Nick ToczekJun 24, 20193 minA Story That Makes The World Seem Much Smaller One of my hobbies is researching family history. The death of my father in August 2012 prompted me to start finding out about his German...
Nick ToczekJun 12, 20194 minGOING DUTCHIn September 1983, I did a manic drug-and-alcohol fueled ten-day Dutch tour with Leeds punk-rockers To Be Continued. After I’d done my...
Nick ToczekFeb 7, 20194 minBOILING AND FRYINGIn September 1968, days before my eighteenth birthday, I moved out of my parental home in Yorkshire and into digs in Birmingham. Thus...
Nick ToczekJan 23, 20195 minPRUDENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIESI had my first slim pamphlet of poems published in 1972 by Aqulia. A couple of dozen more followed over the next two decades, all from...
Nick ToczekDec 5, 20187 minPeteThe late 1960s saw me leave our family home in Shipley, Yorkshire to take up a three-year stint as an Industrial Metallurgy student at...
Nick ToczekNov 12, 20185 minJust DesertsHere’s my third piece about the US tour I did with punk bands The Instigators and The Detonators in 1986. If you missed the other two,...
Nick ToczekNov 5, 20183 minRootsIn August 1973, I was appearing at The Traverse Theatre as a performance poet on The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There and at whatever...
Nick ToczekOct 24, 20181 minCat Bat MattThis must’ve been a year or so after the Millennium. I’m standing in our kitchen doing the washing-up when Matt, our eleven-year-old son,...
Nick ToczekOct 10, 20184 minNot Meeting BillIn a previous story (Noo Joysie n Noo Yawk), I wrote about the start of my 1986 US tour with two punk bands – fellow Yorkshiremen, The...
Nick ToczekSep 20, 20183 minFrom Here To MaternityGaynor and I met on Christmas Day 1979. We were married on 8 September 1984 and became parents with the birth of our daughter, Becci, on...
Nick ToczekSep 12, 20184 minThe Feeding of the Seven ThousandIn the six years between 1982 and 1986 I ran weekly punk and indie gigs in Keighley, Bradford and Leeds. Often the bands I’d booked and...
Nick ToczekSep 2, 20184 minSitting in the Departure LoungeIt was June 2014 and I was at my granddaughter’s eighth birthday party. The youngest of the invited children was a five-year-old called...
Nick ToczekAug 21, 20185 minA Price On My HeadDuring the late 1970s and early 1980s, my proto-punk band, Ulterior Motives, played several gigs in The Vaults Bar which was in what had...
Nick ToczekAug 11, 20184 minAdded Words of WisdomI love it when people say something fairly simple and then follow it with an extraordinary explanation. Here are three examples of that....
Nick ToczekAug 6, 20187 minLate Room2019 marks my fiftieth year as a performer. I first went on stage – terrified – to read a few of my poems in the main hall of the...
Nick ToczekJul 29, 20184 minConfessionWhether it’s been due to a pregnancy or being gay, quitting education or having acquired a tattoo, abandoning a religion or needing help...
Nick ToczekJul 24, 20184 minEmbarrassing BodyTravelodge provides cheap overnight accommodation. There’s one of their hotels at Toddington services on the M1, about thirty miles north...
Nick ToczekJul 19, 20184 minOffensive ParkingIn June 1981 I received a letter addressed to The Occupier of 5 Beech Terrace. Written on behalf of the Head Postmaster, it read: ‘ Dear...
Nick ToczekJul 15, 20182 minComedyWe’re in a taxi in Gateshead, four of us, Gaynor and me and our two closest friends, Caroline and Paul. We’re up here from Bradford for a...
Nick ToczekJul 9, 20183 minA Toast To BrevityThere’s some kudos, a certain degree of cool to being a music journalist. Obviously, it’s got more than a little to do with the fact that...