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quadro2000 · 10-24-2004, 06:23 PM

One of my favorite pop-culture blogs, Stereogum, has this to say in its comment section (two different posts):

Quote:

i work at snl and was hanging around backstage when "disaster struck."

we had called it many times during the day after hearing simpson's atrocious voice (the fact that she screams, rather than sings, has caused her a speaking voice which sounds more like that of bea arthur than a pop princess). after "hurting her voice" in rehearsal, a doctor was called in and there was a hushed decision to go with the pre-taped recording of her voice.

after the mania occurred, ashlee's entire PR crew (brilliantly) chose to stand in SNL's main hallway and coach her in what to do. "it's 1:00," someone mentioned to her, "even if you don't feel like it." (time: the eternal answer to everything!)

after deciding to apologize to the audience, her creepy-as-fuck daddy pitched a suggestion that was quickly shot down by her staff. lose the platinum 'do, buddy.

and her blaming the band for the error didn't go too well with them either, as i saw on their faces during her impromptu "apology." the bandmembers are all decent guys who, as far as i could tell, were placed in a different dressing room and chose to keep their distance from day until night.

it seems as if ashlee simpson is haunted not by the shadow of her golden older sister, but by the shadow of pre-recorded vocal tracks. deservedly sabotaged!

Posted by anonymous at October 24, 2004 05:47 PM

and...

Quote:

here's the word from a friend of mine who was at the show, and got it straight from the director, beth mccarthy, who she was a guest of:

ashlee can't sing. she tried all day friday, but was whining to her voice coach. they decided to leave her mike on so she could sing along to the track, but after the first line or two of the first song, turned her off cause she was awful.

so, as of the first song, all the mikes were off.

now, they had the wrong song queued up for the second song, obviously. it really was the drummer's fault. apparently he was supposed to signal something or start in with some beat, and the one he did was for the first song. because he fucked up, the guy doing the tape hurried up and put the first song on, because that was what the drummer had signalled. when this got all fucked up, they did two things:

1. turned on all the mikes so the band could take over and start the real song. which they didn't. have no idea why.
2. turned off the tape so the band could play the real song.

they were going to turn on ashlee's mike so she could sing the real song, but decided not to because the band was just playing the first song. the guys were smiling cause they were simply thinking "what a fucking clusterfuck".

beth mccarthy was also the director of the superbowl halftime show last year, so she's no stranger to ... malfunctions.
Posted by carolina at October 24, 2004 05:57 PM

I can't vouch for the veracity of these comments but they sound pretty spot-on to me.