Contenders for the best-worst rock band of all time, The Shaggs, hailed from Fremont, New Hampshire, and comprised three teenage sisters: Dorothy, Betty, and Helen. Music on the radio and television was a constant in their house as they were growing up, as was their father's Jew Harp playing ("better than anybody I ever heard," according to Dorothy). Their story and contribution to the more whacky side of rock 'n' roll begins in 1969 when their doting father, Austin Wiggins Jr, drove them from their home to a recording studio in Revere, Massachusetts.
It was a nerve-racking time for the girls, as they hadn't been playing together long, but they plugged in and began to play. Upon hearing the girls' attempts, the studio engineer had the temerity to suggest that perhaps they could come back when they had mastered their instruments. Austin Wiggin, Jr, intent on capturing the moment, reportedly said, "I want to get them while they're hot".
The subsequent sessions resulted in a record called PhilosRO] ophy of the World (1969), an album distributed so thinly that it's a miracle its legacy survived, for if ever a record was doomed to commercial failure, this was it. Word of the record's unfamiliar signposts of rock 'n' roll (no recognised rhythms or chord progressions, just a gritty, amateurish sound with its own perplexing internal logic) filtered through, with the likes of Frank Zappa, Bonnie Raitt and Jonathan Richman extolling its virtues. The album had its critics ("I'd call Philosophy of the World a work of primitive American genius but I'm too busy rolling on the floor," shrewdly noted Rolling Stone magazine), but for the most part was extremely well received, although the reasons varied immensely. "They bring my mind to a complete halt," said jazz musician, Carla Bley, rather ambiguously, while Bonnie Raitt opined: "The Shaggs are like castaways on their own musical island," - and no, I'm not sure what she really meant by that, either. Undeterred, The Shaggs (once described as a "girl group car-crash") chased their unpretentious artistic vision with equal parts guilelessness and imagination.
Song titles include My Pal Foot Foot and the delicate teenage memoir My Cutie. Guiding lights to certain sections of the female punk rock contingent (whither The Slits now?), The Shaggs were never scared of exposing their naivete and unwitting performance art to those who would listen. They may have been rubbish, but, just as equally, they may have been the nearest thing to pure artistic statement.
"We figured the album was something that came and went, and we'd never hear about it again," said Dorothy Wiggins, years after The Shaggs fizzled out, to marry and raise children. She should worry: reports are filtering through from Hollywood that Tom Cruise has optioned a biopic script. All together now: which Shagg will he be?
