty Wind (2003), Guest has recast the “discourses of sobriety” as deadpan comedy. In the process, he challenges the traditional fact/fiction dichotomy and claims to authenticity. With attention to folk, rock and community theater genres, this article focuses on Guest’s treatment of received narratives about music-making that are preoccupied by a quest for origins and a sense of home. The reality of such narratives is depicted as compromised, while performance, sometimes animated by a camp sensibility, offers a way forward.