S.Y.P.H.

German band somewhere between Punk, Avantgarde and Neue Deutsche Welle.
Founded 1977 by [a=Harry Rag] (Peter Braatz), [a=Uwe Jahnke] and [a=Thomas Schwebel] in Solingen/Germany. [a=Thomas Schwebel] hit upon the idea of naming the band "Syph" because it's a dirty name. [a=Harry Rag] added the periods to make it look like an acronym and confuse people. [a=S.Y.P.H.] was then translated into "Saufender Yankee Prügelt Homo" (Boozing yankee pummels fag). After 1986 it stood for "Save Your Pretty Heart"
When Schwebel said goodbye to play with [a=Mittagspause], the band was joined by [a=Uli Putsch] and [a=Jürgen Wolter]. This new formation stayed - more or less - stable until 1981, but had many changing guest musicians, including [a=Holger Czukay] from [a=Can]. In return [a=S.Y.P.H.] played with Czukay on his LP [r=72008]. [a=Uwe Jahnke] also appears on the Wobble/Liebezeit/Czukay EP "How Much Are They?".
The band paused in 2003 and is now active again.