Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

There’s now a King’s Heath Walk Of Fame website, with some great Toyah content.

The site has a couple of pages on Toyah. including videos from last year’s Hare & Hounds gig, which took place after Toyah was awarded her ‘Walk Of Fame’ star, plus a photo of Toyah receiving her star from Bev Bevan (in the “About Us” page).

There’s also updates on future recipients of stars and other related news.

• Visit the website. View all of Dreamscape’s ‘Walk Of Fame’ news here.

• Great to hear that Toyah, and toyahwillcox.com’s, Christmas gift to fans was a roaring success. Toyah’s Official Facebook updated today: Glad to see so many people enjoyed Twenty Four From Toyah which received 4391 plays in the 43 days it was live at Soundcloud, 12 Dec-24 Jan. All tracks “sold out” digitally too. Who knows what 2013 will bring…… :-)

• As the above says, ‘Twenty Four From Toyah’ is no longer available, but the artwork and booklet is currently still online at toyahwillcox.com (though this may change soon). View all of Dreamscape’s TFFT news here.

• “Set myself task of learning 17 pages a day of Hormonal Housewives script. This is fun :-)” tweeted Toyah today. Hormonal Housewives 2013 opens at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley on Tuesday 5th March and goes all over the country through March, April and May. View the complete dates at The Official Toyah Gigs page.

• The first of the BBC’s two-part Queens Of British Pop series airs again tonight on BBC Four at 11pm. Toyah was, inexplicably, left out of the television series when it first aired in March 2009. Dreamscape and other fans were suitably outraged at the time. However an online vote after the series aired placed her 7th in the BBC Queens Of British Pop poll: 1. Kate Bush, 2. Annie Lennox, 3. Kim Wilde, 4. Kylie Minogue, 5. Dusty Springfield, 6. Leona Lewis, 7. Toyah, 8. Geri Halliwell, 9. Siouxsie Sioux, 10. Kirsty MacColl. It’s an interesting programme all the same, featuring Siouxsie, Kate Bush,  Dusty Springfield and Marianne Faithfull, among others, in this first part, which will be available to watch at BBC iPlayer post broadcast.

• Twitter: Toyah tweeted yesterday that “”My guilty pleasure has arrived in the post…rabbiting on magazine….heaven”

• King’s Heath Walk Of Stars: Two new plaques will be joining Toyah on the King’s Heath Walk Of Fame later this year. The Birmingham Post reports that the organisers are “creating new plaques for Fuzzbox’s Jo Dunne and The Move guitarist Trevor Burton following on from the first last year for Kings Heath-born Toyah Willcox.”

• Total Bliss: Define Colour: It’s hard to imagine a world without hair color… This photo feature includes a great shot of “redhead” Toyah from Parkinson in 1981 – the one that was also used in a hairstyles article in Vogue last year.

• Worcestershire Life: 2012 Christmas Quiz Answers: A question about Toyah was included in this festive quiz and the answers have now been revealed… and may just surprise you! 46. Who is Worcestershire actress Toyah Willcox married to? a) Robert Plant.

• NME: Elton John’s Top 10 Batshit Crazy Concert Outfits: Toyah Willcox called – she wants her hair back.

The concert Toyah guested at with Weekend Guitar Trio at Kings Place, London in February 2011, is being released as a six-song live album.

WGT’s next release, a live album which also features Toyah Willcox and Jan Bang, is now in the last stages of production. It was recorded at a concert at Kings Place, London, in February 2011, as part of Eesti Fest – a festival celebrating Estonian music and culture. The album, which will feature 6 tracks, has been mastered by Markus Reuter and Lee Fletcher.

• View photos from the Eesti Fest concert here. (Photo © Madli)

More rare photos of Toyah, taken at Mayhem in Battersea in July 1979. See four more photos from this session in our recent post and click below to view larger versions of these. Thanks again to Craig Watkins. (Photos © Philip Grey)

• Portrait Records: A history of the label Toyah was signed to for around 18 months in the mid-1980s has just been updated at Wikipedia: In 1985, British singer Toyah released her album Minx on the Portrait label.

• Vents Magazine: Dutch pop-rockband Chabliz, who play adventurous alternative rock, popnoir and gothicjazz, cite Toyah as one of their musical influences in a new interview at ‘Vents Magazine’.

• The Changeling Resurrection: Lots of video footage of Toyah’s gig at The Tunnels Bristol last April has been added to You Tube over the last couple of days.

• Channel 4 News: Is Punk Back From The Dead? is now available to watch at You Tube. As a new book is published featuring the origins of punk music in the lower east side of New York, Katie Razzall looks at how Punk magazine changed life in Britain.

• FM: The epsiode of FM in which Toyah makes a, very, brief appearance, but is mentioned a lot, has recently been uploaded in full at You Tube. Series One, Episode Two – System Addict: The group try to stick to some new resolutions: Dom gives up booze, Jane gives up cigarettes, and Lindsay gives up giving up on girls. Featuring a performance by The Wombats, and guest appearance by Toyah Willcox.

• Back To The 80s: The Ultimate Megamix Of The Year: A 43-minute mix which includes ‘I Want To Be Free’ (or “Upside Down”) and ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ and numerous other great tunes from 1981.

• Absolute 80s Radio: ‘It’s A Mystery’ has just been played this afternoon on AR. Apparently the ‘I Want To Be Free’ video is also being shown a lot on Vintage TV at the moment. (Thanks Michael)

• The Visitors: No, not ABBA’s 1981 album… The hits to Dreamscape last night and this morning have went through the roof. Always great news when the site is busy, though this time a large chuck of the visitors have arrived after searching for “wagon’s den geordie shore charlotte” or similar!!

A new article, by the Hereford Times, on Toyah recording Ramblings earlier today with Clare Balding. Looking at the photos, it may have been a windy walk!

Clare Balding and Toyah Willcox Enjoy A Stroll at Croome Park

TV presenter Clare Balding and pop icon Toyah Willcox shared their love of the countryside when they met up for a chat at Worcestershire beauty spot.
 
The pair met up at Croome, near Upton, when Ms Balding brought he popular Radio 4 programme ‘Ramblings’ to the National Trust property today. The chat with Ms Willcox, who is a regular visitor to Croome, will be broadcast at 3pm on Thursday, February 28 and repeated the following Saturday at 6am.
 
• Continue reading at the Hereford Times and Worcester News.

Ramblings: BBC Radio 4: Thursday 28th February: 3.00pm
Ramblings: BBC Radio 4: Saturday 2nd March: 6.00am
Toyah Willcox. Clare Balding joins notable and interesting people on a walk through the countryside. Episode 4 of 6.

Portraits… Fantasy… Changeling… Crimson… Iconic Imagery… Egyptology… Warrior… Screenshots… Artwork… Anthem… Something Willcox This Way Comes…

Toyah will guest on a future edition of the long-running BBC Radio 4 series Ramblings. The programme in which, the fantastic (yes I’m a fan ;)), Clare Balding joins notable and interesting people on a walk through the countryside.

Earlier today Clare tweeted: “Today I am walking with Toyah Wilcox for Ramblings. She has a bad ankle so it may be more of a shuffle“. Someone then replied telling her that “Wilcox” was “Willcox”, and there then followed a series of tweets which, if Twitter had existed, could have been posted anytime between 1987 and now: “It’s a Mystery“, “turning suburbia upside down“, “Mum deodorant“… Such fun! Clare’s tweet was also posted by Celeb Tweets (Not being a follower of Twitterers, I have to admit this is where I first spotted it).

Series 23 of Ramblings begins on BBC Radio 4 next Thursday (7th February) at 3pm. More details on when Toyah will guest when the information becomes available.

UPDATE: Toyah has also tweeted about Ramblings (including this great photo of herself and Clare): “Recording radio 4 Ramblings with claire balding, I’m very slow, still limping“. View the original photo here. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

Katherine Lynch’s Wagon’s Den: RTÉ Two
Thursday 31st January: 10pm
Tongue-in-cheek comedy chat show, starring Katherine Lynch as Sheila Chic, who invites Brian Dowling and guests to give their take on the week’s celebrity news and gossip.

NB: I’m not 100% sure if this is the edition that Toyah guests in but it seems likely as she filmed her appearance at RTÉ in Dublin on Monday night. Toyah tweeted a photo of herself travelling to Dublin and also a message on Tuesday about her visit: “Thank u 2 all @ wagons den, rte dublin. Wild night! OMG charlotte -letitia crosby of Geordie shore…outrageous.”

We’re “Remembering ’83” etc… Another little something I threw together recently while playing ‘Love Is The Law’. I say this about all of Toyah’s albums (and images and everything else) but it truly is underrated. I’m also doing another “Opinion Wall”, along the lines of last year’s for The Changeling website. I’ve already had some great responses from fans at Facebook, and if you would also like your opinions/memories of this great album included send them to me. The “wall” will be added to Dreamscape nearer to the 30th anniversary of the album’s release.

Here is the print version of Toyah’s interview with the ‘Daily Express’ from last Tuesday. It is, of course, the same interview that was published on their website but this edition also includes a great photo of Toyah from 1980.

Singer and actress Toyah Willcox says a course of acupuncture ended 40 years of insomnia.

After struggling with insomnia since she was 14, Toyah Willcox is an expert at surviving on little sleep. The singer, 54, who found fame as an orange-haired punk in the Eighties, says: “I had just started revising for my GCEs and the anxiety I felt made me stop sleeping.

• Continue reading at The Express. Read Dreamscape’s news post from last week on this here. (Thanks to Richard Smith for the scan)

• Toyah, photographed at RTÉ in Dublin, last night guesting on Katherine Lynch’s Wagon’s Den. I think this airs this Thursday at 10.30pm on RTÉ 2, and will no doubt eventually appear on You Tube. There’s a little more info on Wagon’s Den in our previous post here. (Photo © Contact Music – View the full version at their website)

• Quadrophenia Live: It was announced yesterday that The Who will play the full Quadrophenia album on their forthcoming UK and Ireland arena tour. This was reported all over the internet and many of the articles included a namecheck for Toyah: Metro, NME, Contact Music.

• Toyah on TV: While on the subject of Quadrophenia, just a reminder that the film airs again tonight. Full details here.

• I Am Still Ashley Elsdon: Still Buying Vinyl: There are a handful of tracks that are on a list, the kind of list you know somehow you’ll never get to the end of. For me it’s a list of tracks I had once and now I’ve no idea where they are, so I have to get them again. This EP from Toyah is one. It has a track on it called Urban Tribesman, which I really loved, but it just doesn’t seem to be available on download or on a CD anywhere.

• In The Court Of The Crimson Queen: Every Home Should Have One! Just a little something I threw together while playing “the album of 2008” the other day. Please click to zoom. (All photos used © Dean Stockings/Toyah)

Two more rare-ish photos of Toyah from history! Both have been previously available but in far poorer quality. The first is from Toyah’s very first ‘Spotlight’ (the film, theatre and TV casting agency) profile in 1977. It was originally b&w rather than this colourised version. The second picture is from a Blue Meaning era photoshoot, photos from which were used in ‘Fab 208’ and ‘Jackie’ magazines in 1980. Please click on each to zoom. (Thanks to Craig Watkins (photo 1), Andi (photo 2) & Andrew York for colouring photo 1)

• The Toyah Top 50 (Unofficial): In 2008 Toyah’s Official Website published the Toyah Top 50 to mark Toyah’s 50th birthday (view those results here). Five years later, just for fun and completely unofficial, Larwi and James at Facebook are doing something similar. Click here for more info and to take part. (Thanks to James Armstrong & Lärwi)

• Texas Toyah Potatoes!: Toyah’s been unpacking and tweeted a great photo from her travels yesterday: “Finally unpacking from changeling tour & found this TOYAH POTATO sack from texas!!!!! Excellent!” (PS. How cute is WilyFred the rabbit?)

• 25th Anniversary Gig: 10 years ago Toyah played an amazing concert at the Mean Fiddler, London in celebration of 25 years of being a live performer. I’d thought no footage from this had ever been made available. Until yesterday when Damon posted this. No sound and only 21 seconds but still great to see even a teeny weeny bit of film from that fantastic night. (Thanks to Damon King)

• 25th Anniversary Gig: View tons of info on this, now legendary, gig at Dreamscape’s mini-site.

Dreamscape is ‘Remembering ’83′ all through 2013, with sporadic updates related to Toyah’s career in 1983, in the build-up to the ‘Love Is The Law & Greatest Hits’ tour in the Autumn. Here is a beautiful Japanese press advert for the ‘Love Is The Law’ album. This is is not fan created, it’s a genuine ad used in Japanese press. Click to zoom! (Thanks Andi)

• The Electricity Club: An Interview With Republica’s Saffron: A couple of mentions for Toyah in this new interview, including Saffron citing Toyah as an influence: Fronted by the vivacious Saffron, their rousing techno punk rock were like Toyah fronting New Order… Who were your own influences as a singer/performer? My main influences as a singer and performer range from Toyah Willcox, Siouxsie Sioux, Grace Jones to Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush and David Bowie. (Photo © Mark Evans)

• Grolsch Film Works: Top 10 | Punks on Film: 9. Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1978): Perhaps the quintessential British punk film (Jarman must be one of its most credible “punk” directors), Jubilee features a host of punk stars of the period – from Toyah to Adam Ant, and an anarchic tone, which combined with the location shooting of urban decay and economic depression, captured the spirit of the times.

• Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis): Expanding The Frame: Tribute to Experimentation: The tribute to Derek Jarman kicks off with the area premiere of Isaac Julien’s touching documentary about the filmmaker, Derek, on Friday February 20, and includes several of the filmmaker’s most well-known films, including Jubilee (February 21), Caravaggio (February 21), Sebastiane (February 22), and a selection of the director’s music films (February 26).

• Bard Of Ely: Why dyeing your hair with crazy colour hair dyes is a fun thing to do: Singer, actress and TV personality Toyah Willcox, who came to fame with her hit songs back in the 1970s Punk and New Wave scene is another celebrity who has often dyed her hair in flamboyant colours.

An interview with Toyah, from last October by Glasgow’s Evening Times, which was previously only viewable to subscribers is now available to all.

Toyah’s performing her classic album, 30 years on

It’s her fans’ favourite record – but it’s taken 30 years for Toyah Willcox to face up to playing The Changeling album again.

The popular singer, actress and TV personality released the album in 1982, and it captured a dark, stressful time in her life. It’s only now that she feels she can perform it.
 
“The important thing about The Changeling and now is that I feel I can face it again,” she says ahead of her show at Classic Grand in Glasgow on Friday. “It was a pretty intense time making it, and being extremely famous is not a comfortable place to be, especially when you’re trying to write an album.

“I found the pressures of that one difficult, especially with the demands on time and the technology was very new as it was being made on digital.It brought back difficult memories revisiting it, as it was so intense at the time and I was just trying to remain true to myself. Being the most commercial female pop star at the time and wanting to write really dark material doesn’t go hand in hand.”

• Continue reading at the Evening Times.

It’s become a tradition over the years for Dreamscape to put together an “ad” for Toyah’s latest release… So, here’s one for ‘Sensational’. Available at iTunes, Amazon etc… Click here to view a larger version and below to watch the video at You Tube.

Rather than celebrating the fact that almost 40 years into her career Toyah is still making music, releasing videos and imagery, entertaining her fans (is there anybody else from the New Wave era that is still so busy and visible that a news website about them can be updated almost every day?) and much more, there seems to be even more negativity swirling around than usual, especially regarding the video for ‘Sensational’. Check out the video on You Tube for Toyah’s feelings on the matter!

Some people seemed quite excited yesterday that Pop Justice ran an article on Toyah and ‘Sensational’.

Toyah was a fairly big popstar in the early 1980s. It’s probably overstating things slightly to say that she was the Lady Gaga of her day because she didn’t really have the tunes, but you can’t argue with magazine covers like the one you see to your right. We reckon Toyah could probably have pulled off a fairly successful comeback on the back of this Weight Watchers ad appearance. You know the sort of thing – you find one or two up-and-coming acts who might be prepared to drop her name as an influence, Radio 2 play the single quite a bit, broadsheets do the usual ‘she was there at the dawn of the pop age now the original Gaga is back and she’s as colourful as ever’ pieces…

• Continue reading at Pop Justice.