Psychic Therapy, Bio’s one-hour special on Toyah which was originally broadcast in September 2009, airs again on the channel later this month.
Psychic Therapy: Toyah Willcox: Bio: Fri 20th April: 1pm Toyah Willcox. Gordon Smith journeys into the remarkably diverse career of Toyah Willcox – singer, actress, presenter, writer and businesswoman. Psychic medium, Smith, reveals some of the star’s innermost secrets, delving into her past and predicting her future with help from the spirit world.
‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’, Toyah’s highly-anticipated new tour, opens in a week’s time in Brighton. Toyah will be playing songs live that she hasn’t performed for 30 years!
Counting down to the first gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’… To mark the build-up to this exciting tour, and the first date, I’ll be bringing you something Changeling related each day…
Seven days to go and first up, let’s marvel, once more, at some of Andrew York’s incredible Changeling art. Click on these to view more.
Toyah’s final song choice from My Vintage, ‘The Lovecats’ by The Cure.
“My career has spanned many decades. My first success with music actually started in the late Seventies when I started to top the Indie Chart. I was actually number one on the first Indie charts for 12 months. Then, in 1981 I started to have mainstream hits, and the interesting thing about “Eighties” music, it’s perceived as quite popularist but there were some artists around in the Eighties who were incredibly diverse…”
• Read the full transcript of the reasons for this song choice here.
As mentioned a couple of days ago, this page has received huge amounts of visitors via the recent ‘Audley End 2012’ posts. This has increased over the last two days.
As there are a lot of visitors simply looking for info on, or a link to, ‘Audley End Picnic Concerts’ I’ve tagged all the posts related to this topic. Find them all here.
On Saturday 4th August it’s time to relive your youth with The Greatest 80′s Party…Ever! Hit 80s artists Rick Astley, Jimmy Somerville, Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw, T’Pau, Toyah, Wang Chung and Dr and the Medics will wow the crowd into a party frenzy with their famous hit songs.
Brighton’s Concorde2 mailed out their April newsletter to subscribers today. It includes news on Toyah’s forthcoming gig at the venue, plus a chance to win tickets for it.
Saturday 14th April Sanctuary Music presents TOYAH WILLCOX THE CHANGELING RESURRECTION 2012 TOUR
Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of ‘The Changeling’, Toyah & her full band, will perform a selection of songs from the album alongside classic material as heard on the ‘Warrior Rock’ live album.
* TOYAH WILLCOX COMPETITION *
This week we are giving you the chance to win a pair of tickets to see TOYAH @ CONCORDE2 on Saturday 14th April, all you need to do is answer this simple question…
“Tell us the name of Toyah’s 2012 tour…?” Send your answers to hello@concorde2.co.uk, winners will be contacted by email no later than Monday 9th April.
Focusing on the much-loved Barry Plummer 1981 photo shoot for this “Classic Toyah” post. This session featured significantly in the book ‘Toyah’ by Mike West, The ‘Official Toyah Annual’ from 1982 and various European and Japanese press articles. Click below to view larger versions, and view more from this photo session at Dreamscape’s 1981 gallery page.
The 10 most popular Toyah downloads at ‘iTunes’ currently are: 1. I Want To Be Free (way ahead due to being included on ‘Ministry of Sound: Anthems Alternative 80s’), 2. It’s A Mystery, 3. Thunder In The Mountains, 4. Rebel Run, 5. Pop Star, 6. Demolition Men, 7. Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You), 8. I Am, 9. Obsolete, 10. Jungles Of Jupiter.
‘Herding Cats’ – Guide Cats For The Blind Volume 5, which includes ‘Pearl’ by Toyah, is available to download at iTunes. Tracks can also be downloaded individually.
Toyah narrates ‘Pearl’: A story of unrequited love.
All for a great cause. The ‘Guide Cats For The Blind’ series of CDs and digital downloads are released in aid of the British Computer Association of the Blind (BCAB). The acclaimed ‘Guide Cats’ series has now raised more than £50,000 for the EyeT4All project!
• Listen to a preview of ‘Pearl’, and all the other tracks, at ‘iTunes’, here. View more info on BCAB here.
Happy Good Friday! There’s just over a week until the opening gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’: More promotion for the tour, Sanctuary Music’s poster and The Official Toyah ad strip. The Glasgow gig has of course been rescheduled since the poster was produced.
Toyah is included in today’s ‘My Virgin Money Magazine’ feature “How childhood shapes our attitudes to money”.
It’s generally recognised that the way we manage our money throughout adulthood is influenced by our experiences of it when we’re growing up.
Mark Anstead spoke to some well-known people to discover the extent of this lasting impact, whether good or bad – from learning how to save as well as spend to preferring to buy second-hand, from learning how to prioritise to not relying on credit.
Toyah Willcox, actress
Initially my childhood was very affluent. Then, when I was seven years old, my father was hit badly by a slump in the stock market and he lost everything. It affected me by contributing to my strong drive to be financially secure and independent, but I’m also incredibly cautious with money because I’ve seen how easily you can lose it. Back then stocks and shares were phenomenally successful, but he didn’t spread his investments and I have learned from that.
• Read the full article, at ‘My Virgin Money Magazine’, here.
2012 marks 10 years since Toyah took on the lead role of Calamity Jane, the musical that toured the UK and also enjoyed a residency at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End.
The, highly successful, production ran for over a year and, ultimately, played to more than 200,000 people through the UK, receiving numerous positive reviews along the way.
Toyah was great in the musical, and really took on the role of ‘Calamity’, giving an incredibly physical performance, but there were also tender moments. The pivotal scene, and song, of the show was ‘Secret Love’. The song is legendary and forever associated, just like Calamity Jane, to Doris Day. As you’ll hear below Toyah sang the song beautifully and her voice soars.
NB: This is a low-quality audience recording I’m uploading for fans to listen to. It’s highly unlikely that the mooted ‘Cast Recording’ of Calamity Jane will ever be released. Visit Dreamscape’s Calamity Janemini-site here. (Thanks to Alec Kelly)
Toyah’s April blog is now available to read at toyahwillcox.com. There’s news on ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ rehearsals, Toyah’s thoughts on re-listening to ‘The Changeling’, The Humans’ third album, Toyah’s newly-acquired malapropism and more. There’s also a photo of Simon Phillips, Bill Rieflin and Don Gunn in Seattle last weekend. Click below for a great read.
• The ‘Moon In The Gutter’ blog uploaded a collection of screen shots from Jubilee on Tuesday: Operation Screenshot (Films of the Seventies): Derek Jarman’s Jubilee (1978). The “revival” of all things Jubilee continues… View here.
• Evening Times: Heaven is a place on Glasgow Green… Toyah is mentioned in this article today. View here. (NB. Toyah isn’t officially confirmed as playing this concert)
• Heard of Ghost Loft? Described as having “a heavy dash of the Cocteau Twins and a little bit of early Toyah”.
• Toyah’s ‘Warrior Rock: Toyah On Tour’ album was mentioned in Tuesday night’s Alex Lester Show on BBC Radio 2. (Thanks to Luke)
• Toyah received a namecheck in the, brilliantly titled, ‘Life Like Butter Sculptures’ blog yesterday: “This morning, the random music selector fed me Toyah Willcox’s “Mein Herr”. It was exactly what I needed. I’ll go find some Joan Jett next, I think.”
Life & Times of Toyah Willcox aired in either late 2000 or early 2001 (can’t remember!) on BBC1. Vanessa Feltz interviews Toyah about her life and career. Unfortunately this is incomplete. I rescued just over 20 minutes (of approx 26 minutes) from a damaged DVD and thought I’d upload it anyway as it’s worth watching, there’s not too much missing and it includes numerous clips and photos from Toyah’s career. Click on the caps to view larger versions.
A couple of rare-ish Japanese magazine Toyah photo articles from 1981, featuring great photos by Barry Plummer and Fin Costello. View the full sessions of each at the Dreamscape 1980 and 1981 gallery pages. Click on each of the below to view larger versions.
For some reason Google have ranked this page’s recent ‘Audley End Concerts 2012’ news posts at the very top of their searches whenever anyone Googles “audley end concert”. It’s slightly odd that we’ve been listed so highly but it’s great for ‘Falling To Earth’ as we have received hundreds of extra visitors over the last few days. (Hello!!!) Hopefully it may even result in a few new fans for Toyah as well as ticket sales for the Audley End Concerts! Full info on the weekend of concerts here.
As Part One was fairly popular (almost 170 listens and six downloads) I’ve transferred and uploaded the second part quicker than I’d planned to. So, here is Part Two of the radio documentary Toyah presented in 1999, To Mother With Love: The Story Of The Tattoo. This originally aired on ‘BBC Radio 2’ on 2nd March 1999. In this part Toyah briefly talks about fans who have her image tattooed on themselves! Listen to Part One here. (Thanks again to Seàn)
The official flyer for the ‘Rock & Bike Festival 2012’. Please click on it to view a larger version. Toyah’s non-music appearance, she will be compering, at the July festival was confirmed officially at the weekend. Another “festival” update: ‘Absolute Radio’ are currently airing an advert for ‘Let’s Rock The Moor 2012’. Toyah plays this event on Saturday 12th May in Berkshire. Full details of all upcoming live dates at the official Gigs page.
Toyah returns to ‘Blackpool Pride’ in June, playing a live PA at the North Pier Theatre. This will be Toyah’s third ‘Blackpool Pride’ appearance since the event began in 2006. Organisers are celebrating seven years of entertaining people from Blackpool and far beyond.
The official ‘Blackpool Pride 2012’ website recently added an artist page for Toyah, saying “Toyah is back by popular demand”.
• View the official ‘Blackpool Pride 2012’ flyer here.
Psychic Therapy, Bio’s one-hour special on Toyah which was originally broadcast in September 2009, airs again on the channel later this month.
