The Shaggs were an American all-female rock and roll group from Fremont, New Hampshire. Their first album, Philosophy of the World was released in 1969. The Shaggs have often been considered the worst rock and roll band in the world (or the "Most Horrible" by the New York Times), and this designation has made the band's first and most famous album a collector's item in its original vinyl pressing. Image File history File links Shaggs_philosophy_of_the_world. ... Philosophy of the World is the first album by The Shaggs, said to be the worst rock band, released in 1969 by Third Word Records and rereleased in 1980 by Red Rooster Records/Rounder Records after the band NRBQ found it at a Massachusetts radio station in 1978. ... // Perhaps the most famous musical events of 1969 are two legendary concerts. ... Fremont is a town located in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Music sample: True Love will Find You in the End ( file info) — Sample of Daniel Johnstons True Love will Find You in the End Problems listening to the file? See media help. ... Obscuro music is not specifically limited to one style, but instead encompasses music that cannot neatly be classified into other genres. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Red Rooster Records is the label founded by the band NRBQ in 1972 after being dropped by Columbia Records after lack of chart performance for their albums NRBQ and Boppin the Blues. ... Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts but now based in Burlington, is an independent record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students. ... RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony BMG Music Entertainment. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Fremont is a town located in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

History

According to an account recorded by Irwin Chusid, the idea of The Shaggs is older than the girls themselves. When the girls' father, Austin Wiggin, Jr., was young, his mother made three predictions: he would marry a strawberry blonde; he would have two sons she would not live to see; and his daughters would form a famous musical group. After the first two came true, Austin set out to make the third happen. Irwin Chusid, based in Hoboken, New Jersey, is a record producer, journalist (Film Comment, Mojo, The New York Times, Mix, New York Press, Pulse), and self-described landmark preservationist who once stated, I find things on the scrapheap of history that I know dont belong there and salvage them. ...

In the mid-1960s, Austin withdrew his daughters from school, bought them instruments, and arranged for them to receive music lessons. They named themselves "The Shaggs" after the shag hairstyle which was then popular. In 1968, Austin arranged for the girls to play a regular Saturday night gig at the Fremont, New Hampshire Town Hall. The next year, the girls went into the studio and recorded their album, Philosophy of the World. All the songs were written by Dorothy. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Fremont is a town located in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. ... Philosophy of the World is the first album by The Shaggs, said to be the worst rock band, released in 1969 by Third Word Records and rereleased in 1980 by Red Rooster Records/Rounder Records after the band NRBQ found it at a Massachusetts radio station in 1978. ...

On the topic of the album, Cub Koda wrote, "There's an innocence to these songs and their performances that's both charming and unsettling. Hacked-at drumbeats, whacked-around chords, songs that seem to have little or no meter to them ... being played on out-of-tune, pawn-shop-quality guitars all converge, creating dissonance and beauty, chaos and tranquility, causing any listener coming to this music to rearrange any pre-existing notions about the relationships between talent, originality, and ability. There is no album you might own that sounds remotely like this one." (emphasis in original) [1] 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.^{[citation needed]} Michael Cub Koda (b. ...

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. Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ... Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ...

At this point, the man who had promised to press 1,000 copies of Philosophy of the World reportedly absconded with 900 of them. The rest were circulated to New England radio stations but attracted little attention, and the girls' dreams of superstardom were dashed. This article is about the region in the United States of America. ...

In 1975, Austin Wiggin arranged one last recording session for his daughters, but died of a heart attack, which put an end to his ambitions. Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Rediscovery

In 1980, Terry Adams and Tom Ardolino, of the band NRBQ, who owned an original copy of the LP and were fans of the music, convinced their record label, Rounder Records, to reissue Philosophy of the World. Upon the LP's release, Rolling Stone magazine accorded the Shaggs "Comeback of the Year" honors. The album was widely—if derisively—reviewed. Adams and Ardolino issued some unreleased 1975 recordings on the 1982 LP Shaggs' Own Thing, but its closer approximation to conventional music caused some to disregard this collection. In 1988 Dorothy Wiggin rediscovered the lost masters of Philosophy of the World in a closet; these and the tracks from Shaggs' Own Thing were remastered and released on Rounder an eponymous CD, which had different cover art and a resequencing of all tracks. RCA Victor released Philosophy of the World (with the original cover art and track sequence) on CD in 1999, whereupon it was hailed as something of an avant-garde cult classic. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the CD on the day it was released, and The New Yorker subsequently ran a lengthy profile of the Shaggs, authored by Susan Orlean. Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... NRBQ is an American rock band. ... Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts but now based in Burlington, is an independent record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students. ... This article is about the magazine. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... CD may stand for: Compact Disc Canadian Forces Decoration Cash Dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) Certificate of Deposit ÄŒeské Dráhy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers Datorförening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s... Sony BMG Music Entertainment is the result of a 50/50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment (part of Sony) and BMG Entertainment (part of Bertelsmann AG) completed in August 2004. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... This article does not discuss cult in its original sense of religious practice; for that usage see Cult (religious practice). ... The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York with an average daily circulation of 1,800,607 (2002). ... The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ... Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is an American journalist whose feature writing drolly but affectionately considers softer subjects than some of those covered by her colleagues. ...

In 2000, NRBQ celebrated their thirtieth anniversary with a concert in New York City; their opening act was The Shaggs. Helen, who had been suffering from depression for years, declined to attend, so NRBQ's drummer was faced with the challenging task of attempting to play Helen's parts. Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... NRBQ is an American rock band. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Clinical depression (also called major depressive disorder, or unipolar depression when compared to bipolar disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individuals social functioning and/or activities of daily living. ...

In 2001, the Animal World label released Better than the Beatles, a Shaggs tribute album. The title was based on the title of an article by Lester Bangs in which he described the importance of what The Shaggs accomplished musically. Frank Zappa is reported to have said of the Shaggs, "This sounds like the missing link between Fanny and Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band." Zappa rated The Shaggs #3 best band in the history in a Norwegian newspaper (April 1988). The album featured established acts such as Ida, Optiganally Yours and Danielson Famille covering The Shaggs' songs. Animal World, by Antonio di Benedetto, is a collection of short stories written originally in Spanish. ... A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of a specific artists songs. ... Lester Bangs during an interview Leslie Conway Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, author and musician. ... Frank Vincent Zappa[1] (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, musician, and film director. ... Fanny were a late 1960s-1970s American all-women band led by June Millington. ... Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet on January 15, 1941, in Glendale, California, USA) is a musician and visual artist, best known by the pseudonym Captain Beefheart. ... Ida is an American indie rock band from New York City. ... Optiganally Yours is a band centered around the Optigan, a toy organ produced by Mattel in the 1970s that plays the sounds of instruments that have been recorded onto celluloid disks. ... Danielson Famile is a Christian rock group. ...

Artisan Entertainment bought the movie rights to the band's story in 2000, with Katherine Dieckmann assigned to script and direct. Since that time, the project has been acquired by a succession of production companies, but no film has yet been made. Artisan Entertainment was a privately held independent American movie studio that has been owned by Lions Gate Entertainment since 2003. ... “Moving picture” redirects here. ...

A stage musical about The Shaggs, Philosophy of the World by librettist/lyricist Joy Gregory, composer/lyricist Gunnar Madsen, and co-conceiver/director John Langs, opened at the John Anson Ford Theatre in Los Angeles in November 2003. The LA Weekly Award-winning Scenic Design was created by Brian Sidney Bembridge. The production was staged at Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago in the spring of 2004, and at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in September 2005. Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ... 2003 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December A timeline of events in the news for November, 2003. ... Brian Sidney Bembridge (born in 1973) is an American scenic and lighting designer for theater and film. ... Each year, during a three-week fall Festival, the New York Musical Theatre Festival presents more than thirty new musicals at venues in New York Citys midtown theater district. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in September September 28 : Constance Baker Motley September 25 : M. Scott Peck September 25 : Don Adams September 20 : Simon Wiesenthal September 14 : Robert Wise September 10 : Hermann Bondi September 8 : Donald Horne September 7 : Moussa Arafat...

Helen Wiggin died in 2006. The widow of Austin Wiggin, Jr., Annie Wiggin, died in 2005.

See also

• Outsider music

Music sample: True Love will Find You in the End ( file info) — Sample of Daniel Johnstons True Love will Find You in the End Problems listening to the file? See media help. ...

References

• Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music by Irwin Chusid ISBN 1-55652-372-6

Irwin Chusid, based in Hoboken, New Jersey, is a record producer, journalist (Film Comment, Mojo, The New York Times, Mix, New York Press, Pulse), and self-described landmark preservationist who once stated, I find things on the scrapheap of history that I know dont belong there and salvage them. ...

External links

• The Shaggs Online (official site)
• My Pal Foot-Foot (unofficial site)