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.
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.
30 years ago this month the episode of Tales Of The Unexpected starring Toyah, ‘Blue Marigold’, aired on ITV. Here is a rare Channel Islands issue of ‘TV Times’ magazine, published the week the drama was broadcast, featuring Toyah on the cover and an interview inside.
• View a larger version of the cover by clicking above. Scans of the other pages and interview are here, here and here. (Many thanks to Paul Lomas for the scans)
Focusing on the much-loved Barry Plummer 1981 photo shoot for this “Classic Toyah” post. This session featured significantly in the book ‘Toyah’ by Mike West, The ‘Official Toyah Annual’ from 1982 and various European and Japanese press articles. Click below to view larger versions, and view more from this photo session at Dreamscape’s 1981 gallery page.
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.
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)
The 1-14 April, 1982 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has just been added to the ‘Like Punk Never Happened – Smash Hits Archive’.
Just a small news article (in Bitz!) on Toyah this fortnight, accompanied by this great photo from the 1982 Rock & Pop Awards: If you haven’t managed to secure tickets for Toyah’s forthcoming tour, here’s a flicker of light on the horizon. The 32 year old has just added an extra show at Sheffield City Hall on June 18th and two extras at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 17 and 18. Tickets cost £5, £4.50 and £4.
In addition to the tour she’s recording a new album for release in June. On April 25 she appears on telly in a play called “Blue Marigolds” which kicks off the new teeth-chattering series of Tales Of The Unexpected. This girl deserves a holiday.
View scans of the full issue, and every previous issue of ‘Smash Hits’, here.
2012 is a significant anniversary year for two of Toyah’s albums: It is, of course, the 30th since the release of ‘The Changeling’ (1982) and also the 25th since ‘Desire’ (1987).
Aside from this vague connection there’s a more explicit link for the two albums, the songs ‘Dawn Chorus’ and ‘Moonlight Dancing’. In 1982 Toyah performed the former on BBC1’s 6.55 Special (think The One Show with the added bonus of Sally James) and towards the close of the song added new lyrics that weren’t included on the album version. This “alternative” version of ‘Dawn Chorus’ was never performed again, and it wasn’t until the release of ‘Desire’ five years later that ‘Moonlight Dancing’, which the new lyrics were an excerpt from, was heard again.
‘Moonlight Dancing’ probably didn’t even exist as a fully formed song at this point in time, though both were written by Toyah and Joel Bogen. It’s interesting, though, that these few extra lines from 1982 went on to become part of one of Toyah’s finest singles and forged an ever lasting link between two very different Toyah albums…
All the best things come boxed, right? Check out the great “themed” packaging Andi has created for the ‘Anthem’ Toyah doll. You can almost imagine this sitting on a toy shop (or Woolworths’) shelf, Christmas 1981. Click below to view a larger photo. (Thanks to Andi)
Salvaged from eBay for your viewing/reading pleasure. An article from 1983 by ‘Disco 45’. Hardly mind blowing journalism but I thought I’d add it as it’s admirably positive.
Contrary to what a lot of people expected, Toyah Willcox has returned strongly to the charts after an absence from recording of nearly a whole year.
Yes, it’s been that long since ‘Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)’ was released and became Toyah’s seventh hit single, while around the same time her most recent album, ‘Warrior Rock (Toyah On Tour)’, also came out, and not unexpectedly hit the Top 20 on the day of release. That was her fifth consecutive hit LP, and at the end of last year things were looking very good for the Birmingham girl with the big voice and the huge fan following. At the start of this year she was voted Top Female Singer in both a national newspaper and one of our own music rags, and we all expected a new record to be released to capitalize on that acclaim. But busy Toyah had other ideas, because as every Toyah fan knows, she is highly talented at more than just singing in front of a rock band.
With the very recent discovery of two rare, and fantastic, ‘Desire’ photos now seems as good a time as any to take a look back at some of the imagery from this era. In a 10 year career this was probably the first time Toyah had looked “conventional”. The ‘Desire’ album and related image seems to be more appreciated retrospectively than at the time of release… dive in!
• View the 25th anniversary ‘Desire’ feature at Dreamscape here. (Photography by Carrie Branovan)
The photographer Eric Watson, who took great photographs of numerous pop stars in the 80s, including Toyah, for ‘Smash Hits’ magazine, died on 18th March.
Born in Newcastle, Eric moved to London in 1974 and studied fine art at Hornsey College of Art from 1977 to 1980. His fellow students included Stuart Goddard (who became Adam Ant) and Mike Barson from Madness. On leaving college, he worked as an assistant to the photographers Red Saunders and Gered Mankowitz (known collectively as the Rembrandt Brothers), then photographing covers for Madness and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
In 1981 he was invited to work for Smash Hits, after the editor, David Hepworth, saw photographs Watson had shot for Madness. He became the magazine’s main photographer and at around the same time Neil Tennant, whom he knew through a mutual friend from Newcastle, was made assistant editor.
Read a tribute to Eric, from former ‘Smash Hits’ editor, David Hepworth and his obituary from ‘The Guardian’. (Thanks to Gill)
A few rare-ish Toyah photos. Three lesser seen variations from well-known 1980 (‘The Face’) and 1981 photo sessions, plus great live shots from The Changeling Tour’ and the ‘Warrior Rock Mini Tour’ from July & December ’82. Click on each to view larger. (Thanks to Andi)
Simon Fowler took some iconic photos of Toyah in the late 70s/early 80s and he is responsible for a handful of the best Toyah photo shoots, as well as amazing photos of other bands. Visit his website by clicking below.
Possibly one of Toyah’s best photo shoots? Certainly one of the most colourful.
These great photos were used in European magazine ‘Pop Rocky’ and the UK’s ‘Jackie’ in the Summer of 1982, at the height of the glorious ‘Changeling’ era.
Gorgeous Toyah wears various Melissa Caplan designed outfits that were rarely seen anywhere else.
One of the pioneers of fashion make-up artists… from Biba, London in the seventies, to an international career in the 1980s and 90s, Régis Huet was one of the first make-up artists to use make-up as art and some of his creations are extraordinary, and extraordinarily beautiful.
In 1985 Régis worked with Toyah on the promotional imagery for the ‘Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)’ single and the album ‘Minx’.
The look was striking but subtle and, ironically, far removed from his more outlandish and experimental earlier work. Imagery that certainly inspired some of Toyah’s most adventurous early 80s visuals.
Régis eventually made Sydney, Australia his base where he worked on the first issue of ‘Australia Vogue’ among many magazines.
The 18-31 March 1982 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has just been added to the excellent ‘Like Punk Never Happened – Smash Hits Archive‘.
This issue features a plethora of various Toyah content, including:
Free huge poster (Toyah on one side, The Human League on the other), photo from the ‘Rock & Pop Awards 1982’, a full-page advert for the VHS release of Urgh! A Music War, and Toyah as a toddler on a donkey in the ‘From The Cots’ photo feature.
View scans of the full issue, and every previous issue of ‘Smash Hits’, here.
The ‘Fade2Grey’ website has just added a mini-feature on the band Blood Donor, focusing on their single releases.
There is, of course, mention of Toyah. Blood Donor were also on Safari Records and the band’s keyboard player Keith Hale wrote ‘It’s A Mystery’.
