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.
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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
