The Shop - Nick Toczek books, albums and CDs!
Nick's online shop has a selection of his many books and CDs available for mail order. Postage in the UK is free. Overseas orders £3 per package.
Officially released on 10-10-2020 this limited edition vinyl LP is available to pre-order NOW (a few advance copies are available now).
The special website price of £15.99 for this 12 track Heavyweight Purple Vinyl LP includes P&P, a free postcard and a Download Card featuring 5 bonus tracks.
If you would like a signed copy, at no extra cost, please choose the second option.
Shooting The Messenger Vinyl LP available to pre-order
CDs written and performed by Nick Toczek
Music
Shooting The Messenger by Nick Toczek & Signia Alpha (released in 2020 by Mutiny 2000 Records) Released seconds after midnight on 1 January 2020, Shooting The Messenger is the first album of the new decade. It sees writer and spoken-word artist Nick Toczek joining forces with Signia Alpha, a musical project led by multi-instrumentalist and producer Matt Webster and featuring a host of first-rate guest musicians. The seventeen-track result is unique mixture of Nick’s poetry, lyrics and avant garde stories all set to jazz-tinged funk rhythms, post-Beat beats and atmospheric grooves, Within these tracks, tight and syncopated guitar, bass and drums are mixed with floating saxophone, melodic flute and splashes of mandolin.
From Bob Dylan to Ian Dury, Woody Guthrie to Patti Smith, Jack Kerouac to Linton Kwesi Johnston, Lou Reed to John Cooper Clarke, and David Bowie to Eminem and other rappers, setting spoken word to music has an honoured past. The current revival is exemplified by the most recent work of Nick Cave, Kate Tempest and countless Grime artists.
The Bavariations Album by Nick Toczek & Thies Marsen (released in 2019 by Not-A-Rioty Records) The result of an unlikely 18-year collaboration between UK writer and performer Nick Toczek and Bavarian indie/punk musician and songwriter Thies Marsen. Without actually meeting, working only via email, the pair created this diverse 12-song collection.
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 come with a photo booklet containing all the lyrics together with full recording details and credits.
Poetry
Dealing With The Darkness Volumes 1 & 2 (released in 2018 on Mutiny 2000 Records). This is a forty-nine track collection of poems about tackling fear – be it of death and dying, night and nightmares, faith and guilt. Its target audience is of adults, not children.
Motormouth Volumes 1 & 2 (released in 2018 on Not-A-Rioty Records.) was previously available as a very limited edition of three CDs released by Soundshack. This fifty-six track collection consists predominantly of performance poems and travel poems and is intended for all ages from teens upwards.
Selfish Men (released in 2004 on Not-A-Rioty Records). Definitely for an adult audience, this is a collection of thirty performance poems and song lyrics which deal directly male roles, masculinity, machismo, ego, self-indulgence, bluntness and brutality. These pieces are intentionally provocative, entertaining, confrontational, derogatory, deprecating and occasionally shocking. Though it was recorded in 2003 and released in 2004, this CD is as relevant today as it was back then.
Books for Children
Dragons Are Back! is a selection of the best of Nick Toczek's dragon poems (2016).
Number, Number, Cut A Cucumber contains poems particularly for younger readers (2009).
Cats'n'Bats'n'Slugs'n'Bugs is a collection of Nick's poems about creatures (2008).
Me And My Poems is a goody-bag of Nick's popular poems for all ages (2008).
All the above children's books are published by Caboodle Books.
Books for Schools
Dragons! The Musical (songbook & CD) (2005).
Dragons! The Musical (the script) (2005).
Sleeping Beauty's Dream (songbook & CD) (2003).
Sleeping Beauty's Dream (the script) (2003).
All published by Golden Apple.
Literary and Political Books for Adult Readers
The Meat Boutique is a collection of lyrics and performance-poetry was published in 1991 by PB Books, the imprint run by Paul Beasley who, with his wife, Ruth Harrison, had spent several years running the seminal London performance-poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes for whom Nick had been a regular performer. As well as writing the book, Nick designed and hand-wrote every page.
Haters, Baiters and Would-Be Dictators is an extensively researched investigation of anti-Semitism and related bigotry in Britain and the USA during the twentieth century. Published in 2016 by Routledge.