Full disclosure – I bought this on our recent trip to Minneapolis because it was on the city’s own Profane Existence Records label and I assumed, as it turns out incorrectly, that Sofa Head was a local band. And… I was wrong. But from the ashes of my mistake I inadvertently discovered a pretty damn cool record.
I couldn’t find a ton of info online about Sofa Head. I did run across a one-page zine interview in Profane Existence #2 from 1990, which you can read HERE, and it sounds like a longer piece from the same conversation was in Maximum Rocknroll later that same year, though unfortunately there isn’t a scanned version online and I’m not interested enough to buy a copy on eBay. The Profane Existence piece was fairly cursory, though it does address the band’s formation – upon the end of the punk band Dan, Ian Armstrong and Ian Wallis connected with vocalist Claire Sykes to form what eventually became Sofa Head.
Sofa Head’s style is clearly punk, with much of Pre Marital Yodelling leaning in the hardcore direction – songs like “Have A Nice Day!” blast through the speakers at you, though others such as “A World Fit For Nothing” start at full speed before slowing down a bit, maintaining punk attitude but with a bit less urgency. They do break free from the mold a few times, however, and these are some of the album’s very best tracks. The funky bassline on “Respect” strikes a ska-like tone (though without horns…) and “A Friendship Lost” is just a straight ahead rock ‘n’ roller, while the driving percussion on “Grown Ups”, coupled with the slightly distorted vocals, is probably my favorite song on the album.1
As near as I can tell Pre Marital Yodelling was only put out on vinyl, though it appears in its entirety on the 2015 CD band compilation Pre Marital Predicament along with Sofa Head’s sophomore album What A Predicament. As of today it isn’t on Spotify either, but an intrepid user has posted it on YouTube HERE if you want to give it a digital spin.
- Full disclosure… I’m hoping I have these track titles right. The silent grooves between tracks are very light and thin, and with nine songs on one side and eight on the other, well… I could have mis-tilted something. ↩︎