A small, but perfectly proportioned, photo of Toyah, and a quote from her, on Jennifer Lopez’s booty (or its proportions to be more exact) is included on the “News” page of the April 2012 issue of ‘The Good Surgeon Guide’ magazine. (yes there is actually a magazine called “The Good Surgeon Guide”!!)
“Basically, whoever takes the mickey out of the size of Jennifer Lopez’s backside is completely out of touch, because a lot of girls want the size of that backside. It’s hugely attractive to men.”
Toyah Willcox
It’s content like this that makes me think the decision to start up this new site, in order to continue reporting Toyah news, was sooo sooo the correct one lol!
Kavanagh Q.C.: ITV3: Tuesday 24th April: 11.25am Kavanagh Q.C.: ITV3 +1: Tuesday 24th April: 12.25pm A Family Affair (1995). Kavanagh finds himself caught up in a bitter family feud when he represents a frustrated father who has kidnapped his son in a desperate attempt to win custody. On the home front, Kavanagh’s daughter wants to let her boyfriend stay overnight. Directed by Renny Rye. With John Thaw, Holly Aird, Robert Ashby, Toyah Willcox and Lisa Harrow. Also showing on ITV3 HD.
Toyah guested on Parkinson on BBC1 in October 1981. This was at a time when Michael Parkinson’s chat show was still considered the best of the “talk shows”. Toyah appeared alongside legendary comedian Dave Allen. She talks about her childhood and upbringing, time at The National Theatre, her imagery and hairstyles, music career and more.
A short excerpt from Toyah’s autobiography, published in August 2000, ‘Living Out Loud’.
Toyah talks about ‘The Changeling’, and some of the events of 1982: Winning ‘Best Female Singer’ at The British Rock & Pop Awards, sacking her manager, feeling that her images and hairstyles were becoming outdated etc.
Toyah also mentions the reasons why herself and Joel decided to record an album with much darker themes after the huge success of ‘Anthem’ the year before.
• Listen to ‘The Changeling’ set of Toyah interviews and audio, at ‘Soundcloud’, here.
• A Tale Of Two Anthems: The ‘what’s new’ section of Spotify keeps displaying an album called Anthem by somebody called Desolation Angels, with a strangely familiar cover. It reminded me of something… View this interesting article at ‘Skuds’ Sister’s Brother’ blog.
• View a short article on Brum at the, quite brilliant, ‘Retro Rambling’ blog, “A joyride through our slightly ridiculous though memorable past”
• ‘The Telegraph’ included ‘Let’s Rock The Moor 2012’ in its “Top 100 Music Festivals: April – September 2012” on Monday: Not so much rockin’ the moor as inundating it with hits of the mid-Eighties. View here.
• Toyah is included in the ‘Heart’ Who’s On Heart: “Wrong Guesses – Women Pt 2” gallery. View here.
Toyah’s ‘Pop Star’, Alan Parsons’ ‘The Raven’ and Orson Welles? This shouldn’t work, but it does!
Tom Leon has uploaded to ‘house mixes.com’ two mash-ups he created in the mid-90’s:
1995: Long before mashups or bootlegs are gone to mainstream, I created a special mix….. really handmade with discs and effect-recording:
One of my first bootleg-mixes and I like it to this day! It is a fusion between Alan Parsons The Raven and the voice of Toyah Willcox. Hope U like it?
Listen to ‘Awake’n Dreams (On A Lost City Of Mars) [Shortplay Fusion Mix]’ here, and ‘Awake’n Dreams (On A Lost City Of Mars) [Smooth House Version]’, here.
They have played some of the biggest venues in the world, sold millions of albums and had countless chart hits. And in July, some of the best known stars of the 1980s will take the stage in Glasgow Green for their only Scottish date.
The line-up includes Rick Astley, whose Never Gonna Give You was the UK’s top selling single of 1987. He will be joined by former Go-Go’s lead singer Belinda Carlisle, “Wherever I Lay My Hat” singer Paul Young, Toyah Willcox, Curiosity Killed the Cat, T’Pau and The Real Thing, who scored a No.1 in 1976 with You To Me Are Everything.
The gig, on Saturday July 21, co-incides with the hugely popular Glasgow Show and will round off a top weekend of music.
Not exactly “breaking news”, but I just very recently discovered that one of the shots of Toyah from the 1979 Simon Fowler photo shoot is included in this book. The cover boasts it contains “over 400 x-rated photos”. The photo of Toyah can hardly be classed as x-rated and, especially, by today’s standards is relatively conservative.
‘Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’ by Chris Charlesworth was published by Omnibus Press in 1993 and again in July 2009. It includes photos of Madonna, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, Elvis and numerous others.
This is a bumper collection of photographs, mostly of rock and pop stars in situations where in hindsight, they would probably have preferred the cameramen to be elsewhere at the time. It is also a collection of shots in which sex has been used to sell the artist, or their records, or both, in the days before sexism was a political issue. Apart from the album sleeves themselves, these pictures have not been touched up or airbrushed. Neither were the negatives consigned to the darkroom bin or locked away in safety deposit boxes.
The full Sky Trax Toyah Special. This aired in 1985 around the time of the release of ‘Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)’. It’s a great programme, hosted by one of Toyah’s biggest supporters in the 80s, Peter Powell. This was a one-hour show with Toyah talking about her career, including Glitter, Jubilee, Katharine Hepburn, Quadrophenia, the early live gigs, 1981 and a lot more. Sky Trax was a music show, with a variety of hosts including Radio 1 DJs, covering music from all over Europe. It aired on ‘Sky Channel’, Europe’s very first satellite channel (which began as a cable channel in 1982) and was renamed ‘Sky One’ in 1989. View larger caps here.
Yikes! Just four short days to go until the first concert of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’.
‘The Changeling’ has been my, and many other Toyah fans’, favourite Toyah album for almost 30 years. When you consider Toyah’s best album releases: ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’, ‘The Blue Meaning’, ‘Anthem’, ‘Love Is The Law’, ‘Desire’, ‘Prostitute’, ‘Ophelia’s Shadow’, ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’… ‘The Changeling’ can only be described as “the best of the best”. Impressive!
Back in early 2007 I started building a feature for Dreamscape on ‘The Changeling’. I didn’t initially realise the feature would end up taking months to complete and would become one of the Toyah creations I’m most proud of. I’ve always felt Toyah’s 1982 studio album deserves to be celebrated, which is why I did so throughout Dreamscape’s 12 years and continue to on FTE. Rather than “pretentious twaddle” (who said that? :)) it’s a brilliant, and brilliantly dark ,’concept’ album that has grown in stature and reputation over the last 30 years!
‘Simply Eighties’ featured ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ in their “Songs of The 80s” yesterday, and Toyah on the cover of ‘Smash Hits’, May/June 1982 issue, on their “80s Heaven’ page at tumblr.
Wow! You can really feel the energy coming from this new wave track by Toyah. Very original, alternative music and having not heard it for such a long time it sounds so fresh, even though this is from the early 80s! Plus, you get meaningful lyrics. This puts much of today’s music to shame.
Thunder In The Mountains reached #4 in the UK singles chart during October 1981, making this the third consecutive Top Ten hit for the band fronted by Toyah Willcox. It was the band’s eighth single release overall.
A selection of iconic 80’s popstars will headline the opening night of Lytham Proms Festival Weekend 2012 on Friday 3rd August 2012. “Here and Now, The Very Best of the 80’s” will feature stars: Bananarama, Rick Astley, The Real Thing, Belinda Carlisle, Toyah, Curiosity Killed the Cat and T’Pau in what is dubbed as being the Fylde Coast’s biggest party EVER!
• Continue reading, at the ‘Lythams Proms Festival Weekend 2012’ website, here.
• There’s an excellent selection of screen caps from Tomorrow Calling, the 1993 short film Toyah appeared in, at ‘William Gibson aleph’. Tomorrow Calling aired on Channel 4, premiering in December 1994 (part of the ‘Short & Curlies’ season), and was also presented at the British Film Festival in October 1996. View here. Take a look here too :)
• Toyah is mentioned in the ‘Scotsman’ obituary of Andrew Currie who passed away on 28th March: In the 1990s one of his visitors was the singer Toyah Willcox who, as part of a television series, made a trip to Skye to see eagles and talk to Currie, the local expert on the subject.
• Toyah is namecked in this ‘Herts & Essex Observer’ news article on Hazel O’Connor.
• A couple of great Toyah photos (including one of Andi’s Toyah wallpapers, which seem to pop up all over the internet) in the “Make Up” gallery at ‘Pinterest’. View here.
• Rainbow Messengers: It’s A Mystery, It’s A Mystery… View here.
5. Stations Of The Crass – Crass
4. Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! – Toyah
3. Closer – Joy Division
2. Dirk Wears White Sox – Adam and the Ants
1. He Who Dares Wins – Theatre Of Hate
What an amazing top five. Every one of those albums still sound good in 2012. View the full and original ATV documentary TOYAH that includes music from ‘Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!’.
The official website for the Workington ‘Decades Festival 2012’ has been launched today. Toyah plays a live PA at the festival on Saturday 26th May, at Club Ice.
Decades Weekend May 25/26/27
The Fortunes, The Fourmost, Billy Walker, The Quireboys, New Amen Corner, Toyah Willcox, David Van Day and Ed Tuderpole. Line Up, Gallery and Ticket pages coming soon. Lets get Workington rocking.
• Visit the site. Click below to view the official ‘Decades’ flyer. Visit their Facebook page here.
Decades is a festival with something for everyone. After watching trade slowly go down publicans in Workington decided to create a festival for all with the expertise of Maryport Festivals and bring the town back to life. We will have music genres such as pop, blues, rock, indie, seventies sixties and eighties.
If you cant find something you like then your not looking. Take a trip down memory lane and remember the days of the old school yard, you know you want to. With some old favourites such as The Fortunes, The Fourmost, Billy Walker, The Quireboys and New Amen Corner on the pub trail it will be hard to beat. Then in Club Ice for Toyah Willcox, David Van Day and Ed Tuderpole in the main venue you will be spoiled for choice.
A Facebook update on this today, with a screenshot of the Amazon chart: Last months chart showing during the Amazon KDP Select promotion (it actually went a few places higher but this was the only screen shot I got).
View a larger version of the screenshot. Congratulations to Chris.
There are now just five days to go until the premiere gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’ tour.
Click below to view Toyah’s 1982 feature on Nationwide. This originally aired in early July 1982 on BBC1, and includes a great interview with Toyah. She talks about her career, music, acting, individuality, her lisp and much more.
There are clips from ‘At The Rainbow’ Shoestring and the ‘Brave New World’ video,
What is significant about the Nationwide clip is that it contains the only, known, footage of 1982’s ‘The Changeling Tour’ as no other video recordings seem to have been made (strange when two full concerts were captured, and televised by the BBC, the previous year). Some of the rehearsals were filmed for inclusion in the programme’s piece and there are brief clips of Toyah performing ‘Dawn Chorus’. The stage set looks great onscreen! (Thanks to Andi)
A report on the ‘Stortfest Crawl 2012’, including info from the festival director, Simon Baker.
Organisers of the Stortford Music Festival have announced a week-long series of events that will take place in and around the town starting next month. Commencing on April 29 and running until May 06, the event is being called the Stortfest Crawl.
Organisers are busy booking bands but can today confirm that the legendary punk-popstress Toyah Willcox will be playing the Rhodes Arts Complex on Saturday May 05 celebrating the 30th anniversary of her seminal “The Changeling” album with a greatest hits set. Festival director Simon Baker said: “This is one act we are particularly excited about. While taking a breather for a year, we felt it was important for people to know that the festival was still going strong and will be back next year. Being able to confirm Toyah as one of the fantastic acts who will be playing during the week proves that people can expect the same high calibre of performers that they have enjoyed in previous years.” (Thanks to Ian Grainge)
More tantalising Changeling related tweets from Toyah, and Toyah Official, over the Easter weekend: Yesterday: “Only a week till Brighton. The new set is a stonking blinder! A total rush! I can’t wait.“, and today: “Send my kisses to the old world…A BRAVE NEW WORLD is coming in 6 days!” along with the photo that got everyone excited when it was revealed a few years ago.
Click here for your tickets to ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ premiere at Brighton’s Concorde2.
Six days to go… Another audio interview that’s been available at Dreamscape and The Changeling 30 sites but good to have it here too in this countdown week to the launch of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ tour.
This is the only audio that exists from 1982 with Toyah discussing ‘The Changeling’ in any detail.
Toyah guests on Rock On on ‘BBC Radio 1’, talking to Mark Ellen about the album, aliens, fairies, changelings, critics, the ‘Brave New World’ image and much more.
Mark Ellen sounds quite bemused but it’s fair to say that in 1982 he would probably have been far happier interviewing Bruce Springsteen or REO Speedwagon.
• There’s also a full transcript of this interview, at ‘The TW Interview Archive’, here.
A small, but perfectly proportioned, photo of Toyah, and a quote from her, on Jennifer Lopez’s booty (or its proportions to be more exact) is included on the “News” page of the April 2012 issue of ‘The Good Surgeon Guide’ magazine. (yes there is actually a magazine called “The Good Surgeon Guide”!!)
A report on the ‘Stortfest Crawl 2012’, including info from the festival director, Simon Baker.
