Biography
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Years Active
1972 – present (52 years)
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Founded In
Hamburg, Germany
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Members
- Anthony Moore
- Dagmar Krause
- Peter Blegvad
Slapp Happy was a German/English pop group formed in Germany in 1972 when British keyboardist and avant-garde composer Anthony Moore invited his friend, New York guitarist/artist/cartoonist/poet Peter Blegvad, to come over to Hamburg. Moore had already released several albums of “new music” for Polydor. When Polydor rejected one of his albums outright, he proposed a pop-oriented project instead. Local girl Dagmar Krause, a former member of the folk-rock group City Preachers, was recruited as vocalist and Slapp Happy was born.
Their early sound was a quirky, cabaret-inflected pop-rock with witty, literate lyrics from Blegvad. Their first two albums featured members of Faust in the backing band, although the second was later re-recorded with session musicians for Virgin records.
By 1975, they had been interleaved with the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, a union that produced two important works: a theatrical, Kurt Weill-esque set of songs entitled Desperate Straights and a much more daunting and avant-garde set entitled In Praise Of Learning.
The band has had fitful reunions ever since, sometimes just for the odd single, but often for major projects (the 1991 television opera Camera and the 1998 studio album Ça Va, for example).
Krause, Moore and Blegvad reformed Slapp Happy again in November 2016 to perform with Faust at the Week-End festival in Cologne, Germany. The two groups also played on 10–11 February 2017 at Cafe Oto in London. On 24 February 2017 Slapp Happy (without Faust) performed at Mt. Rainer Hall, Shibuya in Tokyo. In September 2017, Slapp Happy and Faust played at the 10th Rock in Opposition festival in Carmaux, France. They made a final appearance in November 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.
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