Summer 1985, Toyah performed ‘Don’t Fall in Love (I Said)’ on German music show Formel Eins. This was the only time Toyah ever wore the black rubber dress during a performance. Click below for larger caps.
The photographer Eric Watson, who took great photographs of numerous pop stars in the 80s, including Toyah, for ‘Smash Hits’ magazine, died on 18th March.
Born in Newcastle, Eric moved to London in 1974 and studied fine art at Hornsey College of Art from 1977 to 1980. His fellow students included Stuart Goddard (who became Adam Ant) and Mike Barson from Madness. On leaving college, he worked as an assistant to the photographers Red Saunders and Gered Mankowitz (known collectively as the Rembrandt Brothers), then photographing covers for Madness and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
In 1981 he was invited to work for Smash Hits, after the editor, David Hepworth, saw photographs Watson had shot for Madness. He became the magazine’s main photographer and at around the same time Neil Tennant, whom he knew through a mutual friend from Newcastle, was made assistant editor.
Read a tribute to Eric, from former ‘Smash Hits’ editor, David Hepworth and his obituary from ‘The Guardian’. (Thanks to Gill)
Toyah’s 10th song choice from My Vintage, ‘Mad World’. “I don’t think I’m alone in making the mistake I made with this song when I asked a member of REM when they released ‘Mad World’. They very kindly pointed out it was Tears For Fears.
When the film Donnie Darko came out, which I sat through. It’s a pretty hard film to sit through, and then ‘Mad World’ came up at the end, and it was so potent and powerful. Suddenly that song was everywhere, and it had relevance and meaning…”
• Read the full transcript of the reasons for this song choice here.
Toyah guested on My Vintage on Vintage TV earlier this month, choosing 12 songs of significance.
Click on each of the songs below to read in detail what Toyah said about each of her song choices. The final two soon!
Love Is The Drug – Roxy Music
The Jean Genie – David Bowie
The Killing Moon – Echo & The Bunnymen
Tiny Dancer – Elton John
The Passenger – Iggy Pop
All Along The Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush
Walk On The Wild Side – Lou Reed
Stay – Shakespears Sister
Mad World – Tears For Fears
Even Better Than The Real Thing – U2
The Lovecats – The Cure
A post from ‘Vintage TV’ Facebook yesterday: ATTENTION one and all. There are only 4 days left to enter our competition to win a pair of tickets to one of Toyah’s 6 April tour dates. Don’t miss out. Go here.
Celebrity Fantasy Homes: BBC Lifestyle (Sweden): Friday 6th April: 11.45am
The original punk girl has set her heart on moving to the Richmond area.
Toyah guested on BBC1’s Ask Aspel on 16th June 1981, talking music, songwriting, acting, presenting and answering viewer’s questions. Includes clips from the ATV docu and The Tempest. Not great quality but interesting all the same.
There are two opportunities to catch Toyah’s “classic” Tales Of The Unexpected episode, ‘Blue Marigold’, on UK television today. Set your recorders as you will most likely be at work/asleep.
The episode, from the fifth series of the much-loved 70s/80s drama, is airing at 1pm and 1am on Sky Arts 2 (Sky Ch 130, Virgin Media Ch 283).
It’s almost exactly 30 years since this first aired on ITV.
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts 2: Tuesday 27th March: 1.00pm
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts 2: Wednesday 28th March: 1.15am
Blue Marigold. Series 5, Episode 1. Dropped by her agency for her diva-like behaviour, supermodel Marigold’s mental health deteriorates. Years later, she plots a comeback. Director: Giles Foster. Starring: Toyah Willcox, Ralph Bates, Sharon Duce, Helen Fraser, Billy Hamon, Edward Jewesbury.
The official ‘Rock & Bike Festival’ website has Toyah listed as playing this year’s four-day festival in July.
This will be the third consecutive year Toyah has appeared at the Derbyshire event.
As with all gigs it’s advisable not to book until Toyah is officially confirmed.
The Rock & Bike Fest ’12: Thursday 12th – Saturday 14th July 2012 Elvaston Castle Showground, Borrowash Road, Derby
If you’re into Rock Music and Bikes or just festivals in general then this is for you. The Rock & Bike Fest moves to a new home at Elvaston Castle Showground, in Derby, and will happen from 12th until 14th of July 2012.
The first acts confirmed for the two stages are: Saturday night headliners The Sweet, plus Toyah Willcox, x-UFO, Killerz, Guns N Roses Experience, Rammlied, Sack Sabbath, OC/DC, Jilted Generation, Evilscarecrow, Jester, Stage Fright, Gatecrasher, Faithealer/Junction, Hell On High Heelz + more to follow including Friday night headliners.
Glitterbug, Derek Jarman’s final film, from 1994 includes brief Toyah footage from filming Jubilee in 1977. View a great article on it at Dangerous Minds.
…a prelude to Jubilee, a young flame-haired Toyah Willcox, The Sex Pistols, Jordan and a dress rehearsal for what will become The Last of England, as she pirouettes around a burning Union Jack, Adam Ant, hair-cutting, the Silver Jubilee.
Glitterbug Derek Jarman’s Super 8 films, with Andrew Logan, Duggie Fields, Tilda Swinton, Michael Clark, Adam Ant, Toyah Willcox, William Burroughs and Genesis P. Orridge. Music by Brian Eno, specially commissioned for this film.
I hope to occasionally bring you some rare Toyah footage. Here’s Toyah performing ‘Danced’ live on Friday Night Saturday Morning in 1980. The also performed ‘Mummies’.
• Kylie channels her inner Toyah: Kylie Minogue is celebrating the 25th anniversary of her music career this year, “K25”. I’m not sure how recent this photo is, though it does have the anniversary logo on it. There’s definitely a Toyah, circa 1981, influence going on. The ‘TITM’ swirls & hairpiece, the ‘GMU’ braids, the forehead make-up :)
• Toyah fan (and my friend since the beginning of Dreamscape) Sabine Bode from Germany has started her own comedy show. Sabine takes to the stage to the sound of Toyah’s ‘Sensational’ from 2008’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’.
• Toyah on TV (in Sweden): Toyah’s edition of Celebrity Fantasy Homes airs on BBC Lifestyle, Friday 6th April at 11.45am.
Another recent, and interesting, article on Jubilee, the film that becomes more celebrated by the month. This one by ‘Network Awesome’.
After the release of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee in 1978, Vivienne Westwood, outraged at what she saw as a misrepresentation of punk, took to her then preferred medium, the t-shirt, to express her displeasure. The “Open T-Shirt to Derek Jarman,” with its wordy scrawl, is a rather confusing cultural artifact in that it now seems rather counterproductive. For starters, punk certainly had more important enemies in 1978 than a queer experimental filmmaker and visual artist, a fellow member of the counterculture whether she liked it or not…
Let me run riot of colour, over you…
You wait 25 years and then, not one but, two very rare photos of Toyah from 1987 (a year I prefer to refer to as “the ‘Desire’ era”) surface.
This one is from an official EG print, and, as with all of the fantastic ‘Desire’ promotional photography, is likely to have been taken by Carrie Branovan.
If I was wealthy I would definitely publish a Toyah Photo Book: ‘Visions’. Full sessions, rare photos, outtakes… Every coffee table would want one! Toyah’s amazing visual imagery, both past and present, really should be captured for posterity. Anyway, back to reality! (Thanks to Michael for this great photo)
The full edition of Tonight with Jonathan Ross, which originally aired on Channel 4 in January 1991, with Toyah guesting is available to watch at ‘You Tube’. Watch here and click below to view larger versions of the caps.
This incredibly rare shot of Toyah, from the 1987 ‘Desire’ era photo shoot, has recently been listed on eBay.
The seller is a photographer who has taken photos of numerous pop stars and says of this one: From my own collection… A posed and gorgeous, stunning, different and rare, promo 35mm slide, a great posed close up. One of the best we ever had. Cool pic!
Great that an unseen photo should surface in the 25th anniversary year of ‘Desire’.
Another tour-related Toyah tweet yesterday, with some amazing news included. ‘Voodoo Doll’ from 1981, released on the 12″ of ‘Thunder In The Mountains’, will be included in ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ setlist:
“My goodness VooDoo Doll is a really good song! My B-sides rocked! Even if I say so myself . Def in the new set.”
Of course many of Toyah’s “b-sides” were better than most band’s “a-sides”: Laughing With The Fools, Street Addict, War Boys, Alien, In The Fairground, Warrior Rock, Baptised in Fire, I Explode, Haunted, Snow Covers The Kiss, Plenty… (not forgetting For You, a flexi b-side). An almost perfect setlist in itself! A Toyah “Blistering B-Sides” tour, anyone?
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.
It’s a Mad world: The trailer for Jubilee has just been uploaded to ‘You Tube’. View here and click below for larger screen caps. The movie, Toyah’s first, premiered in 1978 and just celebrated its 34th anniversary.
A 5DVD box set of Derek Jarman films is released, by Umbrella Entertainment (who just uploaded the trailer for Jubilee to ‘You Tube’), in Australia on 2nd May 2012. The set includes both films Toyah starred in, Jubilee and The Tempest.
The Derek Jarman Collection: DVD A collection of five astonishing films from a visionary British filmmaker: Actors: Tilda Swinton, Laurence Olivier, Sean Bean, Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant.
The Tempest (1979): The tale of a potent magician, banished by his brother and the King to live on a desolate isle with his daughter. Last Of England (1988): A dark meditation on London under Thatcher. Jubilee (1978): Queen Elizabeth I visits late twentieth century Britain to discover a confronting civilisation. Sebastiane (1976): In Rome, 300 A.D, a man is exiled to a remote outpost populated exclusively by men. War Requiem (1989): A stirring visual representation of Benjamin Brittens famed work.
This great ‘Crimson Queen’ Toyah art by Cliff Matthews is definitely worth another look. It really captures Toyah’s “Crimson Queen” aura and would look amazing on a wall!
It’s available to buy: £285 (70x50cm, acrylics on box canvas), and Toyah herself has saw the painting and given it her seal of approval and trademark “Big Love” autograph.
View the painting here and Toyah with Cliff, here.
It would be good if the same could happen with Mark Satchwill’s amazing works of Toyah art.
