58. heroine addiction
The Milkins Band was based on a mistake.
I misunderstood something. Turns out the Portsmouth Sinfonia weren't deliberately bad after all. Ah...
They simply weren't very good.
Their founders wanted more people to play music live. Especially anyone who hadn't thought of having a go. So the orchestra seemed to be made up of musicians playing an instrument for the first time, people with no musical background. But that's not the same as being shit by design.
I thought I was following a lead. Instead the idea of a live band that was bad on purpose - that was all mine. I'm a true original.
But even if I'd gone through with it, I wouldn't have been the first. In rock 'n roll: yes. But not in music as a whole. Allow me to introduce the star of that kind of show.
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The first CD I ever bought was by Florence Foster Jenkins.
If anyone with a worse voice ever sang in public, don't pity the poor audience. They adored it.
If you can't stay in tune and your register's all wrong, you probably shouldn't be attempting the Queen of the Night aria, from The Magic Flute. It covers two octaves and hits the C6 chord.
But Florence Foster Jenkins liked to aim high. I don't know what notes she thought she was reaching, but the CD is titled Murder on the High Cs!
Listen to a recording of someone singing that aria properly. Damrau, Deutekom, Lucia Popp. Hear those high notes. Have a go at them yourself (I insist, especially if you sing as badly as me). Now imagine doing that in public, in front of a packed house. Then listen to Florence Foster Jenkins doing the same. And picture her in front of that audience. A concert for the ages.
She's spectacularly bad. Awesomely awful. The Queen of the Night as a strangled cat, with other ditties to match on that CD. I love it. A fiver spent in homage to a singular singer.Once you listen to her, you can't stop.
Other people paid a lot more. Thouands of people and many thousands of dollars.
When her dad then her mum died, she inherited enough money to stage tableaux vivants for upper-crust New Yorkers. In 1912, when she was already 44, she gave her first recital. When she founded the Verdi Club, Caruso was one of its members - and an admirer of hers.
For more than thirty years, all those recitals were in private - until 1944, by which time she was 76 years old. The Queen of the Night would've taxed anyone of that age, but it's on her setlist that night. Of course it fucking was. What a hero.
She packed the place. She sold out Carnegie Hall, man. Cole Porter was there.
Of course, people came to the gig to giggle. And to scoff, like the papers next day. But they applauded too, oh fuck yes. Her encore consisted of three songs the audience could hardly hear for cheering. What a star.
Five days later, she suffered the heart attack that took a month to kill her. But what a way to go. A firework display of an exit. She sold the place out.
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Now.
Opinions differ.
In 2005, for my fiancée's birthday, I took her to see Maureen Lipman play Florence Foster Jenkins on stage. Front row seats. A good night had by all.
At the end, the narrator tells us the great diva heard one thing in her head while singing another. I gather the film did the same. In other words, she was tone deaf and deluded.
I don't believe that. And remember I'm an expert on this.
I can't sing either. I'm as bad as Flo. But I know I can't sing. I can hear it. She must've heard it too. It's not possible to tackle the Queen of the Night or Adele's Laughing Song and not know you're butchering it. That's why she didn't perform in public till she was 76. She knew full fucking well what she sounded like.
So although the reviews of her public concert allegedly devastated her (hence the heart attack), she must've known they were coming, and I bet they made her chuckle. Her heart problems were those of an old woman who'd had syphilis for most of her adult life, treated with mercury and arsenic. She didn't die of grief. She laughed all the way to the bank.
Me and the rest of the band, we'd have paid full whack to hear her. Front row seats for the real thing.
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I wonder sometimes.
I'm not serious about this, but I do think about it once in a while.
I could've been rock music's FFJ. You can hear me on recordings.
Unlike FloFo, I wouldn't have been unique. No-one copied her, even though she made her money at the end - but others would've imitated me, especially in the punk era, then the digital age. I'd have been a pioneer. The guru of deliberately bad bands everywhere. I would've given singing lessons! Florence took those, bless her. I'd have made a fortune and given it away to lost causes.
Back in the real world, got to be thrilled with the way Les Milkins turned out. A minor miracle and an amazing seven months. So I'm quite happy I missed my calling. So is everyone else!
Even though we could've been the band Britain would never forget...