93-03-28 Sofa Head – No More – [Alians] – [Pissed]

Bruno, who was the main promoter for the ‘Pissed’ tour (which kinda ‘blew up’, see 93-02-27), decided to invite ‘Alians’ (my mate Rafał ‘Kazi’ Kasprzak & his friends from Poland – they’d been at the V.V. before (see 91-09-21) – to do a part of the tour with the Americans. One day, I got a call from Diff (of the Luxembourg band ‘No More’) – who was driving them – that the Polish got busted at the Swiss border for carrying ‘shit’ (or was some of their ‘mates’ who travelled with them?). They were fined and found themselves unable to continue. Bruno was in Spain (with ‘Doom’) at the moment so it was up to me to try and persuade them but I was unable too…

‘Sofa Head’, from Darlington, played tuneful hardcore-punk with great vocal harmonies by times. Their lyrics were insightful/personal-political but not weaned of some humour. They were: singer Claire Sykes (Chapman nowadays; she married Tom), bassist Ian Armstrong, guitarist ‘Wal’ James Wallis and drummer ‘Woody’ (Matt Woodward – also in ‘Kito’; not Andrew Laing who played on the records). Wal & Ian had been in ‘Dan’ before, Andrew was also in ‘H.D.Q.’ & ‘Leatherface’. Ian Armstrong ran an excellent label called Meantime recs (mostly melodic punk-rock bands) at that time and now runs Hidden Talent Booking (hiddentalentbooking.com) and manages a band called ‘Random Hand’. Nice people (I think I’d already met them in Diksmuide when ‘Inside Out’ played or was it just Ian?) – I also interviewed them for my zine Tilt!)…

‘Sofa Head’; photo courtesy of Benoit Hanssens

‘No More’, from Luxembourg (the country, not the Belgian province) were a political HC band: Claude ‘Pattex’ Werer (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (vocals) & Mike ‘Schof’ (93) (drums). This gig was around the time of the How Much Is Enough? 7” on PeaCy recs (ran by Diff and Simone Winandy). Their 3^rd time here (after 92-05-24 & 92-09-05) because they were good mates…

Brob

We had a blast in Europe!

Claire Sykes/Chapman

The line-up on the European dates was Claire, myself, Wal and Woody (Matthew Woodward) on drums, he was in the band for around 2 years but I don’t think we ever recorded with him.

Ian Armstrong

I remember playing at Vort’n Vis with both ‘Sofa Head’ and ‘Kito’ [94-07-10]. I have to admit that I can’t really remember much other than that…

Funny that Ian says I didn’t record with ‘Sofa Head’ because we recorded a live LP at The Square in Harlow, Essex, that came out on vinyl as a US only release. Weird that he forgot that!

Matt Woodward

Claire (‘Sofa Head’) in Brugge (later that year: 2 oct ’93 @ ‘De Kelk’; with ‘Four Walls Falling’, ‘Blindfold’, ‘Feeding The Fire’, ‘Nations On Fire’ & ‘Glue’) – picture by Joeri Hoste

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…