So here's the deal. Some guy decides to give his daughters instruments and tell them to form a band. They try things out, completely clueless, playing with cheap untuned guitars, messed up verse styles, timing completely off (on purpose?? Who knows)... Was it truly "their style, what they wanted to do"? or was it the best they could do given what they had to work with? Here's some clips so you can judge for yourself. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTNo80YmRVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tscjQboAITs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATM12Cogw24&feature=related https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hmPtbuixAk&feature=related Now keep in mind. On one end, fans booed them off stage, threw them stuff while performing. On another end, people praised them. Actually, Frank Zappa compared what the Shaggs did to what the Beatles did. And, he thought of The Shaggs as being 1 of the top 3 best bands in history. What do you think?
I like it. It's very cute and pretty intriguing. Basically, to me it sounds like the kind of music young kids would make if they could play instruments and their parents encouraged them. I think from the lyrics you can tell that the girls were ... ahem, pretty stupid and probably on the level of kids much younger than they were. I do not under any circumstances think they "knew what they were doing". They basically said that they were writing what they believed were songs, and I can attest that when I was first starting out, I was doing some of the same things. If you don't learn songwriting theory, it's really easy to be more innovative in the way they were.
It's psychedelic-y in a way and innocent like a child. I like the randomness of The Shaggs. I listen to a couple of their songs once in a while to appreciate that music is always evolving.
the shaggs first time i heard em [30 years ago] i fell in love [still there] oh the short people want what the tall people got...
