SHAGGS Philosophy of World 1969 US LP RARE

$

1,225

THE SHAGGS <> Philosophy of the World <>  <>

Seriously Rare LP--less than 100 released.

This is only

the third one I've seen on  EBay.  I know 5 to exist in the whole world.

SIGNED--by Al Anderson

of NRBQ

PLUS--big stack of SHAGGS clippings!  Press of all sorts--fanzine (on the cover!  Keith Spring tells all of his love for them), reviews (Lester Bangs in V Voice: "better then Beatles," natch), Robert Palmer (the good one) in the NY Times, baby: "best worst album ever", radio station Top 40 lists (yes, of course the Shaggs were a pick hit on WBCN in Boston!), the New Yorker article on them--Yow!  (think there's another suchpile of Shaggs history out there? I wonder.)

ORIGINAL 1969 FIRST EDITION US STEREO LP PRESSING on THIRD

WORLD RECORDS, Catalog # TCLP 3001

In 1978 I had a record store in Amherst, MA, Sun Music.  Great place to buy, sell, trade for used records

of all sorts.  One of my best customer pals was Tom Passa.  We worked out a big trade that included, as he put it, " The worst record ever made."  I had to make the deal, had to hear it.  Yes, those Shaggs were not your regular band, and quite untutored, but still...there was a certain something special to it.  Keith Spring, sax player for NRBQ worked part time in the shop.  He heard the LP, flipped, made a tape for the NRBQsters to hear.  Terry and Tom were also smitten, and started the process to re-issue Philosophy , release Shaggs ' Own Thing and get Dot Wiggin back on stage again.  It all started with this album here.  I am also including all the press clippings, articles etc. about the Shaggs I collected then.  Fanzines, New Yorked articles, WBZ radio hit lists--they're all here.  I hate to give all this up, but the taxman (woman actually) is calling, and they have a different philosophy of the world .

Oh yes--why is it signed by Al Anderson?  Al was in

the shop one day after I got the LP, and I played it to see how it hit him.  It got his ear, being the special kind of guy he is, and I pointed out a resemblance between he and the drummer on the cover.  Was this not one of his pre-Wildweed teen bands?  He grabbed the cover, wrote "Not me, Al Anderson," on the back.  Man of action, that Al.

1.

Philosophy of the World
2. That Little Red Sports Car
3. Who Are Parents
4. My Pal Foot Foot
5. My Companion

6. I'm So Happy When You're Near
7. Things I Wonder
8. Sweet Thing
9. It's Halloween
10. Why Do I Feel?
11. What Should I Do? 

12. We Have A Savior

·      

·       THIS IS THE FIRST U.S. PRESSING from 1969

·       THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·       ORIGINAL, THICK CARDBOARD COVER (AMERICAN STYLE)


·      THE LABELS are CLEAN with only minor SPINDLEWEAR. No WRITING, etc.
 

 (?PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, and LABEL, SHOWN ABOVE) (Note: the image shown is the actual album, shot just for this listing.  We work to show you the entire cover, all seams and corners.).



THIS IS A NO-RESERVE AUCTION!



RECORD CONDITION
(NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we grade records under a bare light bulb or the Florida sunlight)

--- THE VINYL IS VG+. The record has been played, and there are some scuffs, and scratches, but they are superficial and do not affect play--the LP sounds GREAT!!. 

COVER CONDITION

THE COVER IS VG+.
Some ringwear and shelfwear on front and rear.  Seams are all intact.
Signed in felt tip pen on the rear, "Not me, Al Anderson."
 
QUALITY CONTROL :  past those details listed above, and to make sure you have no surprises when you get this in the mail, this record and cover have:
 
-        No split seams

-        No promo or cut-out (drill) holes in the cover or label.

-        No cut corners

-        No saw-marks or indents

-        No writing in pen, pencil or marker (except for Al)

-        No stamps

-        No tearing: no chips, dents or nicks on the seams

-        No peel-off marks

-        No stickers or labels

-        No water damage

-        No cuts, razor marks, lines, streaks, scratches, pressure marks.

-        No warping or dishing

-        No paint, glue, wax or liquid drops on the cover

-        No RIAA stamps or stickers.


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History

Career

The conceptual beginning of The Shaggs came from Austin Wiggin, Jr.'s mother. During Austin's youth she had predicted during a palmreading that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group. The first two predictions came true, so Austin set about making the third come true.[1] Austin withdrew his daughters from school, bought them instruments, and arranged for them to receive music and vocal lessons. The Wiggin sisters themselves never planned to become a music group, but as Dot later said, "[Austin] was something of a disciplinarian. He was stubborn and he could be temperamental. He directed. We obeyed. Or did our best." Austin named The Shaggs after the then-popular shag hairstyle and as a reference to shaggy dogs. In 1968, Austin arranged for the girls to play a regular Saturday night gig at the Fremont, New Hampshire Town Hall.

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.

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.

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.

In 1975, Austin Wiggin arranged a second recording session for his daughters, during which time

the group recorded several songs. However, when the sessions were forestalled by Austin's death via heart attack, The Shaggs aborted the recording project and disbanded the group shortly thereafter.

Rediscovery

In 1980, Terry Adams and Tom Ardolino,

of the band NRBQ, heard the LP (their sax player, Keith Spring, had heard it at the Amherst, MA record shop he worked in, and brought a tape to Terry and Tom), and 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 as a 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.

On November 20 and 21, 1999, NRBQ celebrated their thirtieth anniversary with two concerts in New York City; their opening act each night were

The Shaggs . Helen, who had been suffering from depression for years, declined to attend, so Ardolino, NRBQ's drummer, was faced with the challenging task of attempting to play Helen's parts. Dot, Betty and Ardolino played the same four-song set both nights. These performances marked the Shaggs ' only live stage appearances outside of Fremont.

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. The album featured established acts such as Ida, Optiganally Yours, R. Stevie Moore, Deerhoof and Danielson Famille covering The Shaggs ' songs.

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 history in a Norwegian newspaper (April 1988).

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.

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 Theater 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.

Helen Wiggin died in 2006.

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

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On Nov-10-09 at 07:53:55 PST, seller added the following information:

 More details:

Me, I'm selling my Shaggs collection. Don't want to, but the taxlady says so. You gets yer choices here--Shaggs Own Thing, the Red Rooster reissues of Philosophy of the World (promo and stock) and the Ultimo Shaggs, the original Philosophy of the World on Third World Records. 1000 supposedly made, less than 100 distributed (you ever see one? I know of 5 copies anywhere). And this is the only copy in the world signed by Al Anderson. Yes, that Al.

I was running a record shop, Sun Music, in Amherst MA in 1978 when one of my best customers tells me he has "the worst record ever made." Of course I need that, and make a big trade ($100 bux worth of stuff) provided he includes this curio. And so the Shaggs came into my life. I played the record (in the shop; it was my shop after all) and yea verily, it was unusual, but it did have something...a strange charm, unshakable verve, and it was full of heart. We all admired it, especially Keith Spring, who worked in the shop part time. He dug it all, and made a tape and played it for his NRBQ bandmates. Terry and Tom of course loved it all too, hunted down Dot Wiggin, got the record reissued, found more tapes for Shaggs' Own Thing ("Doin' it/Yaa, doin' it"), got Dot back on stage, etc.

When the Red Rooster put out Philosophy, all sorts of odd Shaggsitude happened. I saved all I could--articles, fanzines, reviews, articles. Robt Palmer (the good one in the NY Times: "best worst album"); Lester Bangs ("better than the Beatles"); the New Yorker article ("wrought-up, clattering guitars, chugging, cockeyed rhythm, cheerfully pessimistic lyrics"); the WBCN "With a Bullet" HotHits sheet: "Frank Zappa stole our copy out of the studio, that scum-sucker"); Keith Spring, writing in the MSR fanzine ("a singular form of beauty of beauty like one of Nature's secrets") clippings details. 

And so it's your chance for some Shaggs on vinyl. The only way to hear them. Plus a big batch of clippings, articles and ephemera. Plus it's your chance to get the only Philosophy of the World signed by Allan Anderson. Why Al? He was in the shop one night, hunting up some LPs (Ray Charles, Johnny Burnette Trio, you know Al). I decided to see what Al would think of this Shaggs Lp, and put it on. "What's that?" asked Al. I showed him the cover. "Hmmmm...interesting...sort of." "What's really interesting is how much the drummer looks like you. Or how much you look like the drummer," says I. Al grabbed the cover again and looked hard at the trio. "You sure this is not one of your teen combos? They are from New England you know." "Nope," said Al, and turned the cover over and signed it, "Not me, Al Anderson." "OK Al," I said. OK--now's your chance to get the LP that brought the Shaggs to the world!!

On Nov-10-09 at 08:39:40 PST, seller added the following information:

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<img src="http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb123/mkostek/60sLPs/Shaggsbcnbillbord.jpg">

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On Nov-10-09 at 08:42:20 PST, seller added the following information: