Slapp Happy/Henry Cow: Desperate Straights

I really was taking a stab in the dark when I bought this (£5.99 from Andy's Records, sometime in 1984, '85 or '86). Nowadays Slapp Happy get accorded "featured album" status on Stuart Maconie's Freakzone, but you'd never have heard them on the radio in the 1980s — unless perhaps Anthony Moore dropped into the Rock On studio.

Actually I've been in touch with Anthony Moore of Slapp Happy sporadically over the last four years, and a very fine fellow he is too. More or on that another time. And Peter Blegvad once passed favourable comment (on my copy of Word magazine) while pushing past me at a Linda Thompson gig. I think I might have spoken to Chris Cutler on the phone once. And I've already told you about my encounter with Fred Frith.

But that all came much later. At the time I didn't really know what to make of this strange mix of revolutionary communism and surrealism (or, more precisely, pataphysics), Brechtian cabaret and intellectual Zappa-esque rock. And when you put it that way, I realise I'm not much the wiser now.

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album BBC review of this album