The Shaggs

[Magpel]

Those who call The Shaggs the worst rock group ever have, to my mind, completely missed the point.

 

I believe Dot Wiggin was a talented melodist, if not an outright organic genius. And the lyrics are excellent too.

 

I've figured out--to my own satisfaction at least--where that amorphous, almost anti-musical feel of the stuff (which is almost impossible to consciously emulate) comes from:

 

Essentially, The Shaggs are a rock chant band, in that the "clock" and the the only rhythmic grid in play is the length of the verbal phrase. The instruments bash away loosely in time but there is no sense of symmetrical, repetitive musical structure apart from the verbal line; there is no "one" until Dot's line is done. That leads to this incredible "in but out" time feel that is somewhat kindred with Trout Mask Replica, though much less intentional.

 

Check out "Who Are Parents" for a perfect example.

[Super 8]

Funny, I was just thinking of "Who Are Parents" while reading your post.

Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. The music exists to embellish the lyrics. It probably helped that Helen Wiggens had no idea of what a drummer was supposed to do and just sort of made things up as she went along. There isn't much form to lock into.

 

They are certainly NOT the worst band ever. I've got most of Philosophy of the World, and thoroughly enjoy it. It has a naive freshness about it that you don't hear from musicians who have spent their lives being influenced by other bands. They wrote about what interested them, and put the music together in whatever way it looked like it should go. They didn't think outside the box. I think at best they had no more than a vague idea that there even was a box.

 

They didn't pursue music because they wanted to be musicians, they did it because it was prophesied by their clairvoyent grandmother that they would be famous someday, and their father believed it, bought them instruments, pulled them out of school and had them practice all day. I believe they had to perform for him when he got home from work and he would critique their performances.

They have a really interesting story.

[Rubber Lizard]

I have no idea what this is about but I can tell that it is not bull{censored}.

[DevilRaysFan]

I like breaking things down to more simpler forms: they were terrible....am I supposed to believe that they played instruments out of tune with a drummer's non-finesse and fluctuating tempo on purpose? (I dont hear any of the instruments really playing in time for any consistant duration)

Im not buying it

 

Maybe youre right and I just dont get it - but, if thats the case, I really dont want to get it

 

 

I do agree that the songs' content were interesting

[spokenward]

I'm glad that you posted this - in part, because my title amuses me , but also because The Shaggs really are interesting. They have the Murry Wilson-type father figure. They have the same determination in denial that we recognize in others (mostly). I think the phrase analysis makes as much sense as a guide to their clock as any other explanation.

 

I think that there may be evidence of another clock. It's a sort of lurching jog to the finish line of solos. And pretty much everything is solo. That solo is over when it somehow ends. The Shaggs are instructive - hesitant, abrupt, trite, innocent, endearing and memorable. You can learn something about pop music.

[St. Andrew]

sounds like elliot smith

[Roy Brooks]

I have this here Avalon guitar just like The Shaggs played. I bought it from a cat in New Hampshire where The Shaggs were from.

[spokenward]

 

I have this here Avalon guitar just like The Shaggs played. I bought it from a cat in New Hampshire where The Shaggs were from.

 

 

Something about that headstock

Reminds me of a headsock!

[chevybusa]

I'm sorry, call me close minded or naive or uneducated or whatever, but I just can't find ANYTHING redeeming in this at all:

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

[Billster]

To me the Shaggs are about innocence and naivete. OF COURSE the music is disastrous by any technical measure such as harmony, melody and rhythm.

 

On the other end of this forum there's a 15 page topic debating the merits and deficiencies of the use and abuse of auto tune (and you could include by association technologies such as beat detective, Drumagog, etc.)

 

The Shaggs simply are what they are - how many pop acts can say that?

[Ultrafixtion]

Music like the Shaggs is not supposed to be admired for it's musical prowess. It's outsider stuff.

 

I studied this type of musical phenomena among it's appreciators for a few years. People that appreciate the naivet

[mc5nrg]

Funniest record ever til the Dylan Xmas record ws just released.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

I'm sorry, call me close minded or naive or uneducated or whatever, but I just can't find ANYTHING redeeming in this at all:

 

 

Ah, the drumming masterpiece of their catalog.

 

They had at least one song with a discernible meter... let me see if I can find it. Ah, here ya go.

 

j9ID43MWHsA

 

But of course, there's the all time classic...

 

hxPsXPCR5MU

[Mudcat007]

This is the first Shaggs' song I ever heard. It's brilliant and it's also timely given the current holiday season.

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

[Silent Heart]

 

---

Ultrafixtion wrote:

 

 

 

Bottom line of my studies concluded the fact that those appreciating this type of musical output are in fact as interesting as those performing it.

---

 

I've just discovered them and was just about to start a thread on The Shaggs to see what people here thought, but it turns out somebody already did that.  I think the statement above is very insightful.  The Shaggs themselves are perhaps mainly interesting insofar as they contrast with "ordinary" music in almost every possible way, without being completely random noise.  This makes them a particularly effective means of gaining perspective on and reflecting on mainstream popular music, which is so entrenched in our culture that it can be difficult to conceive of other ways of doing things.

That does not mean that I subscribe to a "different is inherently good" philosophy, to paraphrase the station identification jingle of my local academic and/or hippie radio station.  In fact, I have yet to hear an entirely convincing "defense" of the music of The Shaggs.  At the same time, it does seem difficult to dismiss it outright, as few people would deny that there is something intriguing going on.  I'm far from a sophisticated music theoretician, but I agree that the pre-prepared or intended content of the songs seems to be nothing more and nothing less than the vocals, which often carry surprisingly interesting if convoluted melodic lines.  All the instruments seem to be more or less random window dressing around the vocals.

[blue2blue]

---

Rubber Lizard wrote:

I have no idea what this is about but I can tell that it is not bullshit.

---

You couldn't do that on purpose. I mean, most of us couldn't. I believe it flows organically from the artists.

 

But I have to say, while I've always gone for the outsiders, I'm a huge fan of DIY efforts for everyone so inclined, a big fan of the punk/DIY/new music thing (which was when I was introduced to the Shaggs, in the used bin of my local punk record shop), all that notwithstanding, the Shaggs push all my wrong buttons, or at least the two biggest ones: rhythm and pitch.

Perhaps because of my own not-negligible struggles reaching those fundamental musical goal posts, their struggles have always proven far to wearing on me... I'm rooting for them to maybe come in on the beat or have the voices just a little closer to that illusive harmony they always tried for but seldom achieved except in the most fleeting moments of harmonic intersection.

FWIW, the first couple of songs I wrote had the same start-in-one-place-and-meander-around and end up somewhere else (through composition, I believe they sometime call it) -- without regard to structure or conventional repetition. Perhaps it was the time I,  myself, spent in Shaggs land -- I didn't start playing until I was 20 and it was a REAL uphill grind, since I had virtually no sense of pitch or rhythm. I'd been told repeatedly as a youth that I had absolutely no musical talent whatsoever (by two different music teachers) and they weren't just trying to be mean -- that eroded my abiltiy to listen to way, way outsider music like the Shaggs. 

 

PS... I know  the South Bay Surfers, Lovingkindness, and Timstrument personally. So I'm not really an outsider when it comes to outsider music.    (OK. I can top that, I've played with Chuck, the Charles Manson 'tribute' band, on at least three occasions. And, yes, the rumors about the rumble with Cubensis, the Grateful Dead 'tribute' band were sort of vaguely true. Their sound guy kicked in the guitar-occupied case of Chuck's lead singer. But the band themselves were cool. They fired the dude. Too un-hippy.     )

[CTStump]

After reading this thread I filt obliged to add my brother Bailey Stump(Probity) to the mix. He has a niche outsider appeal and has a fair fanbase although not shown. A double bill with the shaggs would be a dream lineup if it were possible however, he is his own enigma.

http://www.youtube.com/user/probity1?feature=watch

 

[Etienne Rambert]

I enjoyed the Shaggs' 'Philosophy of the World' more than I've enjoyed most Rock bands I hear. 

And that is a heck of a nice chord at the end. 

"My Pal Foot Foot" is a great one too. 

I don't agree with Zappa they were better than the Beatles. I do agree they're better than Sir Paul McCartney though. 

Too bad they never broke out and got the acclaim they deserved.