Words by Cristi Barco, photography by Evi Fokas
Messes: Do you clean them, leave them on the floor, or give them to somebody else? Brooklyn’s best-kept queer-femme-punk-group secret, SHAGGO, says…yes. Their debut album, Chores, in all of its fuzz’d up, experimental, and charming madness boils down to the distinctly coming-of-age, adolescent feeling of being stuck in your house as a young woman. How does our imagination fill the space of your own bedroom as a teenage girl? What happens when something is lost – a sock, a friend, a lover – in that fragile ecosystem? How could you reinvent yourself in a room with all your junk?
Maybe that question is why the opening track, Big Trash Night, invites us into a cleansing rite. You discover that quintessential Shaggo vocal: fuzzed up, crunchy — something you’d find on old cassette tapes in a forgotten shoebox under your parent’s childhood beds. The song asks you to throw away your junk: vinyl collection, joke explanation, fake meditation, Japan obsession, your holy objects, aren’t sacramental. Once you do, you’re in.
Track #2, “Young Girls Need Entertainment,” was distilled from a riot grrrl poem written by lead vocalist and guitarist Lucy Rinzler-Day’s mom. (not the only song co-composed by a parent, see the TikTok all the way down below!) Its lyrics, such as, bring out your witches and your dead / no need to hunt / we’re in the streets, belong on a leg tattoo all-but-requisite for all girls at 18. “City MD” lulls you in with a beautifully layered, Radiohead-esque melancholic violin intro, frustration and a chunk of dust in your eye: yeah, that’s heartbreak. In “My House,” someone bangs on an empty house in the middle of the apocalypse as a desperate attempt to regain love. Yeah, that’s heartbreak. Both tracks have The Cure-esque choruses that pulsate and drive with pining and deliverance.
Given SHAGGO‘s artistry, what seems outlandish at first is actually a tender gift. Their storylines bring clarity to otherwise faceless, shapeless pain. “Lost a Sock (Need A Friend)” is particularly “Shaggs-y” with the band citing legendary “outsider music” sister-act The Shaggs as a major influence (the similarity in moniker is purely a coincidence …or is it?) Anyways, “Sock” sounds like it was once busked on top of an apple box in the Appalachian mountains, somewhere vast and endless but beautiful. I don’t know where my feet should go, someone to tell me what to do, to pick me up from off the floor: quiet loneliness sung folky and light.
Two words for Minor League and I Wanted Fun: hell and yeah. These upbeat party tracks use groovy bass-lines and raw drums to lead into pillow-fight, dirty laundry tornado choruses. Minor League’s bridge showdown ends with a birth on the stands at a baseball game. It’s infectious and wild, but you can tell time was invested into the lyricism. This is no cheap entertainment, it makes you feel heard, and that goes for every track in this record. I Wanted Fun, my personal favorite, is just good. Stand-out lines to listen for while having pillow fights are, I feel nauseous, you look good. I am not your dopamine. Fuck your ‘noise’ and fuck your ‘scene’!
Tactile and true, this album achieves daring freedom and depth that dances with obscurity. We wanted fun. They made it weird. Thanks SHAGGO.
“I WANTED FUN”
SONG CREDITS:
Written by Lucy Rinzler-Day and Carina Greenberg
Vocals – Lucy Rinzler-Day and Carina Greenberg
Lead guitar – Thea Divine
Bass – Carina Greenberg
Drums – Max Steinbach
Recorded by Moses Rubin and Thea Divine at Electric Baby Studios
Produced by SHAGGO
Mixed and Mastered by Teddy O’Mara
Single artwork made with felt and rage by Carina Greenberg
MUSIC VIDEO CREDITS:
Directed, edited, and shot on VHS by Carina Greenberg
Creative direction: Carina and Lucy Rinzler-Day
Animation: Joel Hines Guest
starring: Ruthie (meow)
Additional VHS shot by Jane Gormley
Released on Atlanta Zone Records 3/16/25
“CITY MD”
MUSIC VIDEO CREDITS:
Directed by Carina Greenberg and Henry Vettel
Edited and colored by Henry Vettel
DP: Henry Vettel
Produced by/VHS footage by: DJ Alexander
Costumes, Production Design: Carina Greenberg (special thanks to Lucinda Mandel for lending gorgeous costumes)
Armorer: Sir Russell the Knight
BTS photographer: Karina Bucci
Cast:
“Jester” = Jane Gormley
“Princess” = Annie Farnsworth
“Knight 1/Suitor” = Joel Hines
“Knight 2” = Sir Russell the Knight
“Plague Doctor” = Lucy Rinzler-Day
“Wench 1” = Carina Greenberg
“Wench 2” = Christine Barcia
“Queen” = Marie C. Menhart
“Wench 3” = Nicole Ouellette
“Suitor 2” = Syd Bakal
“Bard” = Ethan Henry