ts: the raincoats vs the shaggs

Ouch.

I can't help but take that as a pejorative slam against the Raincoats, since I got about halfway through "My Pal Foot-Foot" before the Shaggs joke wore off. They're like the Cowsills crossed with Wild Man Fischer. So, while I know your question doesn't actually require a personal defense of the Raincoats, I feel compelled to offer one.

I love the Raincoats. While certain moments on The Raincoats might occasionally suggest the Shaggs' cavalier indifference to rhythm, I think they grew substantially over their subsequent Rough Trade albums. For sheer raw exuberance, "Fairytale in the Supermarket" beats the crap out of "What Are Parents?". The Shaggs would sooner break a leg than shake it like the Raincoats did on the white funk of "Balloon." And the Shaggs certainly never did anything as haunting or dynamic as "Shouting Out Loud."

I agree that the Slits-Raincoats comparison doesn't hold for long (They're both women! er... now what?), but I can draw more of a line from the Slits' Cut to the Raincoats' Moving than I ever could from Philosophy of the World. And both the Slits and the Raincoats moved quickly into more polyrhythmically dense music after that initial blast of naïve energy, while the Shaggs pretty much just remained... the Shaggs.

(This may have had more to do with the zeitgeist of the moment, though, as virtually everyone under the sun was trying on their dub/reggae/funk hat at that time thanks to bands like ACR, 23 Skidoo, PiL, etc etc. Had the Shaggs been formed ten years later, perhaps they would have done so as well. Mercifully, we never really found out, occasional reunions aside.)

Wasn't slamming - I also love raincoats, specifically "odyshape" although that's def the 'tighter' sounding of their sides and prob wd not apply when comparing to the shaggs (keep in mind I've only heard the odd shaggs track but like what I've listened to.) As a side-ish I've become more interested in (what's considered to be) amateur-ish music in general, about how it can become codified into new ways of expression as valid as non-amateur ways: Kagel's 'exotica' comes to mind, so does christian wolff's works that use amateur performers, steve beresford in improv. Wild man fischer sort of applies.

Anyway I'm not sure I have a wider point besides finding that, when listening (not too closely) to the shaggs i thought they were kinda close (shd've checked) and I'm sure the comparison has been made its just that I've not seen it.