80s Stars – Then & Now!: NOW 80s: Thursday 30th March: 11am
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!
Dreamscape’s You Tube channel has a great selection of rare Toyah footage to view…
Our You Tube is pretty much what you’d expect from a fan based channel. We’ve compiled a selection of retro interviews, Toyah TV appearances and more from throughout Toyah’s career (which I believe is now in its 45/46th year if Glitter – filmed 1975, aired 1976 – is regarded as the very beginning!). Most of the footage is taken from my old VHS tapes, which I thought I’d do before they disintegrate!
We are rollercoasting towards 2K of subscribers, and our most popular video is Toyah: This Is Your Life, which as of writing has been viewed 360K times. Please click below to visit Dreamscape’s You Tube Toyah channel (which also includes some rare Madonna footage).
Four rare radio interviews with Toyah; 1979 – 1982. Click below for the Downloads section.
1. Capital Radio: Mummy’s Weekly (1979): Fighting talk from Toyah! She also chats about being discovered, ‘Victims Of The Riddle’ and more. 2. Radio One: Rock On (1980): Toyah talks Shoestring, Glitter, the band’s influences, mayhem, ’Sheep Farming In Barnet’, ‘Neon Womb’, and future plans. 3. Radio Trent: (January 1981): Toyah, interviewed just before the release of the ‘Four From Toyah’ EP. Great interview with lots of interesting pre-mainstream fame chat. 4. Radio One: Rock On (May 1982): Toyah talks to, former ‘Smash Hits’ writer and eternal cynic, Mark Ellen about ‘The Changeling’, aliens, fairies, her ‘Brave New World’ image and much more.
• Thanks to Giddy Gavin (aka Logan 5) and Sean.
A, low quality, mini-gallery of previously unseen Toyah photos from 1979. Great shots!
Three more photos of Toyah from another late 70s session, and this one is definitely 1979. These were taken in, and around, Toyah’s famous Mayhem warehouse in Battersea, London. The first photo has been around for a few years but the others have just recently surfaced online. Click on each to zoom. (Thanks to Craig Watkins/1, and Andi/2&3)
Another old/new photo from the late 70s (fourth along). Here is the full, or at least what’s available of the, photo session, of Toyah at Mayhem in, either, late 1978 or very early 1979! Excellent early photos of Toyah – Click below to view larger. (Thanks to Andi who has sent these to Dreamscape as they became available over the years – a great collection)
The new Fuck Yeah Toyah photo blog has been updated with some great photos over the last couple of days. Take a look by clicking below.
There’s a great new Toyah photo blog, Fuck Yeah Toyah, at tumblr. It already has some brilliant content, including rare photos and classic Toyah imagery. Visit by clicking below.
The complete, four-part, late 70s version of Quatermass, starring John Mills and Simon MacCorkindale, in which Toyah also had a small role as Sal, is available to view in full at ‘You Tube’. This was made by Euston Films, filmed in 1978 and aired on ITV in October and November 1979: Chapter One: Ringstone Round; Chapter Two: Lovely Lightning; Chapter Three: What Lies Beneath; Chapter Four: An Endangered Species. View a photo of Toyah taken during the filming here. The series has previously been released on VHS and DVD but is currently unavailable. This was also released as a television film in 1979, The Quatermass Conclusion, an edited down version of these four episodes. View further info at Wikipedia.
The film airs on TV at least once every couple of months, most recently on BBC4, STV, ITV4 and Sky Indie, it’s just about to be released on Region 1 Blu-ray, and it seems to be as popular now as it was when first released 33 years ago! Quadrophenia! Here are a few rare items related to the film that I’ve spotted over the years: An advert for the soundtrack album; Japanese promo poster for the film; Japanese movie program, a car bumper sticker; and the Quadrophenia poster magazine. View a larger version of these and the full poster mag.
The BBC’s Punk Britannia season kicks off tomorrow, with the first of a new three-part documentary series, also called Punk Britannia, on BBC Four at 9pm.
Over the next three weeks ‘BBC Four’ and ‘BBC 6 Music’ will air numerous programmes celebrating the 35th anniversary of punk. This looks like being a great season. View more details, and an at-a-glance guide to the highlights, at BBC Blogs.
Punk Britannia marks 35 years since Punk’s heyday in 1977, which exploded across the country during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. BBC Four will focus their content around an insightful three-part documentary series, which will be supported by additional programming and BBC Radio 6 Music will feature a range of curated shows from some of punk’s most iconic names, alongside a series of themed shows.
Toyah’s second single, the ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’ (EP/AP), was released in July 1979. The traditional EP contained four songs, Safari Records wanted to differentiate from that format and decided to release SIX songs on one single (a mini album really). This was the first, and last, AP release. Tracks were: A. Neon Womb, Indecision, Waiting; B. Our Movie, Danced, Last Goodbye. The band members were Pete Bush: Keyboards, Mark Henry: Bass, Joel Bogen: Guitar, Steve Bray: Drums, Toyah Willcox: Verbals. As with the debut single, this was a huge hit on the UK indie chart, and also increase the band’s, already growing, popularity in other parts of Europe. The, now iconic, cover shot for the single was taken at the RAF Fylingdales radar station near Whitby in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, the “golf balls” were demolished in the mid 1980’s. (Thanks to Asher for the Fylingdales photo)
Good old Photoshop. A great way to pass the time… The famous Dexter Brown Triptych painting of Toyah, used on ‘Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!’ and sold as a fan club poster in 1981. I turned a third of it into “TOYAH 1980” :) Plus some basic artwork for my short Toyah/Doctor Who “crossover” story ‘Elusive Strangers’. Please click on each to view a larger version.
I Love 1979 is repeated on BBC2 this weekend. Toyah guests in this retrospective documentary, which originally aired in September 2000, talking about Gloria Vanderbelt (!!) Jeans and the ‘film phenomenon’ of 1979, Quadrophenia, in which she of course starred.
I Love 1979: BBC2: Saturday 12th May: 9.00pm
Bo Derek, star of the film 10, presents a look at the last year of the decade, including reminders of classic TV series The Dukes of Hazzard and Monkey, which was a kung-fu favourite in the playground. The must-have toy was Holly Hobbie, and Gary Numan made the ultimate picture disk. As far as fashion went that year, stretch jeans and crimped hair were essentials, although film of the year Quadrophenia saluted Mod style.
Tallulah, in Stephen Poliakoff’s American Days, was Toyah’s second theatre role, two years after Tales From The Vienna Woods. The play opened at The ICA, London on 12th June 1979 and also starred Phil Daniels as Gary, and Caroline Embling as Lorraine. American Days unfolds in the sterile London offices of an international entertainment conglomerate. Three would-be punk rock stars audition for a record company executive…
Toyah’s debut single ‘Victims Of The Riddle’ was released in April 1979. A brave choice as the first release as it was hardly a commercial sounding, radio friendly, song. The single reached number one on the Indie Chart in the UK and spent many months of 1979 there. The sleeve featured an intentionally disturbing image. At the time of release few knew the gruesome story behind the photo and assumed it was a doll. ‘Victims Of The Riddle’ was also released later in Spain, with the far more appealing ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’ artwork. The beginning of an amazing music career and a brave choice to get started with.
Two photos of Toyah from the late 70s. The first is a very rare shot taken on the stairs outside Mayhem in Battersea, and the second is a fuller length version of a shot I previously added to Dreamscape. Amazing photos! Click on each for larger versions. (Thanks to Andi)
• A rare shot from a well-known 1978 Toyah photo session has appeared online. It was used as a “pin-up” in Issue 16 of the fanzine Ripped and Torn in January 1979. Photos from this session were most famously used on the cover of, and inside, ‘Record Mirror’, also in January 1979.
• Lärwi has compiled a great video to mark the 30th anniversary of ‘The Changeling’ and ‘Warrior Rock’, with music from 1982 and visuals from 2012. View it at You Tube.
• ‘Ieya’ is included in ‘The Epileptic Gibbon Podcast Music Show’ in their 77th podcast: “Episode 77: The Far Distant Dead”. View here.
• Tommy’s Garage: Toyah Willcox, Pioneer of Punk + New Wave: She’s an incredible woman and artist. We Love Toyah!
• The Changeling Resurrection 2012′: Autumn Tour: Numerous dates for the Autumn tour are already all over the internet. No point in mentioning them here until they are officially confirmed. This one, however, at Rechabite Hall, Telford (a new venue), is worth a look. Their flyer is full of great bands.
Toyah was one of a bunch of presenters of Look! Hear! for three series between 1979 and 1981. The programme, covering music and the arts in The Midlands, was made at BBC Pebble Mill and gave bands like Duran Duran, The Beat and The Selector their first tv exposure.
The first series of Look! Hear! aired weekly in early 1979. Chris Phipps, Ann Butler, Liz Cotton and John Holmes, who were all ‘Radio Wolverhampton’ DJs, were the other presenters.
Toyah made her first live appearance on New Year’s Eve 1977, fronting Ninth Illusion in Swiss Cottage, London. There were only two gigs under this name. Rechristened TOYAH, their first gig was at Finchley Christ College Disco in April 1978, followed by a string of dates through the rest of that year. The debut TOYAH tour was ‘The Resurrection ’79 Tour’, starting on 27th March 1979, at London Dingwalls, playing 12 dates throughout the UK in March and April. This tour visited some legendary live venues: Factory, Manchester, Eric’s in Liverpool, Tiffany’s in Edinburgh and Music Machine, Camden. The line up was: Toyah (Vocals), Joel Bogen (Guitar), Mark Henry (Bass), Steve Bray (Drums), Pete Bush (Keyboards). (Thanks to toyahwillcox.com)
Timeline wise this one is slightly tricky. Little Girls Don’t, made by ‘ITV Playhouse’, looks like it could have been filmed in either 1977 or ’78, but the credited date on the programme is 1980. To confuse matters more this didn’t air until March 1981. I’m plonking it in 1979 for now…
