by FilmInk Staff
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Betty Wiggin, Dorothy Wiggin
Intro:
… a great documentary about some god awful music.
Austin Wiggin’s mother – a palm reader – predicted he would marry a woman with strawberry blonde hair, have three daughters, and that his girls would be famous musicians. And it all came true, sort of …
There was indeed the strawberry blonde wife. There were four daughters, but let’s not split hairs. And, under their father’s scarily strict guidance, the three oldest girls formed a band called the Shaggs in 1960s New Hampshire, which would one day find a level of fame.
The Shaggs are a strange footnote to rock history. With Helen (now deceased) on drums, plus Dorothy (Dot) and Betty on guitars and vocals, they played out of tune instruments with each sister playing in a different time signature. You’d never guess they had music lessons.
They were, if this enthusiastic doco is to be believed, the first lo-fi punks. The original riot grrrls, before the term was invented. We Are the Shaggs begins with a series of people being filmed reacting to their first exposure to their music. One listener says it sounds like the stuff of nightmares, others just grimace. And yet, Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa were fans of their only album, 1969’s Philosophy of the World, and the Shaggs found a cult following many years after they disbanded. Austin didn’t live to see it.
The mirthless Austin was a hard taskmaster – when they weren’t practicing, they were doing callisthenics. They didn’t do much else. They had the strictest of upbringings. They missed out on a lot, say Dot and Betty, who are interviewed here at length.
Betty is direct. “I wasn’t into it,” she says, adding that she didn’t think the band was any good. Dot, sitting next to her, nods in agreement, although you sense that Dot – who wrote the songs – was more motivated than Betty.
This documentary tries to explore what the girls themselves heard when they made music. At one point, at a recording session that their father paid for, their instruments were tuned for them – they hated it. It just didn’t sound right to their ears.
Writer/director Ken Kwapis approaches this film in a light-hearted yet respectful way. He appears briefly, saying he was “flabbergasted” by The Shaggs album when he first encountered it in 1980, and in many ways, this film is a primer on how to appreciate the band’s discordant music.
And it almost succeeds – about halfway through, you start to catch glimpses of some interesting sounds and you can vaguely understand what appealed to Cobain and Zappa. The doco also features 2013’s ‘Banana Bike’, a tune by the Dot Wiggin Band – it’s a lo-fi indie gem. And – hallelujah – it’s in tune.
Underneath, though, there’s something sinister – these girls had no choice, and while some of the conflict between Austin and Helen over her elopement is covered, much darker reports that she was sexually abused are left unsaid.
We Are the Shaggs keeps things light and fun. It’s a great documentary about some god awful music. But you get the feeling there’s more to the story.
