We’re marking the release of Desire for RSD2018 with some content this week from that great Toyah era. Here’s a short interview with Toyah from BBC Breakfast Time on the very day Echo Beach was released as a single in 1987. Click on the screen caps below to watch the interview at You Tube and view larger versions of the screen caps here.
There’s a great photo of Toyah included in The Argus’ “Nostalgia” feature by The Timeout Team, published yesterday by the East Sussex newspaper.
Nostalgia: Multi-million record selling music icons in concert
Some of the world’s biggest music stars have graced the stage in Sussex over the years.
Other stars featured in today’s Timeout include Toyah Willcox, who is pictured playing a gig in the city in 1991.
• Continue reading at The Argus. NB: The photo included in the feature is Toyah onstage in 1982 on The Changeling Tour.
Over the past 40 years Toyah has provided the world with numerous “Iconic Images” (good name for a fanzine, that!) but has there ever been imagery as mesmerising as that which Toyah adopted for Thunder In The Mountains in 1981? The book ‘Pop Styles’ seemed to think so even back in 1984…
Pop Styles, by Ted Polhemus & Lynn Procter (1984) An A-Z Guide To The World Where Fashion Meets Rock’N’Roll
Crazy Colour: Perhaps the most important pendulum swing in the history of pop styles is that between nature and artifice. One of the best ways to join the against-nature school of thought is to dye your hair a bright colour or better still a whole collection of colours which nature never intended to appear on the head of a human being. Historical examples are few, however, as the technology has only been widely available a short time. Only impermanent vegetable dyes were available before the seventies and it was punks who first combined an anti-natural attitude with the new chemicals. Special credit therefore goes to Wee Willie Harris who caused a furore in the fifties when he dyed his hair so pink it dripped down his collar in the rain, Roy Wood who fronted Wizzard behind a mass of multicoloured locks and of course David Bowie. Ultimately, however, the first prize must go to post-punk Toyah Willcox who with dyes and hair spray has resculpted her head into a homage to artifice which even the most daring of science fiction films have failed to equal.
• Toyah’s Offical website/social media spaces will be counting down to Toyah’s Birthday with Forty From Toyah – 40 classic images spanning Toyah’s amazing career.
Toyah plays a full-band gig in Northampton tonight, at The Roadmender – with “tons of Toyah classics” on the set-list. There are still a few tickets left, click below to buy…
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.
Taking a trip through the Dreamscape Archives… a rare interview uploaded to You Tube in 2011 (by sph476) with Toyah, looking utterly Minxtastic, from 1985.
Snow, snow and, yup, more snow! Brrrr!! Welcome to March in the UK…
Screen caps from Toyah’s 1982 guest appearance on Pop Quiz on BBC1. Meanwhile, 2016’s Pop Quiz: The Comeback, also featuring Toyah, is still available to watch online at BBC iPlayer…
We haven’t had a Classic Toyah post for a while – Rectifying this with a very rare magazine advert from July 1981, from Finnish magazine ‘Soundi’. They also published an issue with Toyah’s Brave New World image on their cover in 1982, and another full-page advert for The Changeling. Click below to see the full size advert. (Thanks to Juha Merilainen for this amazing scan)
This is brilliant. A huge thank you to, another longtime friend of Dreamscape, Andrew York for taking the time to colour the Toyah @ Pop Goes Christmas in 1982 photo. I’ve added a bit of text and a tree to add to the festive feel of it. (Thanks again to Andi and Andrew)
I think I’ve mentioned I Believe in Father Christmas every December for the last 13 years, so here we go again… Toyah covers the Greg Lake 1975 classic (which I didn’t realise also features Robert Fripp until Toyah mentioned it this week on Toyah’s Christmas at the Zoo) for ITV’s Pop Goes Christmas in 1982. She sounds great, looks amazing and Keith Hale and Joel Bogen are having a right old festive time in the forest of lit up trees. Bravo!
A few more eightiestastic photos of Toyah taken when she guested on The Saturday Show in 1982 and then presented an edition of the programme, in 1983. View more here. Please click below to zoom. (Thanks again to Ray Sears for sharing his rare photos of Toyah!)
A few photos from the ‘Mini Tour’ in December 1982. Click to zoom. (Thanks to Ray Sears)
I know everyone is probably thoroughly bored with my mock Toyah adverts and Photoshopping of various other classic Toyah photos… but here’s another two anyway :)
Fantastic photos of Toyah taken when she guested on The Saturday Show in 1982. Please click below to zoom. (Thanks to Ray Sears for these rare shots)
Three very rare photos of Toyah from three well-known 1980 photo sessions. (Thanks to Andi)
Another quite rare, retro, Toyah article… this one from early 1981. I’m not sure which magazine but it was most likely to be one of the Sunday supplements, possibly ‘The Telegraph’ or similar: Toyah! Toyah! burning bright in the forests of the benighted acting and rock music industries. Illuminated by her twin talents for performing words and music, and fired by a scorching ambition, her dyed red hair dancing around her impish face like flames, Toyah Willcox is blazing parallel meteoric trails to exalted positions in both spheres (phew!). Click below to read. View all of our recent retro Toyah press articles & interviews here. (Thanks again to Andi)
If anything should definitely be considered “Classic Toyah” then surely it’s these two 1981 concerts? At The Rainbow, from February 1981, and Good Morning Universe – Live at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, from December 1981. Both were broadcast by the BBC and subsequently released on “BBC Home Video”. Here are a couple of Dreamscape tributes to two amazing gigs… Such a shame that The Changeling Tour the following year wasn’t similarly preserved! Please click on each to view larger versions. View another Rainbow mini feature here.
The fantastic ‘In The Fairground’ from Four More From Toyah was included in Q The 80s playlist (Show #105) yesterday evening. Such a great song. View the songwords and click below to view a larger version of the photo (Thanks to David Herd & Andrew York)
Very sad news. Terry Nutkins, presenter of Animal Magic and bona fide kid”s TV legend, passed away yesterday. Toyah appeared on Animal Magic in 1982, alongside presenters Johnny Morris and Terry, when a mischievious monkey was named after her. Rest in Peace, Terry.
Five more amazing, and rare, photos, featuring three icons: Toyah, Hazel O’Connor and Ian Dury. These are from the April 1980 gig by The Stranglers at The Rainbow Theatre, London. View our other related posts here. View the full versions of the photos below at Dreamscape’s Gallery. I’d like to dedicate these great photos to Alec Kelly! (Thanks again to Andi)
