|
 And now? Dot Semprini, the lead singer of the famously discordant
group, is striking out on her own at age 65 with a solo album
featuring songs written and performed with Jesse Krakow, a New York
musician who has long considered The Shaggs personal heroes.
"I think what I loved about The Shaggs when I heard it 15 years ago
was that it sounded like these emotional aliens playing these love
songs, but it didn't sound like love songs, and it didn't sound like
jazz, and it didn't sound like prog rock ... it was cooler," said
Krakow, who has a tattoo depicting the Shaggs' family cat from the
band's brain-searing classic "My Pal Foot Foot."
"I just became so fascinated by their voices, and how out of tune
certain things were, but how precise they were," Krakow said. "I
really became obsessed with the album — I decoded the language of
The Shaggs."
The Shaggs were three sisters whose father — determined to fulfill a
fortuneteller's prediction — pulled them out of high school and put
them in a band. They played weekly gigs at the Fremont Town Hall and
recorded one album, but only a few copies made it into circulation.
When their father died in 1975, they abandoned the band and went on
with their lives.
The album lived on, however, attracting attention from the likes of
Frank Zappa, who was quoted in Playboy as calling The Shaggs "better
than The Beatles," and Rolling Stone magazine, which named it one of
the 100 "most influential alternative releases of all time."
Semprini and one of her sisters performed with the band NRBQ in
1999, and a musical based on their story opened in Los Angeles in
2003 and in New York last year.
The new album came about after Krakow invited Semprini to a concert
he organized last year to benefit the Fremont Town Hall and someone
in the audience asked her if she still wrote songs. When Semprini
replied that she had lyrics but no music, Krakow's arm — the one
with the Foot Foot tattoo — shot up. You write the lyrics, I'll
write the music, he told her.
[to top of second column] |
Many phone calls and emails later, they had co-written a batch of
new songs, some based on unrecorded Shaggs songs.
The result? A new band, the Dot Wiggin Band (Wiggin being Semprini's
maiden name), and a new album: "Ready! Get! Go!" The band, which has
played gigs in Brooklyn and Baltimore so far, includes Krakow and
five other professional musicians, playing what their publicist
describes as "something reminiscent of the Shaggs, but refreshingly
matured."
Krakow describes the sound like this: "Like the best pop band you've
ever heard doing everything wrong," or "a band making the most
unusual choices ever."
At home in Epping, Dot works two jobs and is devoted to her pug,
Newman, who listens to Elvis all day and whose barking is included
in one of the new songs. Her sister Helen — The Shaggs' drummer —
died in 2006; her sister Betty, busy with her grandchildren, decided
not to continue with music.
But Semprini said she's not quite ready to stop, even though she
dislikes traveling long distances to perform. She remembers how
another sister was bullied at school about The Shaggs, and then
thinks about the fans from around the world who've told her The
Shaggs changed their lives.
"I'm not making a whole lot of money, but basically I'm doing it for
the fans that have stuck through us all these years, that we didn't
even realize that we had all these fans," she said. "So, I figure if
the fans have been there all these years for us, then I'll do as
much as I can, as long as I can."
[Associated
Press; HOLLY RAMER]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
