The Shaggs' Philosophy of the World

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The Shaggs are transcendentally ugly, an ugliness that overwhelms any of the senses. Look at the tastelessly frumpish cover photo of three stiff Appalachian sisters, uncomfortable instruments in hand. Read their supremely naïve liner notes: "The Shaggs love you, and love to perform for you." Listen to this inept performance: "My Pal Foot Foot," an ode to their pet, which features an opening drum solo that sounds as if a five-year-old were playing. Hear their untuned guitars, speech-impaired vocals, stumbling chord progressions, and random tempo changes. Feel your body shudder and your head ache as you try to listen.

The Shaggs are horribly beautiful, beautiful because of their ugliness. Their sincerity is what gets you first, an awful but touching combination of sap, artlessness, and angst--Hallmark cliché, Beach Blanket Bingo, and Kurt Cobain all in one: "He's a two-face/ He's a disgrace/ He never wins a race/ Tell me what should I do?" They try really hard, and you feel for them, dragged into the studio by their father to fulfill his dreams of fame. But then you listen again, and you realize the beauty of it all. A surf riff that falls apart, others that never even come together. An alternately compressed and dragged-out wail, "Who aah parents? Parents aah the ones who al-waaays cay-aah." This is raw rock and roll and then some. It makes the Stooges look like Rush, and Rush like Mozart.

The Shaggs are nature, or at least the closest humans can get to the mythic "primitive." They serenade their one exposure to the outside world--their radio--and celebrate Halloween ("Don't go to school 'cause you too scared/ Why, even Dracula will be there!"). They've freed themselves from external convention, with their utter incompetence and unwitting defiance of what music "is." Everything falls into place--a place outside of rhythm, melody, or harmony; a place with what one critic termed "its own inner logic."

The Shaggs are the sublime, but they're also the mundane. They philosophize grandly, but banally. They're stunning in their monumental flouting of rock tradition and imposing in the sheer strangeness of their sound. They've stunned enough critics to be considered possibly the worst band ever, but when you're at this level, what does "worst" mean, anyway?

The Shaggs are part of the grand American tradition of fuck-ing up royally and creating something entirely new through misinterpretation. Except that they're not misinterpreting classical European culture, but rather third-rate Brit-pop clones, like Herman's Hermits and the Monkees. As the liner notes say, "They will not change their music or style to meet the whims of a frustrated world. You should appreciate this because you know they are pure what more can you ask?" The Shaggs are American originals. Appreciate it. (BMG)

--Sam Frank

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