Slapp happy

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Slapp Happy was a German-English music group from the 1970s that enriched pop music with experimental elements. Their style of music was called naive rock or avant-garde pop.

Slapp Happy (2017)

Career

Slapp Happy was founded in 1972 by Anthony Moore in Hamburg . The Englishman had previously released two solo albums with experimental music with Polydor . After his third album was rejected as not commercial enough, Moore suggested a more pop-oriented project. Together with his German girlfriend Dagmar Krause and the American Peter Blegvad , he launched Slapp Happy.

With the German rock band Faust as accompanist, they released the album Sort Of in 1972 . Since Slapp Happy refused to perform live, the album did not sell very well. In 1973 they recorded, again together with Faust, the album Casablanca Moon , which, however, was not released by Polydor.

Slapp Happy left Polydor and went to England, where they got a contract with Virgin Records . Casablanca Moon was re-recorded with studio musicians and released in 1974 as Slapp Happy . The original recordings with Faust were only released in 1980 by Recommended Records as the Acnalbasac Noom .

In June 1974 a free concert in London's Hyde Park that had been planned together with Robert Wyatt and the art rock band Henry Cow collapsed at short notice . On June 25th Slapp Happy played with Geoff Leigh, Fred Frith , Lindsay Cooper and Robert Wyatt on the BBC radio show "Top Gear" - these recordings were released by Wyatt in 1994 on his album Flotsam Jetsam under the group name "Slapp Happy & Friends" .

In November 1974 Slapp Happy and Henry Cow played together the album Desperate Straights . The surprising success of this project led in early 1975 to renewed collaboration for the album In Praise of Learning . A little later, Moore and Blegvad left the cooperation project and henceforth concentrated on their respective solo careers. This meant the end of Slapp Happy. Dagmar Krause stayed with Henry Cow as a singer.

In 1982 there was a short reunion of Slapp Happy, from which the single "Everybody's Slimmin '(Even Men and Women)" emerged. On September 10th of the same year they performed live for the first time in their history at the "Dial M For Music" festival at the London Institute of Contemporary Arts .

In 1991 they recorded the opera "Camera" for the BBC, based on an idea by Dagmar Krause, texts by Peter Blegvad, music by Anthony Moore. The soundtrack of the television production was released on CD in 2000 .

In 1997 a new album by Slapp Happy, Ça Va , was released, on which Moore, Blegvad and Krause played all the instruments themselves. Their popularity in Japan led to a tour in 2000, which is documented on CD Live in Japan . In 2016, Slapp Happy made his first stage appearance at the Weekend Festival in Cologne with two musicians from Faust, Werner “Zappi” Diermaier and Jean-Hervé Péron.

In 2017 Slapp Happy played again as a quintet with Péron and Zappi at the 10th Rock in Opposition Festival in Carmaux.

Members

  • Anthony Moore - guitar, keyboards, percussion, programming, band manipulation, theremin , melodica, harmonica, vocals
  • Peter Blegvad - guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, clarinet, percussion, harmonica, vocals
  • Dagmar Krause - vocals, piano, percussion, harmonica

Discography

Note: The years refer to the publication (not the recording).

Albums

  • 1972 Sort Of (LP, Polydor)
  • 1974 Slapp Happy (also known as Casablanca Moon ) (LP, Virgin Records)
  • 1975 Desperate Straights (with Henry Cow) (LP, Virgin Records)
  • 1975 In Praise of Learning (with Henry Cow) (LP, Virgin Records)
  • 1980 Acnalbasac Noom (LP, Recommended Records)
  • 1998 Ça Va (CD, V2 Records)
  • 2000 Camera (as "Dagmar Krause, Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad") (CD, Blueprint Records)
  • 2001 Live in Japan (CD, FMN Records)

Singles

  • 1972 "Just a Conversation" / "Jumpin 'Jonah" (Polydor)
  • 1974 "Casablanca Moon" / "Slow Moon's Rose" (Virgin Records)
  • 1981 "Alcohol" (single-sided recorded single, Recommended Records)
  • 1983 "Everybody's Slimmin '(Even Men and Women)" / "Blue-Eyed William" (Half-Cat Records)

Web links

Commons : Slapp Happy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Weekendfestival 2016 ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weekendfest.de
  2. ↑ Weekend Festival # 6 (WDR3)