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 Jane mini-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.
Exciting news! A new ‘Changeling Resurrection’ related tweet from Toyah yesterday, mentioning what may, just possibly, be the opening song of the gig:
“Loving Creepy Room. Want to open set with it. It would set the mood for the show……BONKERS“.
• View the lyrics to ‘Creepy Room’ here, and the complete songwords/lyrics for ‘The Changeling’ album here.
• 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.
One of Toyah’s quotes on him is used in yesterday’s post about David Bowie at the ‘Vitiworks’ blog.
“Bowie set a standard. Within weeks every boy under the age of twenty had that haircut.” – Toyah Willcox
• View more of Toyah’s thoughts on Bowie, his influence on her and her memories of ‘The Jean Genie’, from last month’s My Vintage, on ‘Vintage TV’, here.
Toyah’s 11th song choice from My Vintage, ‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’.
“I have never seen this band live. I would love to see them live, but I’m kind of put off by the fact that they are so mega, they are so big, they are the biggest band in the world. I think still, Coldplay might be about to overtake them. I’ve always loved their music. I think they’ve always released great albums that make you want to dance, they make you want to put your hands in the air…”
• Read the full transcript of the reasons for this song choice here. View all of Toyah’s other song choices from My Vintage here. The 12th, and final, song choice soon.
This has been available on Dreamscape for a few years but I thought I’d add it here in case anyone hasn’t heard it or wants to listen again. It’s a really interesting interview with Toyah in mid 1980, discussing details about her career up to that point. (Thanks to Giddy Gavin)
Toyah discusses the origins of her name, The Tempest and playing Miranda, how she was “discovered”, Jubilee, Quadrophenia, the forming of the first Toyah band, her career to date, future plans and more. (The sound is quite low so please crank up your volume)
• Read a full transcript of this interview, at ‘The TW Interview Archive’, here. (Thanks to Min)
• Toyah was mentioned in the ‘Funnel Of Love’ blog post, on Sunday 1st April, about the recent BBC2 documentary series The Tube: “The hawk is called Toyah after Toyah Willcox. ‘Aw bless’ or ‘ew groce’, depending on your view on naming birds after women. Considering Ms Willcox’ affection for strange headwear with feathers it’s probably totally appropriate”. View here.
• View a fantastic ‘flickr’ gallery of photos, by ‘Sanctuary Music’, of Toyah live at the HMV Institute, Birmingham last April on one of the first dates of the ‘From Sheep Farming To Anthem’ UK tour.
• Toyah Playlisted: ‘Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)’ is included in Dark Night of the Soul with Julie (3 April) on WFMU, and ‘Ieya’ (The Blue Meaning original) in the Ian Fairholm Special (2 April) on Phoenix FM. (Thanks to Sarah)
A full transcript of Toyah’s interview with Keith Middleton on BBC Radio’s Late Show is now available to read at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive. The show aired last Saturday night and is still live for the next few days at BBC iPlayer. Click below to read the transcript.
‘Second Sight’, classic film and tv on DVD, has great pages dedicated to the DVD releases of Jubilee and The Tempest. Both of these. now iconic, films were reissued on Region 2 DVD in the mid-2000s.
Both are also just about to be reissued again, as part of The Derek Jarman Collection: A 5DVD box set of Derek Jarman films released by Umbrella Entertainment, in Australia, on 2nd May 2012.
I’ve periodically thought about a Toyah photo book for many years. If anyone is worthy or entitled to a photographic celebration of their imagery it surely is, the visual genius, Toyah? Sadly, I doubt it will ever happen. The copyright issues, sourcing high quality versions of photos, finding the owners/photographers, the cost involved… etc, but I still like to dream…
