Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

The dedication and commitment of the super fan is something we never take for granted at Cherry Red. Their passion and energy for artists is the lifeblood of any musician’s career, and in our latest blog piece we celebrate that with a wonderful piece by writer and designer Chris Limb.

Chris has been a steadfast Toyah fan since the early 80s and wrote I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan; a fascinating example of loyalty and affection that serves as a window into the soul of any ardent music lover.

It is 1981. I am seeing Toyah play live. For the first time I am actually in the same room as her, albeit a very large room. There she is, over there. I can see her with my eyes.

It is 1991. I am putting together the latest issue of the Toyah Fan Club magazine Tellurian, a cut and paste concoction of photocopied articles as well as a handwritten letter to the fans from Toyah herself. I am typing up the lyrics for her new album Ophelia’s Shadow to include in it; once finished I’ll then take it to a print shop in Store Street WC1 to get a few hundred copies run off.

It is 2001. I am in a recording studio in Nuneaton where Toyah is recording guest vocals on a track by the band Chester with whom I currently play bass. The track will eventually be put out under the band name Family of Noise.

It is 2011. I am putting the finishing touches to the manuscript for my memoir I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan which grew out of a series of blog posts I’d written about my experiences some thirty years previously. I am about to self-publish this as both a paperback and an ebook.

It is 2021. I am writing this blog entry about Toyah and the impression she’s made on my life over the past 40 plus years.

• Continue reading at Cherry Red. Browse Dreamscape’s I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan news archive. There’s much more IWATTF content in our vast News Archive (scroll to around 2010 – 2012).

There’s a great article on I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan, and an interview with its author, Chris Limb, in the latest (Issue 58, September 2014) of Mick Mercer’s The Mick magazine. It’s available in PDF for free and can be read by clicking below.  (Photo © Dean Stockings)

The brilliant I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan can be bought in paperback at Amazon. Visit the book’s website. Read more of Dreamscape’s IWATTF related news here.

• An Occasional Plug: I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan chronicles a slice of adolescent life from late 1979 to late 1986 and recalls the experience of being a pop music fan in the early eighties, evoking the feelings of a very different time before the internet, mobile phones or multi-channel TV put media at our fingertips.

• Strawberry Line Times: Sat 27 Apr. Theatre preview: ex punk Toyah teams up with Julie Coombe for a hormonal moment: The former pink haired punk rocker Toyah Willcox is appearing in Bristol next month in Hormonal Housewives. She stars in the show at the Bristol Hippodrome with Julie Coombe.

• Robert Fripp’s Diary: Lots of “behind-the-scenes” photos from the ‘At Home’ part of the forthcoming All Star Mr & Mrs programme. Robert says: “A four-hour visit for perhaps two minutes of screentime“. Looks like the adorable Willyfred was ready for his close up!

• Red Funnel: Jack Up The 80s: 10-11 August 2013. Don’t miss this great new 2 day 80’s music event featuring Heaven 17, Bad Manners, Katrina and the Waves, Bootleg Blondie and Toyah to name just a few.

• _Black_Acrylic: Derek Jarman – Jubilee: Jubilee is a 1978 cult film directed by Derek Jarman. It stars Jenny Runacre, Ian Charleson, and a host of punk rockers, including Adam Ant and Toyah. The title refers to the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977.

• The Quietus: Adam Ant On Fashion, Back-Carving & MJ: Interesting video interview with Adam in which he also talks about Jubilee.

• BBC America Doctor Who Specials: Three of the documentaries Toyah guested in last year, The Women Of Doctor Who, The Timey Wimey Of Doctor Who, The Destinations Of Doctor Who, have been released on R1 DVD. Although they are on a standalone disc with its own artwork (see photo) they can only be purchased as part of a huge, 41-disc, six-series spanning, box set. View more info on the BBC America DW specials here.

• Birmingham Music Heritage (Untold Stories 1965-1985): Below, Toyah Willcox, Fuzz Townshend of Pop Will Eat Itself, and former Black Sabbath manager Jim Simpson, along with Birmingham band manager and promoter, Barry Tomes talk about Birmingham’s venues of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

The excellent I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan is currently available in paperback from lulu.com for £5 + P&P. Use the coupon code SPARK to save a further 20% off the listed price. This represents the cheapest opportunity to buy the paperback since it was published in late 2011 (Offer ends 8th March 2013 at 11:59pm).

• View Dreamscape’s recent news on I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan.

• I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan: The Kindle edition of “I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan” is available for just 80p at Amazon – A coming of age tale of Adolescent Misadventures in Eighties Pop. You don’t have to have a Kindle to read it – Kindle editions are also readable on iPhones, iPads, Macs, PCs and many more portable devices with the Kindle app. The paperback has been dropped to £5.99 + P&P on Lulu.

• Behind The Sofa: Celebrity Memories Of Doctor Who: In which Toyah contributes a memory, is now available to pre-order and goes on general release, in print and digitally, in late September: Behind The Sofa is a collection of over 100 celebrity memories of Doctor Who, compiled in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK. Steve Berry decided to undertake this project in memory of his mother Janet, who suffered from Alzheimer’s in her final years and passed away in 2009. The book has taken more than four years to put together and its publication has been “crowd-funded” by the pre-orders of an enthusiastic Whovian community. More details at Troubador and Amazon.

• Something to look forward to: It looks likely that Toyah’s 1987 album ‘Desire’ will be reissued, on download, later this year. Toyah’s Official Facebook said on Sunday: “There are no plans for a CD reissue of Desire. Plans for a digital release later in 2012 however.”

• Thanks for the feedback on Stevie Bray’s interview, and to everyone who has visited the feature so far.

• ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ has now been available for over six months. The Kindle version, from Amazon, can be bought for the very bargainesque 80p. You don’t even need a Kindle to read it! View all of our IWATTF news here.

• Stylish Elegance: Toyah Willcox is 54 today…

The free PDF magazine “The Mick”, from Mick Mercer, this month contains his review of ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ as well as over 100 pages of music reviews and ruminations from 2011… Well worth a download.

(News Source: I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan Facebook)

• View all of FTE’s ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ news.

In the run up to the final date of the Changeling Resurrection tour at Bishops Stortford, there will be another Amazon promotion involving I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan.  The Kindle edition (normally £1.96) will once more be available free from 8.00am on Friday 4 May for 48 hours.

This promotion expires at 8.00am on the morning of Sunday 6 May and is the last occasion on which the Kindle edition will be available for no charge, although as ever the first chapter will remain downloadable gratis on Amazon on a try-before-you-buy basis.

Of course many of you will already have the book by now, but this is an ideal opportunity to spread the word to your Kindle-owning friends!

(News Source: I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan Facebook)

A new article, by Chris Limb, on his memoir ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’.

After a while the novelty of there being an Amazon page for my book began to wear off.  It was no longer enough for me to browse to it and look adoringly at a page on which the spaces in the dynamic web template were filled by my own creation’s meta-data. So I had self-published. How was I going to promote it? Even though it was now available in paperback and ebook, the thing wasn’t going to sell itself.

• Continue reading, at ‘Catmachine’, here.

‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ in paperback is now available at Amazon Germany, France, Spain and Italy, priced €12.99. The book was already on sale at Amazon.com and .co.uk, and is also available in a Kindle edition. Further info here.

Last month’s I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan Amazon Kindle promotion was a big success for the book.

A Facebook update on this today, with a screenshot of the Amazon chart: Last months chart showing during the Amazon KDP Select promotion (it actually went a few places higher but this was the only screen shot I got).

View a larger version of the screenshot. Congratulations to Chris.

A post at ‘Catmachine’, by Chris Limb, on Thursday’s free kindle version of ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’.

The experiment of making the Kindle edition of my book I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan available free for 24 hours under Amazon’s KDP Select scheme was an interesting one and seems to have been a success in its own way – in 24 hours it was downloaded just shy of 700 times and peaked at number 50 in the Kindle chart.

Whether this translates into a greater visibility of the book in the long run is another matter (I would hope so) but even if it doesn’t one thing I can say is that hundreds more people will have read my book than before. And that, after all, is what it is all about.

• Continue reading, at ‘Catmachine’, here.

Great News! An update this morning, on yesterday’s promotion, from ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ Facebook: “The Amazon promotion making the Kindle edition of the book free for a day yesterday went well – just shy of 700 downloads in 24 hours with the book peaking at number 50 in the Kindle charts.”

An actual physical copy is something special though, and a great addition to a book (or Toyah) collection. Visit the I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan website for details on how to buy the book.

From ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ Facebook: This is just advance warning of a promotion – the Kindle edition of the book will be available FREE from Amazon on 29 March 2012 (tomorrow) only. The competition to win an ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan – Were You?’ t-shirt is also still open.

Four brilliant photos of, ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan’ author, Chris Limb and Toyah. One of each from the last four decades: 1983, 1993, 2001 and 2011.

Win an ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan – Were You?’ t-shirt. Visit the book’s Facebook page for more details.

There’s further info on the book and the various ways you can purchase a copy over at toyah.org.

You bought and read the, ruddy excellent, book… so why not go one step further and be loud, proud and seen in your ‘I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan – Were You?’ t-shirt.

There are numerous colours to choose from. Go here for more details on how to add the ‘IWATTF’ to your t-shirt collection.