• It’s Dreamscape’s final pre-tour Keeping Up With The Hormonal Housewives. It’s been a busy build-up… and begins in Bromley tomorrow. View all the updates here.
• Toyah is one of the cover stars of the Scunthorpe Theatre Spring Season 2013 Guide. Hormonal Housewives plays 
Scunthorpe Bath Halls on 2nd May.
• Wolverhampton Grand Theatre also feature a small photo of Toyah on the cover of their Spring 2013 brochure What’s On. The show visits Wolverhampton on 2nd and 3rd April.
• Toyah tweeted on Wednesday: “Just run entire play for 1st time. Oooohhhhh I think this is going 2 b a whole lotta fun.” and on Saturday: “Had a producers run thru y/day! The team laughed in all the right places and more :-) ………now we need the audience“.
• Toyah’s been talking Hormonal Housewives in more interviews, both print and radio, this week: On BBC Radio 4’s Ramblings, the Yorkshire Post, EADT24, What’s On magazine, and BBC Radio’s The Late Show.
• Kings Lynn Corn Exchange: The Hormonal Housewives Are Coming: A new page with great publicity photos of Toyah.
• The Hormonal Housewives tweeted and Facebook-ed their final message from rehearsals on Friday afternoon: “Final day of rehearsals before the Tech on Monday and the Housewives are really looking forward to starting this wonderful tour! We’re excited to see as many of you along the way as possible.”
• A great advert for Hormonal Housewives on the Home Page of the Beck Theatre website. The show plays at the venue in Hayes on 21st March.
Toyah’s excellent episode of BBC Radio 4’s Ramblings, which aired a couple of times over the last few days, is available for the next four weeks as a BBC podcast.
Ramblings with Clare Balding: Toyah Willcox at Croome Landscape Park
Thu, 28 Feb 13: Duration: 25 mins
Actress and singer, Toyah Willcox, takes Clare Balding on a windy walk around Croome Landscape Park in Worcestershire.
• Visit the BBC Podcasts & Downloads page and the Ramblings hompage.
The Popjustice forum has been running another comprehensive countdown, this one detailing the Top 100 Singles Acts of the 80s. Based entirely on UK sales of singles from 1980 to ’89, Toyah places at number 84 for the decade, selling close to 1.5m singles.
84. TOYAH (1,481,000)
TOTAL HITS: 12
BEST YEAR: 1981
BEST SELLER: FOUR FROM TOYAH (EP) (381,000)
Knocking around since the late 70s, Toyah are more than just spokesman Toyah Willcox whose striking image was the main factor in getting press coverage in the early days. It started out very well for the group with 4 straight top 20 hits, and then……no more!
• View the opening page of the thread for details on the countdown, and the page that includes the info on Toyah. The countdown was completed yesterday, with Madonna revealed as selling the most singles of the 1980s. View here.
There will be a series of live dates this autumn to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album Love Is The Law. Last year there was a voting element to the autumn tour. For the moment whilst the tour is in planning stages toyahwillcox.com wonder which songs you are most wanting to hear on this autumn tour from the period in question. There’s a rare wild card bonus track too. Take part in the survey and select the two songs you want to hear the most. After that it’s up to Toyah and the band to see what works best. Vote online by clicking below.
• View a larger version of the Dreamscape LITL creation above here.
The first Breaking Through, Toyah’s new Official Newsletter, was mailed out to subscribers last night. and it included a plethora of information and Toyah goodies. Here’s a brief synopsis of just some of what’s included:
• A previously unseen Dean Stockings photo of Toyah, taken in 2007, you really won’t want to miss the full-size version of this; plus links to two exclusive live tracks: ‘Thunder In The Mountains (Ronnie Scott’s 2002)’ and ‘The Packt (The Changeling Resurrection 2012)’.
• There is also news on the re-print of In The Court Of The Crimson Queen (it now includes ’21st Century Supersister’ and revisions to the artwork); The Humans upcoming third album; a vote link to choose a song you’d like to hear on the Autumn Love Is The Law & More dates; Hormonal Housewives info and much more…
• At a later date the newsletter will also announce the forthcoming series of digital releases of some Toyah back catalogue titles, expanded to commemorate their digital debut.
• Toyah’s Gig Diary 2013: Three new PAs announced, and several gigs mentioned by Dreamscape over the last couple of months are now officially confirmed (see posts below).
• Sign up to Breaking Through: The Official Toyah Mailing List here.
A number of Toyah gig dates were confirmed by the first Breaking Through newsletter yesterday evening, and a few new ones announced too.
As well as the two Pride and Aberdeen Re:Union PAs (see post below), the Here and Now Weekender at Bognor Regis; The Stroke Association Ball, Castleford; Here and Now Falkirk “Rock The Stadium” and the Upton Festival 2013 have all now been officially confirmed.
Three new live Toyah PAs have been confirmed for the Summer by the first Breaking Through newsletter.
• Blackburn Pride In The Park, taking place at Witton Country Park, Blackburn on Saturday 1st June. More info on the two-day event here. (NB. It appears this has been cancelled, as of early May it has disappeared from the Official Gigs page)
• Northern Pride 2013, taking place at Leazes Park, Newcastle Upon Tyne on Saturday 20th July. More info on the one-day event here.
• Aberdeen Re:Union, Back To The 80s with Aberdeen University Student Union. a celebration of Aberdeen University Union and student life in the ‘80s! More info and book tickets here. View their Toyah page.
Keep an eye on The Official Gigs page at toyahwillcox.com and sign up for the Breaking Through newsletter to be kept up-to-date on more gigs and PAs happening through the year.
The March 3-16 1983 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has been uploaded to the Smash Hits Archive, exactly 30 years ago to the day it was originally published.
The magazine, with Eurythmics on the cover, includes their first “Personal File” on Toyah (they printed another one in 1985 around the time of ‘Dont Fall in Love’ & ‘Minx’).
NAME: Toyah Ann Willcox
BORN: May 18, 1958, in Kings Heath, Birmingham, at home. I can’t remember much about it.
FIRST MEMORY: Sometimes I feel I can be aware of when I was inside my Mum. Otherwise, my first memory is of my first day at school. I was never told what school was; I was told about the day before that I was going to school. It was the first time I was ever parted from my mother and I never forgave her for it. I was petrified and cried and fought all day. I remember holding on to my Mum’s clothes and having to be ripped apart from her.
• Continue reading at the Smash Hits Archive.
BBC Radio’s Late Show with Keith Middleton is now available at BBC iPlayer for the next week.
It includes an interesting interview with Toyah, recorded earlier yesterday evening, beginning around two hours into the show. She talks about living in Worcester, ghosts and hauntings, rabbits (and droppings formations!!), being involved with punk and how her music career evolved from cult status in the 70s into mainstream success in the 1980s, alternative career paths (Toyah would like to have been a sculptress), Hormonal Housewives and more.
There are also plays of ‘It’s A Mystery’, ‘Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)’, ‘Thunder In the Mountains’ and ‘I Want To Be Free’. The interview and music runs for around 35 minutes.
Another report on the recent news about Simon Darlow. This one from Record Of The Day.
The article mentions Toyah, ‘Sensational’, and ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’: You can currently hear Simon’s music on every X Factor show and the Weight Watchers TV advert with Patsy Kensit featuring ‘Sensational’ from his recent album with Toyah Willcox, ‘In the Court of the Crimson Queen’.
• Read other reports on Simon being named Chairman of U.K. Rights Org BASCA at Billboard and Complete Music Update.
Toyah guests on the Late Show with Keith Middleton tonight. The three-hour programme airs across various BBC radio stations (Shropshire, WM, Stoke, Hereford & Worcester, Coventry & Warwickshire).
BBC Radio (Various): Late Show with Keith Middleton: Saturday 2nd March: 10pm
70s Rock: Toyah and The Blockheads. Norman Watt-Roy (from The Blockheads) and Toyah join Keith for a ’70s Rock Extravaganza’. Is there a 70s rock track you haven’t heard for a while? Let Keith Know and he will do his best to play it.
Toyah has guested on Keith’s show a few times previously. I’m not sure whether this is a new appearance or a previous guest recording being re-aired.
• Listen to the show online as it airs, or via BBC iPlayer post-broadcast. (Available for one week only)
Toyah is included in the rundown of guests for next week on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff, at the station’s website.
Comics Shazia Mirza and Steve Furst will be on the panel next week. They’ll be joined by Richie Neville from pop group Five on Monday, actress Rebecca Wheatley on Tuesday, Hollyoaks star Daniella Westbrook on Wednesday, singer Toyah Willcox on Thursday and the legendary John Barrowman on Friday. Tune in for Britain’s brightest daytime show every weekday at 9.15am.
The Wright Stuff: Channel 5: Thursday 7th March: 9.15am
Lively magazine show in which Matthew Wright and guests discuss the topical issues of the day.
It’s the penultimate Imaginary Toyah Singles update. Four more covers that don’t, or ever did, exist, though luckily for us all the great songs are real: ‘Haunted’ (from The Vow 12″), ‘Baptised in Fire’ (from the Rebel Run 12″), ‘Heal Ourselves’ (from In The Court Of The Crimson Queen) and another cover for ‘Elocution Lesson’ (from Anthem). View full size versions of these and many others by clicking below.
Another new interview with Toyah, by EADT24, in which she discusses an event from 1979 that she last spoke about in her autobiography, ‘Living Out Loud’, in 2000.
Regent-bound Toyah on how she ended up in the middle of the street in just her underwear
Toyah Willcox has been hormonal for as long as she can remember. Taken to see The Sound of Music for the seventh time by her even more hormonal mother in the hope it would make her more lady-like, the then eight-year-old just wanted to rebel against the townsfolk below.
As a terrible teen her parents asked her to invite her elusive friends round for tea; imagine their horror when 30 members of the local chapter of Hells Angels roared round the corner. When she was 21, a very bad case of PMS and 15 Babychams led to a massive brawl during which she broke her record company boss’ nose.
• Continue reading at EADT24. Also at the Stowmarket Mercury.
Welcome to March! The first updates have been added to In The Fairground: Andrew York’s new website. There are various additions, including photos and info added to the “Egyptology” page, a new Links section and an Updates page. Visit the Fairground this weekend…
