Totally InTOCZEKated
Released in 2007 by Mutiny 2000 Records, this is a twenty-five track collection of music. It features lyrics written and sung by Nick working with a variety of musicians and bands. These recordings date from 1977 to 1986 and comes with a photo booklet containing all the lyrics together with full recording details and credits.
Available to download here below or buy the Totally InTOCZEKated CD with 12 page booklet from the shop for just £7.99...
The very last track on this album, a May 1977 interview broadcast on a BBC Radio 4 programme called Weekend, is the only recording I’ve so far unearthed of Stereo Graffiti, the Birmingham-based group I founded and toured with during the 1970s. We did more than 250 shows around the UK with this music and poetry outfit which originally featured two performer-poets, me and John Row, two singer-songwriters, Kay Russell and Jim Cleary, and bassist and singer Ron Bates. When Jim left, he was replaced by Frank Crow who was later replaced by Francis Mallon. Towards the end, a further singer-songwriter, Chris Rust, also did some shows with us. The Yorkshire Post described us as ‘Pub culture at its best’ and we had a great review in The Stage.
Of the other twenty-four tracks, eight are with various incarnations of my late-1970s / early-1980s Bradford-based band, Ulterior Motives. In the summer of 1978, Kay Russell and I debuted as a punk-influenced duo supporting Bradford’s first punk band, The Negatives, at long-gone local venue, Chicago Express. That autumn, we formed Ulterior Motives with Rick Green on bass and a Roland 77 drum-machine. Our first gig was a Rock Against Racism benefit at Bradford Queen’s Hall on 25 May 1979, again supporting The Negatives.
That August, we recorded three songs – 555 Survive, Another Lover and Y’Gotta Shout – the last two of which became the double A-side 7” single which we released on our own label, Motive Music, with distribution through Red Rhino. 2,500 copies were pressed thanks to a bank loan I blagged from Lloyds Bank.
Rick and I continued the band with various other musicians for another year. Rick then left and I continued the band with assorted musicians, among them The Negatives’ drummer Tino Palmer, for another couple of years.
The final Ulterior Motives gig was in a garage at a friend’s birthday party in the summer of 1982. Some bands begin as a garage band. We ended as one!
Nick Toczek, June 2018
