The Shaggs – Philosophy of the World
A commenter recently suggested that I was making pale, interesting indie chicks something of a theme on this website, so I would like to bring that to a mental finale with post. When Mrs. Toad and I were in Portland were the beneficiaries of the most fantastic hospitality of Matt from Bladen County Records. Amongst all the amazing things he did for me was to pass on a couple of DVDs worth of things he thought I should listen to, including this gem of genuine mentalism.
To cut and paste directly from their Wikipedia entry:
The conceptual beginning of The Shaggs came from Austin Wiggin, Jr.’s mother. During Austin’s youth she had predicted during a palmreading that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group.
Given the first couple of predictions came true, apparently in about 1968 he forcibly set about making the last one come true. In fact it sounds perilously close to suggesting that he chained them up in the basement until such time as they wrote enough songs for an album. The results are, erm, well… The results. They’re interesting, that’s for sure. One more quote from Wiki:
Reportedly, during the recording sessions the band would occasionally stop playing, claiming one of them had made a mistake and that they needed to start over, leaving the sound engineers to wonder how the girls could tell when a mistake had been made.
Or, better:
Upon closer examination, The Shaggs seem to have a consistent (but highly idiosyncratic) approach to melody, harmony, and rhythm. The songs use highly irregular verse structures, which are emphasized by the melodic structures, which typically accord one note per syllable: the guitar accompaniment attempts to reproduce this pattern as well. Most of the Shaggs material is made up of eighth- and quarter-notes.
Which is an amazing way of rationalising the fact that they have not the tiniest, most miniscule sliver of musical aptitude whatsoever. You could stamp on a guitar, tie it to an octopus and push it down the stairs and it would have more rhythmic structure than this.
It’s erm… well, just listen. And never mention pale, interesting indie chicks to me again.
The Shaggs – Philosophy of the World
The Shaggs – Sweet Thing
The Shaggs – My Pal Foot Foot
The Shaggs – I’m So Happy When You’re Near
Fucking hell.
That certainly wasn’t what I was looking for after getting in from the pub.
I feel like I’ve been assaulted with a wire brush.
Welcome to uber-indie, bitches.
A pipe-cleaner up the jap’s eye for all you softies out there.
Yet fifteen minutes later I find myself compelled to keep listening. I haven’t felt this sort of voyeuristic, watching-a-train-wreck-in-slow-motion thrill since being exposed to Syd Barrett outtakes.
That’s it, isn’t it. It’s like the Sarah Palin of music – hilariously bad, but you can’t stop staring.
No, a thousand times No. I thought perhaps I could handle it after becoming recently fond of Rolo Tomassi. But as for The Shaggs, oh hell no. Now if they went punk, we might be onto something
Their father would never approve.
[...] after last week’s posting of The Shaggs, I wondered why it was that I found that album so oddly compelling. Partly, it took that tuneless [...]