The Shaggs, as an album becomes worship

“We were wrong, let’s start over“says one of the three girls in the Fleetwood Studios of Revere, in Massachusetts. The sound technician is literally incredulous and, addressing his assistant, asks him: “But as they say they were wrong, if everything is wrong“? The impression, not too distant of reality, is that the three girls in the studio do not even know how to smear their tools. I am Three sisters just teenagers and they have the typical Shaggy Hairstylesa rough and scapiglied cut very popular in the second half of the 60s. The father of the girls sits from the sounds not far from the sounds, who paid for their daughters to record a disc, and badly stands a shy sound technique that suggests to him “Maybe they are not ready, come back in a few months“.
It was 1969. The year of man on the moon, of the explosion of Woodstock, of the arrestable rise of counterculture. While Jimi Hendrix set on fire his audience (and his Fender Stratocaster also) and Beatles recorded their epic farewell with “Abbey Road ”, in the small village of Fremont, in New Hampshire, away from the clamor of the big cities, a father obsessed with a vision was shaping a project destined to change the rules of the game.
I know, you are confused. So let’s start from the beginning, because this that I am going to tell you is an incredible story, but really happened. The history of the most absurd album ever made: “Philosophy of the world”.

The premonition of a grandmother, the obsession of a father, the reluctance of three daughters

Austin Wiggin Jr. was not an ordinary man. Her mother, years earlier, had predicted three things: she would get married with a beautiful woman with blond hair, she would have had three daughters (two of whom were born after her death) and, finally,, The girls would have formed a successful band. The first two premonitions had come true with a disturbing precision. Only the third was missing.
In 1965 Austin decided that the fate of his daughters would not be left to chance. He withdrew Dorothy (Dot), Betty and Helen from the school, bought them musical instruments and imposed on them to form a band: the The Shaggs (due to their hairstyle). None of the three girls had ever shown a particular interest in music. Despite private lessons and incessant evidence, the results were disastrous. “Our father was capricious and irascible ”, he would have remembered with years later,“ and we obeyed without protesting“.
The debut took place at the Fremont town hall. Every weekend, for years, the three sisters performed in front of a reluctant audience, unable to understand that music so far from traditional canons. But Austin, waterproof to criticism, continued to believe in his vision.

Philosophy of the World: world philosophy according to The Shaggs

In March 1969 Austin brought his daughters to the Fleetwood Studios to record the debut album. The sound engineer remained dismayed: forgotten instruments, irregular rhythms, a total lack of musical consistency. The manufacturer Bobby Herne he remembered the experience as a nightmare: “They had no idea what they were doing.”
Nevertheless, That album was not just a collection of dissonant songs and naive lyrics. Era The purest and most uncontaminated expression of the creativity of three teenagers. Do not expect introspective and poetically elaborate songs. With songs like “My Pal Foot Foot” (dedicated to Dot’s cat who had escaped home) and “It’s Halloween ”, The Shaggs told a naive and surreal worldfar from the technical complexity of mainstream music. Among the reticence of all, less than the man who had financed the recordings, the disc closed.
For the postproduction the tapes passed to the Third Worldalways in Massachusetts, which should have mixed, burly and print the album, which in the meantime also had a title: “Philosophy of the world”. On the cover notes Austin makes you write that “The Shaggs love to make music and their art is true, pure and not influenced by external preconceptions“.

Austin commissioned 1000 copies of the album, but only 100 received: apparently someone from Third World escaped with the remaining 990. In short: another mysterious chapter of a story already extravagant in itself.
When Austin died suddenly in 1975, the project interrupted. The sisters sold the instruments and closed with music. It seemed the end of an already bizarre affair in itself. But no.

The (re) birth of a legend

“But a slightly original news does not need any newspaper, like an arcade from the stopping arch, flies quickly from mouth to mouth“sang a not bad Genoese. And so in the 70s, some copies of “Philosophy of the World” began to circulate between musicians and collectors. The album became an underground cult, a hidden jewel that challenged every logic. But above all, in the absence of the internet and a widespread diffusion, for many The Shaggs became a metropolitan legend.
In 1980, thanks to the Rounder Recordswas reprinted, marking the first step towards its rediscovery. The criticism was displaced. Rolling Stone USA described the album like “wonderfully terrible“while NME inserted it in the list of “100 best discs you have never impaired“.
But it was in the 90s that “Philosophy of the World” reached true consecration. Kurt Cobainleader of the band that most of all had given voice to that decade, declared that he was one of his favorite records of all time, calling him pure and sincere. Also Frank Hoemaster of the musical avant -garde, considered him a masterpiece.
For both the album of The Shaggs, being without any musical competence, it was at the same time without any preconception artistic. An agreement played badly, for those who do not know what an agreement played well, cannot be a mistake. In short, for Zappa and Cobain it was about a pure album, which brought music back to its primordial expressive urgency. Advanced by technique and pre -established rules. A sincere and, in its way, revolutionary work of art.

The legacy of The Shaggs

Over time, The Shaggs have become the unconscious godmothers of theoutsider musica genre that celebrates imperfection and creative freedom. The musical critic Irwin Chusid described this current as “A rebellion against conventional standards “, and the Wiggin sisters like his pioneers.

But where are the Shaggs today?
Helen, the drummer, passed away in 2006. In 2017, in a rare appearance, Dot and Betty Sorelle returned to the stage of the Solid Sound Festival, accompanied by a band of professional musicians. What the public affected was the ability of the musicians to recreate exactly those dissonances and those irregular rhythms that had made the unique The Shaggs. Try to ask a professional guitarist to play a scorded guitar, or a drummer to play out time: this is what had to do the members of the training who accompanied Dot and Betty on the stage of the Solid Sound Festival.

In short, The Shaggs, in the end, really became a cult band. Has the third prophecy of Austin Wiggin Jr.

Music is made of sounds, of course, but also of stories, connections and cultural revolutions, small or large. In my articles I try to tell her like this: with love, attention to detail and a immoderate passion for anecdotal. Because behind each song there is a part of the universe that moves. Storytelling as an approach to criticism and the musical story. My greatest source of inspiration, in this sense, is Federico Buffa.
My name is Marco BrunassoI have always dealt with music (and I have been writing for some years), exploring artists, records and movements that I consider irresistible and interesting. Some of my articles have already been published on Rockit and Techprincess (For the latter portal I created a storytelling column called Inside the song). For a few days I have co-founded an online magazine called Eye on hypeand I am founder, singer and bassist of the Indie-Rock band Lehavre.