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

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

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...

new old anthony moore on its way...

https://reflectionsonsound.bandcamp.com/album/home-of-the-demo

"Me and Neil Diamond" sounds interesting.

As you might guess from the title, the lyrics for "Earthbound Misfit" were recycled for Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly".
Moore's albums always reminded me of Roger Waters, but it never occurred to me that that resemblance might have been one reason why Gilmour was working with him (especially considering that, for A Momentary Lapse of Reason especially, that he and Bob Ezrin were specifically looking for "Waters-type" lyrics.

Source for that last bit? Given all that had happened, I'd have thought Gilmour would have wanted to get away from Waters-type stuff.

moore talks about all that in the perfect sound forever interviews

Source for that last bit?

Some article I read. Specifically I remember Ezrin bringing in Carole Pope of Rough Trade, among others, to try writing suitably mordant words to Gilmour's music.
The fear was that the Pink Floyd audience wouldn't find the reunited band convincing without the cutting lyrics, which didn't turn out to be the case.

From Drag City Weekly News:

ANTHONY MOORE PERFORMS ON BEACON HILL

Last year, Anthony Moore carried decades of art rock and experimental work into a misty recording room, and On Beacon Hill was born. The former Slapp Happy member brought a lounge act to back him, occupying an attitude somewhere between Johnny Cash and a lost episode of Twin Peaks. Now, Anthony and friends — Haydn Ackerley, Amanda Thompson, Richard Moore, and Caitlin Roberts — will put the tunes to test with a live performance of On Beacon Hill songs at London Green Note on Sunday, February 1! It's a rare occurrence that's not to be missed — get a ticket today* and listen to On Beacon Hill wherever you please.

LISTEN TO ON BEACON HILL

*https://www.greennote.co.uk/production/anthony-moore/

Nice. On Beacon Hill was a top 10 album for me last year