10/09/2025
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The fabulous NICK TOCZEK has written a wonderful 'Stevie Testimonial' for the Vainglorious book - and he will also be performing, (and MC'ing), on the Nov 2nd event at The Brudenell - get your £15 entry 'inc copy of the book combination-tickets' asap while they're still available at .com - Don't delay much longer as this event is heading towards a sell out!!!
https://brudenellsocialclub.seetickets.com/event/vainglorious-stevie-vayne-s-autobiography-launch/brudenell-social-club/3479120
BUT - in the meantime - Read below:-
"A very funny memory from Nick of the first time Stevie ever went on a European Tour (with his precursor band to The Dead Vaynes - 'To Be Continued') - take it away Nick"
Nick Toczek says: - (with some interjection, artistic license, from Stevie)
In September 1983, I did a manic drug-and-alcohol fueled ten-day Dutch
tour with Leeds Punk-Rock’n’Rollers 'To Be Continued'.
After I’d done my opening poetry set, they’d come on and back me on a couple, or three, songs - before doing their own set.
Everything went wrong.
We’d no money so my student partner, Gaynor, lent us her grant money.
The band’s drummer quit the day before we were due to set off. With hours to spare, singer Stevie, persuaded his brother to stand in.
However, the ex-drummer had been the only one of us with a driving licence.
The bassist therefore ‘borrowed’ his dad’s driving licence - which I then adapted.
First I rubbed it in engine oil and crumpled it up to make it difficult to read, then I erased his dad’s first name and his age before carefully penciling in the bassist’s details. Somehow, this secured us a rental van in Amsterdam and we toured - driven by our unqualified bassist.
When we crashed head-on into a car a couple of days later, the police were called and they demanded to see our driver’s licence - Panic!? - "No Chance!!"
Luckily, the other folks car had suffered only slight damage, so the owner agreed to accept a hundred in cash, and the cops waved us on.
Our van, however, needed repairing. With no funds for accommodation, we were sleeping mostly on whatever floorspace we were offered. Cleanliness had been marginalized. At the garage, the mechanics refused to work on the vehicle due to the overwhelming "stench of us" throughout the vehicle. 'God knows how a metal-bodied Transit could retain that subhuman stench, but it did.' - After leaving all the doors open overnight, they finally fixed it, 'stench-lite', the following morning.
One of our first gigs had been at Amsterdam’s prestigious hippie-run Melkweg. From the moment we arrived there, we began stretching their hospitality and tolerance.
We drank our generous rider in the first half-hour, then found and drank the sound-crew’s rider, much to their subsequent anger. Bang went all hope of sounding good. They’d make dead sure of that. Oblivious, we bought more booze, and proceeded with our pre-gig druggery and partying.
The venue had a guest-book signed by every band that had played there. We were asked to sign it too. Instead, Gaynor and '###XX?', who was Stevie’s girlfriend, drew crude cartoons over some of the most impressive signings. The rest of us joined in and, between us, we destroyed their precious book, tearing out and ripping up all the pages signed by bands we didn’t like - (Stevie interjects, and claims; "I played no part in the desecration of the book") - but by now "even the building itself hated us"
Five hundred people had made the effort to come out and see us at the Milkweg. I slurred through a short solo set, then invited the band to come on and join me, new drummer still mostly unrehearsed, all rat-arsed, Stevie actually 'beyond' playing. We did two very ropey versions of my poet-songs - it was a shambles, 'fronted by what was left of me', I quit the stage and left 'To Be Continued' to it. By the time they’d done p**s poor parodies of their own first few numbers, coupled with the p**sed off 'booze-robbed' sound crew 'assassinating whatever music the band hadn’t already killed themselves', the audience was down to less than fifty.
(Stevie says "there's no business like show business folks - and even though it's a long way to the top if you wanna Rock'n'Roll - if you use 'Metallic KO' as your compus, we'll, I'm claiming it was a total success")
Post-gig, I went to collect our fee. The venue directors were actually about to pay me when chaos broke out.
One member of the 'To Be Continued' band had decided to continue being 'A Rock Star' and climbed onto a table in the bar - stripped naked - (can you take one guess at who that might have been?) - the rest of the band had responded by grabbing fire extinguishers and turning them on him.
Fine white clouds of fire-retardant powder rapidly spread through the entire venue. It went everywhere, even getting inside the sleeves of each and every album on the racks behind the DJ’s desk.
The venues patience wearing thin, their management team refused to pay me until we’d cleaned up the whole place (we really needed the money - what you gonna do?)
We worked all night, (well not Stevie of course), alongside half a dozen members of staff and a bunch of Dutch punk fans - (who’d then stay with us for the rest of the tour) - We got no sleep, but the place, eventually, achieved some semblance of 'what it had been like before we’d turned up' - (Stevie says; "Punk-Rock'n'Roll - it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it")
Dutch hippies are too nice. The next morning, before we left, they made us all a massive hot cooked breakfast AND they paid us our fee - "bless their hippy tye-dye h**p socks"
We’d gone a few miles towards the next venue when we discovered that 'the punks', "now actually travelling with us in the back of the van itself", were sitting on a whole haul of things they’d stolen from the venue.
Their b***y included a couple of bikes 'that belonged to the Milkweg staff', (that was baad), and also some crates of beer too, (that was good)
Those punks would end up keeping us supplied with drugs and alcohol for the rest of the tour dates - "thieving scroats - but may the Gods of Punk-Rock'n'Roll love 'em forever, and a day more on top"
Somehow, we survived and completed that tour.
My final memory is of the all-night party at the end of the whole thing. When we ran out of drink at about three in the morning, one of the punks said he’d go to the supermarket to get more. He never returned. It was only after we’d been home for a while that I heard he was in prison 'after spending several days in hospital' - We’d assumed he’d been going to an 'all-night supermarket'. Wrong. He’d gone to a supermarket that was 'closed-for-the-night', his plan being to burgle it on our behalf. However, having climbed drunkenly onto the roof, he’d then fallen through a skylight.
I’ve no idea what became of him or his friends. As for us lot:-
'###XX?' went on to small screen stardom as a 'Top Soap Actress' - (no clues given, we wouldn't want to cause her any grief - not over 40 years after the event)
To Be Continued morphed into the 'now-legendary Leeds cult band The (Dead) Vaynes'
Gaynor and I got married a year later. Several decades on, we’re still together, and that tour is a 'much cherished memory' of a crazy-fabulous time we shared - (along with Stevie and the whole crew) - we still laugh out loud about it all to this very day - hope you've enjoyed the story too.
Stevie Says:
"Now that's a memory...the rest of that tour was actually even more daft...but hey...didn't somebody once say 'no sleep till Amsterdam!' - or was it Hammersmith?"
: ...another town, another place, another girl, another face... :
VAYNEGLORIOUS out Nov 4th, Pre-release launch Nov 2nd at The Brudenell Leeds 6...
