CELESTE POTTER
THE SHAGGSFor a long time, I didn’t know who The Shaggs were. I’d rarely hear their music, but when I did, my mind was
totally blown. Their songs were completely out of time, but made perfect sense to one another; the dissonant,
chaotic, hacked-up sounds of three sisters who’d never listened to the radio before. It’s like they were following
secret musical rules from another universe. I don’t think they made any merch – just one record with a
photo of them on the front. It was a fairly standard, late-’60s cover. There isn’t anything very special about it.
When coming up with my design, I thought about how they followed musical rules that nobody else knows or
understands, and asked, “What if The Shaggs happened in the wrong universe? Maybe there was a glitch in time
and space and they fell through one of the other infinite universes into ours? Maybe they should have happened
inside the belly of a giant orange cat?” So that’s what I drew. I design a lot of band shirts in Photoshop, so I did
what I knew best. I have lots of special techniques, like using a giant collection of textures and brushes to make
things look very natural and hand-drawn. I’m proud of the sunburst effect I made on the guitars with Photoshop
brushes – I wanted to represent them very accurately, so I went to a lot of trouble to draw their instruments
exactly as they appear in photographs. I don’t think the sisters ever wanted to be in a band – their dad forced
them into it, and they gave it up soon after he passed away. So I don’t know that they’d be happy with this band
tee. Also, I think they were Christians, so wouldn’t have believed in orange cat universes.
hands on