Toyah – The Blue Meaning
Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
With the context of the passing of time, this is all brilliantly boundary-pushing music, and The Blue Meaning is an album which could astound the unprepared. Pure gold
The Cherry Red Toyah reissue programme continues with the second album, 1980’s The Blue Meaning, following on from the excellent reissue of the Sheep Farming In Barnet debut. As with its predecessor, The Blue Meaning is a very different proposition to the impression casual listeners tend to have of the pop-punk singer with the wild hair taking It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free to the upper reaches of the singles charts. In truth, that image was always a false one when the albums were listened to in their entirety, but even more in the case of these earliest records. In fact, the next studio album following this would be Anthem, the first big hit album which contained those two singles, but you would never guess that from the music contained here, which is dark, edgy and often brilliantly experimental. The Sheep Farming In Barnet album had contained a great mix of post-punk attitude with a sort of ‘difficult prog’ edge to it, but on this follow-up things got even more serious and uncompromising, both in terms of lyrical matter and musical content, and this three-disc reissue rounds it up with some tremendous extra material from the time to produce a definitive edition if ever there was one.
• Rolling Stone: Toyah Willcox Busts Out The Catsuit For Scorpions Cover With Robert Fripp – Continue reading…
• NME: Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox take on Scorpions’ ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane’ – Continue reading…
• Guitar World: Here They Are: Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox Tackle The Scorpions’ Rock You Like A Hurricane For Their Sunday Lunch… – Continue reading…
• Kerrang: Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox add “feline twist” to Scorpions Cover – Continue reading…
• Louder: Toyah Dons Catwoman Outfit and Brandishes A Whip on Rock You Like A Hurricane – Continue reading…
• Consequence Of Sound: Toyah Goes Full Catwoman As She Covers “Rock You Like A Hurricane” with Robert Fripp. Watch … – Continue reading…
• Metal Sucks: King Crimson’s Robert Fripp & Toyah Willcox Cover “Rock You Like A Hurricane” – Continue reading…
Toyah unboxes the new 2CD+DVD edition of The Blue Meaning, released by Cherry Red Records this Friday, 28th May 2021. Pre-order this or the neon pink vinyl LP edition at Cherry Red.
Toyah to play live in Neo-Classical style former church in East Sussex
Toyah will be hitting the road again next spring, when she will be performing an up close and personal show in East Sussex on Saturday 12th March 2022. The concert will take place within a grade II* listed former Church, which was constructed in the Neo-Classical style. The venue is known as St Marys In The Castle and is located in Hastings.
This will be a truly unique experience to watch and listen to an electric acoustic Toyah show, that will have a lively cinematic sound. The venue will be filled with Toyah’s vocals and storytelling along with keyboards and stand up bass.
It will include her much loved hit singles and classic songs, alongside recalling stories from her colourful, forty year career. Toyah will perform stunning arrangements of hits, ‘It’s A Mystery’, ‘Thunder In The Mountains’, ‘Good Morning Universe’, ‘I Want To Be Free’, alongside modern days classics ‘Sensational’ and ‘Dance In The Hurricane’.
The Toyah & Robert T-shirt collection celebrates a crazy year with a bonkers pair, featuring extracts from their iconic Sunday Lunch videos. A brand new design has also just been made available today: “Fripp’s Ma Bitch”. Click below for further info/or to pre-order.
Today’s Toyah At Home was a one-hour special dedicated to The Blue Meaning, which is reissued in deluxe CD/DVD format and colour vinyl next week! Watch at You Tube by clicking below.
A beautiful 12-inch square hardback book featuring the influential album art produced by Bill Smith Studio and the stories behind them.
Across five decades Bill Smith Studio worked on countless covers for the likes of Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Toyah, Marillion, Genesis, No-Man, Thomas Dolby, Richard Barbieri, Mike Oldfield and others.
In Cover Stories you’ll find the stories of over 70 albums, featuring contributions from the bands, artists, photographers and painters involved, all offering a unique insight into the creation of several iconic sleeves.
Includes 40 album covers at original 12-inch size. Cover Stories offers a unique insight into the creation of several iconic sleeves and includes 40 album covers at original 12-inch size.
I have always been a huge fan of Toyah’s so to have the chance to chat to her about everything that keeps her creative was incredible for me!
Toyah shared some of the secrets of her boundless energy, her musical inspirations and how to survive a lockdown with a husband of 35 years without throwing the kettle at him! So let’s get listening!
Toyah returns to Pointless Celebrities next weekend for a fifth guest appearance on the ever popular teatime quiz show. This time pairing up with Mike Nolan of Bucks Fizz/The Fizz.
Toyah was previously on the quiz show with Cheryl Baker (of Bucks Fizz) in December 2012, Mark King (of Level 42) in August 2014, Nick Heyward in September 2016, and most recently with Sonique in November 2018.
Pointless Celebrities: BBC1: Saturday 29th May: 7.15pm Special Episode (Series 14). A celebrity special edition of the general knowledge quiz in which four teams try to come up with the answers that no-one else could think of. Presented by Alexander Armstrong and co-host Richard Osman, with contestants Mike Nolan, Toyah Willcox, Dr Linda Papadopolous, Dr Zoe Williams, Nathan Caton, Suzi Ruffell, Anthony Costa and Shaun Williamson.
“Cherry Red’s second re-release of Toyah’s early output, The Blue Meaning is full of lyrics that reflect her interest in sci fi, occultism and Nostradamus… Self-admittedly pretentious in a good way, Toyah’s lyrics and singing style often also seem to be influenced by Broken English-era Marianne Faithful and Patti Smith.”
1980 was a busy year for Toyah. Working as both an actress and a musician she was only 22 but had already appeared in films such as Quadrophenia, Derek Jarman’s Jubilee and The Tempest and George Cukor’s remake of The Corn Is Green with Katherine Hepburn and Patricia Hayes. As well as television work in Shoestring, Second City Firsts and the TV remake of Quatermass, Toyah had also already acted in productions at the National Theatre.
In this short one-year period Toyah starred in a Royal Court production of the controversial Nigel Williams play Sugar and Spice, filmed over the course of three months for an hour-long ATV documentary, appeared in the TV series A Question of Guilt and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and guest-hosted the talk show Friday Night, Saturday Morning in which she interviewed (and played Space Invaders with!) Steve Strange, Derek Jarman and Vivian Stanshall. The year was also the prelude to her chart success of 1981, which occasioned hit singles It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free and Thunder in the mountains and numerous Smash Hits and Look-In covers.
The trailer for the forthcoming To Be Someone film was recently made available.
A feel-good tale of modern-day mods, music, and scooter culture from the creator of The Krays, The Wee Man and Love, Honor and Obey and starring the original cast of the iconic, cult mods n’ rockers film, Quadrophenia.
The co-owner of a popular Mods nightclub and with a successful scooter shop business on the side, life couldn’t be better for entrepreneur and British Mod, Danny.
That is until he’s introduced to the club’s secret financier, Mad Mike, an unhinged underworld mobster who is determined to coerce Danny into pulling off an illegal drugs run to The Isle of Wight in return for his shares in the club.
Seeing their friend at an all-time low, Danny’s friends step in with an ingenious plan – they will all go to The Isle of Wight’s annual Mod festival and use the thousands of Mod enthusiasts descending onto the island as a cover!
A new video to previously unreleased Jack & Jill including footage of Toyah in Park Gates Studio with producer Steve James. This track is a bonus track on the deluxe edition of The Blue Meaning, out 28 May. Pre-order the three-disc set here. Click below to watch the video.
80s Stars – Then & Now!: NOW 80s: Sunday 23rd May: 9am
Where are they now? Classic hits, followed by some recent songs – Including Pet Shop Boys, Kylie, Toyah, The Stones, Gary Numan, The Pretenders, New Order, Rick Astley & T’Pau!
Give Them Wings screens as part of the online London Independent Film Festival 2021.
Amidst the challenges of the recent pandemic, a shining light emerged in the form of centennial hero (and sadly recently departed) Captain Sir Tom Moore, whose mega-effort to raise millions through his walking laps around his garden made him the hero of the status quo and a legend of 2020.
Now, a new film from multi-hyphenate talent Sean Cronin celebrates the life of a disabled football fan called Paul Hodgson – and is pretty incredible on its’ own terms.
Adapted by Hodgson from his 2000 novel Flipper’s Side (with additional writing from Cronin, Ian Carter and Tony Waddington) Give Them Wings chronicles events starting in 1989, when Darlington fan Paul (Daniel Watson) , diagnosed with meningitis from ten months – and given two hopes – is using a wheelchair to move around. His mother, Alice (Toyah Willcox in a career-best appearance), is struggling to cope with struggling husband and Paul’s father, Norman (Bill Fellows) who has signed on again for the umpteenth time and prone to bouts of depressive laziness.
Toyah – The Blue Meaning
