Slapp Happy/ Anthony Moore (RFI, S&D, etc.)

First there are Anthony Moore's two "minimalist" "classical" CDs Pieces From the Cloudland Ballroom and Secrets of the Blue Bag. I like these both a lot, they remind me of Terry Riley and John Cale's record, kind of goofy fun repetitious "art" music.

Then there's Reed Whistle and Sticks which I don't like at all. It is the sound of small pieces of wood being dropped on the floor. I've only heard it once, but it didn't seem to get, as AMG says, "stunningly musical". Though I suppose I should give it another shot.

Slapp Happy's first album Sort Of is a bit inconsistent, but really beautiful. The songs that Dagmar doesn't sing on are a bit weeker, and there's a bit of what I can only call wonky rock 'n' rolling for what that's worth it, the 6 plus minute Mono Plane being my least fave on the record. But there are many unbelievably fantastic songs, like seemingly often covered Blue Flower, I'm All Alone, Who's Gonna Help Me Now etc etc. And some upbeat fun songs as well.

There are 2 versions of the second album, but I've only heard one. The version on ReR is called Acnalbasac Noom and is the original recording, and it is among my top 5 records of all time. Dagmar handles all of the vocals and the songs are more consistent then on the first album, it feels so good, makes so much sense. Beautiful art-cabaret songs with a wonderful sense of humor, melancholy and baroquely arranged at times, often with a childlike naivete, just totally brilliant and beautiful. The CD as a few extras that are mixed but fun.

Note the rhythm section(and some sax?) on these 2 records is Faust and they were produced by Uwe Nettlebeck, and you can tell.

Apparently the record wasn't released that way but was re-recorded and released by Virgin and that CD is called Casablanca Moon, but I haven't heard it. I've read some say it's inferior, and others say it's quite good. Supposedly it's more whimsically arranged?

At that point they hooked up with Henry Cow for better and for worse. I only have the first of their collaborations, Desperate Straights, which at it's heights is wonderful Blegved/Moore songwriting with wonderful Cutler/Frith/Greaves etc arranging, and at it's worse picks up some of the ponderous seriousness of Henry Cow. I kinda like Henry Cow, but not really in the context of my Slapp Happy. I don't have In Praise of Learning.

At some point Henry Cow breaks up and Frith and Cutler steal Dagmar for the Art Bears to mixed results.

One wonderful thing though is the Henry Cow Concerts CD which features a track that is back to back a performance of Slapp Happy/Cow's Gloria Gloom seagued into a cover of Robert Wyatt's Little Red Riding Hit Hit's the Road featuring Wyatt on vocals which just sends chills down my spine every time.

Then Moore did Out which I haven't heard(is it any good?) and his two "new wave" records Flying Doesn't Help and World Service, which are spotty but when good kick very much ass, very smart progressive punky/new wavey art rock.

I don't know the Slapp Happy reunion stuff or much of Peter Blegved's solo career, though I've heard some of his records and not been as into it. However, I can say DEFINATELY search Peter Blegved's comic strip Leviathan which was collected in a beautiful edition a few years back and is something like a high-point for serial newspaper comic strips of the last 20 years. It is inventive, innovative, beautiful, smart, witty, and just amazing.

SO at the very least, get Acnalbasac Noom. It's a really really special record. I first heard it while in NYC one summer during college and was really into Faust and that whole Rock In Opposition thing and went to Adult Crash(awesome pre-Other Music record store wear Etheria is now) and picked it up and they played "The Drum" for me and I took it and listened to it religously all summer, and pretty much all the time since.

The description used on Sort Of is cute..."Naive Rock"

Check out:

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/airstructures/review%20slapp%20happy.html

And what the hell, I know this is questionable, but I still have these online from when I shared it with some other people...

http://www.acuterecords.com/blueflower.mp3

from Sort Of, this sums up the sound pretty well.

"In Praise of Learning" has very little to do with Slapp Happy--it's strange they get equal billing. I suppose Dagmar=SH for those purposes. Political art-songs, more than a bit heavy-handed, but has its own charm and well worth listening if you like Henry Cow. The CD version sounds much different than the original vinyl (same thing happened with the first Henry Cow record--they remixed it, adding tons of reverb. Not really worse overall, but not exactly better either).

A. Moore's 'Out' is a lovely sophisto-pop record. while the songs sound like something you'd hear on a lesser Paul McCartney or George Harrison solo album, they're underpinned by the sort of ingenious minimalism that drove 'Cloudland' and 'Blue Bag.' much more here than first meets the ear. it's a very quirky album that disguises its artsiness with an MOR veneer. but how much contemporary adult pop features a chorus credited as 'The Children of Lol Coxhill?'

- 'Acnalbasac Noom' are the demo versions of the songs, rocking, and preferable in almost all ways to the re-recorded album for Virgin, stiff arrangements with studio musicians. Though nothing can completely kill these songs, and there are some great surprises (the string section in 'A Little Something'). I need them both.

- My favorite is 'Desperate Straights', denser, more angular, more intense & mysterious. But I love the Art Bears above all. Art Bears live also contained Blegvad, and they'd sometimes encore with acoustic versions of Slapp Happy songs ('A Little Something', 'Strayed', 'Me and Paravati'.)

- 'Kew Rhone' is fantastic. Mantler-esque jazz arrangements, but it's close to 'Desperate Straights'.

- 'Ca Va' is wonderful and worth buying once you have 'Acnalbasac Noom' and 'Desperate Straights'. Some of the songs, as good as anything. When the drum loops bother you, you just listen to Dagmar singing.

- Don't like 'Camera'.

- Moore solo: 'Flying Doesn't Help' is raw garage pop. sloppy but often works!

- Blegvad solo: early records on Virgin were produced by Andy Partridge. I've heard but barely remember them. The solo records on ReR have great moments, especially 'Downtime', which has the song 'Not Weak Enough'. The album "Smell of a Friend" by his group the Lodge (with Greaves) has two Kew Rhone-worthy songs, and some scary stuff.

- Dagmar solo: deserves own thread

Dagmar's Brecht and Eisler albums are beautiful, essential stuff, particularly "Tank Battles". I wish she put out more music than she does!

Casablanca Moon is in EVERY WAY inferior, basically a MESS

Desperate Straights and In Praise Of Learning are both well worth checking - 2 of the best Henry Cows mostly cos of Slapp Happy (who I first heard on "War")

Sort Of is good too, you'll want it if you like Noom and "Blue Flower" is a classic.

I love Dagmar's voice so anything with her is great: Art Bears, Kurt Weill stuff etc. Anthony Moore/More is a good songwriter - "Flying Doesn't Help" and "World Service" are both good in a postpunk postCale sorta way. didn't like the Blegvad album I bought, but "Strayed" off Desperate Straights is a classic tune.

"there he goes, my hero in wonderful clothes / passin' me by, givin' me the eye" (The Secret)

"Kew. Rhone" is amazing, and the CD reissue from some years back has all sorts of extras/multimedia stuff.

Blegvad's best solo album is probably "King Strut," which also finally got reissued, I believe. Anthony Moore/More's solo album "Flying Doesn't Help" (it is available on CD) has some great songs, one of which is kind of a re-write of Slapp Happy's Blue Flower.

There's a live in Japan CD of the reformed Slapp Happy that some people may like. It features stripped down renditions of songs from all of their albums -- it's interesting to hear Ca Va songs performed with less production. Sound quality is good, but there's something a little precious about some of the performances.

I think my favorite 3 items related to the group are Sort Of, Kew. Rhone, and Blegvad's Leviathan book.

Finally, Bongwater do a really wonderful cover of Slapp Happy's "The Drum" on their "Too Much Sleep" album.

hey whoops. just consulted the liners and her name's not listed in the chorus. publically self-reprimanding now, even if it's hard to believe while listening.

take care
Jaakko

I guess that's Bob Drake, then - right man for the job. And Desperate Straights is my fave Slapp Happy by a mile.

I guess everyone knows that Mazzy Star covered Slappies' "Blue
Flower" in their own peculiar style - well, I'm listening to it
now and it's pretty ok, I love Hope Sandoval's voice but I've never
heard this track before - it amazes me 'cause I do have some
of their work... well, live & learn.

anyhow

Jaakko

was going to wait until it was archived but the mp3 links are evidently temporary

http://www.leviathan.co.uk/

just came out in book form as well.

Peter has started a new season on BBC Radio.  Follow the links to listen to this weeks program.  There will be new ones logged each week.  Some have eartoons some do not.  The program is very interesting on it's own.

1. Go to this link;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/theverb/

2. Click "Listen Live"

3. Click "The Verb" on the white list

4. Give it a minute to load

5. Enjoy

The following is Peters Letter in full:

Greetings, friends
Pleez forgive bulk mailing.
Shld you be intrested, a new season of the Verb on radio 3 has begun. You
can hear programmes for a week after broadcast by going to website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/theverb/pip/t01qu/
I have an eartoon on this week's (and will be doing the nxt 3 weeks too)
All bests,
P

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/12/more-anthony-moore-flying-doesnt-help.html

also, thread should not have been asleep for three years etc.

yeah there was a lot of talk about SH on the Art Bears thread, I have never seen this one.

god damn "Scarred For Life" is such a great song. Hope they make another one-off reunion record someday.

Anthony More on AMG:

Similar Artists
* Uri Geller
* Richard Youngs

I have "Karen" stuck in my head now thx to thread title and that is a damn good thing.

No mentions of "Everybody's Slimmin' (Even Men And Women)"?? Wish I still had my 7-inch of that.

it's on the ReR CD of Acnalbasac Noom.

What are the best Peter Blegvad vocal tracks with Slapp Happy?

As the years go by, (some of) Moore's stuff seems more and more underrated. "Out" in particular.

But at the moment I'm writing because I just learned that his kind of Berlin-era Bowie-esque "World Service" CD isn't the same as the lp version. I guess I never looked into it very much, as I didn't like it much on first listen (have since changed my mind). You know, Mutant Sounds planned to post the lp, but I don't see that they ever did. I guess I have to actually like pay for an album for the first time in god knows how long...

The live version of "Lucia" on the CD -- at least I think it's live -- is just killer.

Oh, how nice! Someone has one of the best World Service tracks up on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tQHxnMCzzA0

Fuzzed out remake of Lucia from Flying Doesn't Help. This may be one of may favorite things that any of the Slapp Happys ever did...

Posting for myself and the like 1 other person who'll care, but just got ahold of the lp version of Anthony More's World Service, and it is indeed very different from the CD. Includes one very good song that isn't on the CD, and a couple that are *very* different versions, usually better than the CD. At the moment, this would be my pick for his best solo album.

LP Tracklist is: Side 1: Run Right Back/Pieces of the Puzzle/World Service/Fat Fly [not on the CD. It's pretty good...kinda Robyn Hitchcock doing vocals on a Bowie Lodger track.].

Side 2: Broke'n Idle [very different, probably better than CD version. Kinda post-punk meets Talking Heads]/Outta Angels [very different, spikier than CD version, probably better]/The Argument [more skeletal than the CD version, but generally similar]/Nowhere to Run.

Heresy, I know, but Ça Va is by far my favourite Slapp Happy album. DK's voice has lost that screechy quality and sounds wonderfully rich and strange. The songwriting seems less self-consciously witty/wacky and is all the better for it. "Scarred for Life" is on every mix CD I've ever made.

It shouldn't be heresy -- Ça Va is an incredible album

you heard the live in tokyo version of 'Scarred for Life'?

no! where can I find it?

this is the official single disc release: http://www.amazon.com/Live-Japan-2000-Slapp-Happy/dp/B002MT3DEM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1308161023&sr=8-3-fkmr0

which contains slightly different performances than this bootleg

single disc probably more listenable all the way through but I remember the bootleg has magic if you're patient

the crickets on the live version of 'Scarred for Life' really work

the best

Don't ask me why I've waited this long to REALLy spend time with Ca Va, the Slapp Happy reunion album from the late 90s. But man, it's totally GREAT.

i like the world service album a lot and i had it in my store for cheap forever and nobody would buy it so i finally just took it home so that it could get some love. maybe if i had written SLAPP HAPPY! in big letters on the front of the plastic sleeve or something? i dunno. damn heathens around here.

You should have written "Pink Floyd" on it. Anyway, great album in both its incarnations...

what do we think of this metal cover?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZzVxmlyqpY

kew. rhone. the book

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/slapp-happy-faust-two-day-residency/

wait, which faust?

Cool news, would go if I lived close

Ha, "which Faust" was my first question when I saw this but it doesn't really matter. I am definitely going.

That has to be the highest ticket price I've ever seen at Cafe Oto.

It's probably the Peron/Diermaier version, they seem more active than the Irmler version and have played with various RIO types in recent years.

At 22:12 in this mix is a sick Japanese pop version of "The Drum": https://soundcloud.com/prtls/artist-mix-kero-kero-bonito

I almost fell out of my chair when I realized what it was!

I've run a cursory search to find the artist, etc., but no dice... Any help??

Whoops, guess I should clicked the link beneath the mix. Apparently it is "Love and Hates ft. The Pegasuss". Here's the album!: https://whitelilyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/l-a-h

I'm sort of convinced that "The Drum" is secretly the best song ever written, as all three versions of it (that I've heard) are amazingly great.

(Make that 4 versions -- forgot about "Casablanca Moon")

The Drum was my introduction. Adult Crash in NYC, I asked about it because of the Faust connection. They put on The Drum and I bought it. Never looked back.

Here's another great cover:

https://nonightsweats.bandcamp.com/track/whos-gonna-help-me-now

There’s something almost mystical to me about “The Drum”; like it’s the last song played around a campfire at the end of the world. I can’t really explain it...

"wardrobes flap in tatters/you and i grow old"
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, January 19, 2003 11:26 PM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the re-recorded casablanca moon is literally the first LP i ever bought

i owned acnalbasac noom also for a while a lot later but never liked it as much (perhaps just thru over-familiarity)

I didn't like it as much either fwiw.

Also, what a bizarre career Anthony Moore has had.

Really like that Love and Hates version, thanks morrisp!

Sure! Yeah, I'm like obsessed with it... that beat!

The Bandcamp page seems to be dormant (for other than streaming), but I found the track/album can be purchased on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006H2VHA2/

I have a theory that Charlie and Charlie is the plot of me, myself and Irene. Lots of similar references

World as it is today has the best screaming ever

Acnalbasac preference may also come down to which one you heard first

I think it must, because I cannot imagine anyone preferring the overbaked orchestral version

lyrics changes are a big dud there as well, not as good

What lyric changes?

major changes to Me & Paravati, at the least, pretty sure there are others but I'm not gonna listen to the vastly inferior version to find out

There's also some Zappa esque added backing vocals on one song that cheapens the material. With sleeve here

But in most other regards it's miles better.

Also the lyrics to "Me and Parvati" are better on "Casablanca Moon"!

fuck em up buff jeckley

xp OK now I'm convinced that these two albums exemplify the "liked the one you heard first" effect because Tom D is objectively wrong here ;)

Definitely seems dependent on which version of the album you heard first, for instance, I can't imagine why anyone would prefer the out of tune version of "The Drum" on AM to the one on CM.

Though "Dawn" and "Half Way There" are better on AM and "Charlie and Charlie" is better than "Haiku".

Definitely with you that drum is better on CM. Generally I prefer AM but some arrangements on CM do work better for me

I think I generally prefer Krause's vocal performances on "CM", and the arrangements in most (tho not all) cases.

I will also add that the chorus of "A Little Something" has intermittently popped in and out of my head for decades. (I prefer the "AN" take of that one, btw.)

(...although the outro of the "CM" version is very, very nice. Just listened to it.)

AM ALL THE WAY

I like the idea of ANvsCM preference being used as some sort of baroque but highly consequential litmus test -- like the final, decisive question on a job interview.

"which version do you see yourself listening to in five years time?"

Poll?

Have you noticed that The Impossibles version of The Drum is a cover of Bongwater's cover (they also sing "bong water.') It's amazing fact Tuesday.

Wow, another version of the song I had never heard (and another great one!). Was this a “hit” in the UK? I don’t know the band...

I feel like the Love And Hates cover may have been most directly inspired by this version (the “One-two-three-four” count at the beginning...).

I don't think anything by bongwater could be called a hit, but they certainly have a cult following?

The Impossibles not Bongwater!

I remember it getting some media coverage but it wasn't a hit.

Kisses sweeter than wine was a minor hit

Yeah sorry I was taking about The Impossibles. Were they a UK band? Not finding much on them...

Yes.

Kevin Shields was involved in their first single (which featured a Dinosaur Jr.) cover. They probably would have had some indie chart hits execpt they were on a major.

Hmm... they're not on Spotify, Wikipedia doesn't know them...

I think they only put out a few singles. Sort of a made up band, but aren't they all?

A YouTube upload of their song "Therapy?" -- which seems to be a b-side from "The Drum" single -- was apparently posted by someone in Japan; so maybe they had a minor following there, which could explain the Love And Hates connection.

I find it so cool that -- in addition to "The Drum" being one of the best songs ever -- it's a song by a UK-German group that was covered by an NYC duo, which cover was in turn covered by a UK duo, and that cover was covered by a Japanese duo...

Also, what a bizarre career Anthony Moore has had.

For instance there's a couple of dozen soundtracks for experimental film directors like David Larcher, Werner Nekes and Dore O. to stand alongside his work with, er, Paul Young. None of his soundtrack work has ever been released apart from his the one for Dieter Meier's 1981 film "Jetzt und alles" - anyone ever seen this movie?

https://img.discogs.com/PXQpV1_T236YcNYaTUqur5m5IIc=/fit-in/600x597/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-766311-1359250094-2269.jpeg.jpg

The band Medicine's new album is a cover album called "Scarred for Life" - the Slapp Happy song...didn't expect that. (They also cover Zappa, Scritti Politti, Miles Davis...)

The band Medicine's new album is a cover album called "Scarred for Life" - the Slapp Happy song...didn't expect that. (They also cover Zappa, Scritti Politti, Miles Davis...)

― ernestp

...the Monkees...