January 3, 2008
According to today's Holy Moly mailout:
A mole's friend was an A&R man in LA during the late nineties. He was contacted by an agent who asked him to come and see this actress who had a marvellous singing voice and was looking to expand her musical career. The A&R man had heard rumours of her horrible yelpings in the past but still gave her a chance and went to see the actress in concert in a tiny LA bar.
And she was predictably terrible, with a voice like nails being scraped down a blackboard, no stage presence and an uncanny ability to hit almost every note not required at the present time. He contacted her agent to pass on his condolences and inform him that he would rather try to nail water to a sponge for all eternity than see music murdered in such a way again.
A few months later the A&R man was invited on a 'totally blind' date - no names or occupations supplied, just a table number in a restaurant. His heart sank when his date walked in; it was the very same actress/singer. They sat down together and before he could introduce himself she launched into an impassioned 20 minute speech about how wonderful she was, how she was about to give Madonna a run for her money and how she was in advanced negotiations with Mr X, a top A&R man who loved her work and truly believed her to be a genius.
Eventually, she paused to draw breath and asked her dinner date what he did for a living.
"Actually," said Mr. X, "I'm an A&R man..."
And several minutes later Minnie Driver left the restaurant in search of her recently-fled dignity.