Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

The second poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Best of the ’80s albums is now open: Part 2: Vote for your top albums of 1981. There are 125 albums to choose from, and this time a Toyah album is included: ‘Anthem’ of course.

Slicing Up Eyeballs say: Our year-long Best of the ’80s feature continues this month as we turn to 1981, and once again ask Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to weigh in on their favorite albums of that year in our ongoing quest to rank the releases of each year of the decade over the course of 2013, concluding, come December, with a poll to determine the best of the ’80s.
 
It’s a simple process: We’ve assembled a list of 125 albums released in 1981, and you’re welcome to vote for up to 10 of them — or write in any title(s) you wish that we didn’t include.

Voting will be open through 5 p.m. EDT March 22, and results will be posted the first week of April — at which time we’ll launch the 1982 poll and take it from there.

The revised cover art for the 2013 reprint of Toyah’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ album. The Official Toyah website will be announcing details on how to order the CD soon.

As the label on the cover of the re-print of ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, included in the first Breaking Through newsletter a couple of weeks ago, suggested ‘Sensational’ by Toyah is played (not performed) in Hormonal Housewives.

The tour continues tonight at Southport Theatre and tomorrow at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax.

Great news! ‘Sheep Farming in Barnet’ is included in Slicing Up Eyeballs‘ Top 100 Albums Of 1980 poll, announced online yesterday. The respected and influential music website – named after a lyric in the song ‘Debaser’ by the amazing PIXIES – is running a year-long “Best of the 80s” feature – an ambitious, year-by-year poll to determine just what were the best albums of each year of the 1980s.

‘Sheep Farming in Barnet’ places at #92 and is in the company of some truly incredible albums. Slicing Up Eyeballs’ poll for 1981 opens next week – Surely ‘Anthem’, with some support from Toyah’s online fans, will also figure?

• Coincidentally, I put together a ‘Sheep Farming in Barnet’ image earlier this week before I knew about the Slicing Up Eyeballs poll, Click above to view a larger version.

The album art and tracklist for the forthcoming Weekend Guitar Trio/Toyah/Jan Bang CD ‘Live At Kings Place’ was revealed yesterday by toyahwillcox.com. The six-track album is due to be released in April 2013.

The album tracklist is: 1. Let’s Make A Bomb, 2. Don’t Even Try, 3. Break The Mould, 4. Toyah Bang, 5. How A Group Is Born, 6. Boredom Is A Killer.

All six tracks feature writing credits for Toyah.

• Visit Weekend Guitar Trio’s website and Facebook page to stay updated.

Over a decade ago Dreamscape reported that Toyah was regularly appearing in Eastenders.

Eagle-eyed viewers of one of Britain’s favourite (and most depressing!) soaps spotted the classic Quadrophenia poster showing up regularly onscreen on Billy Mitchell’s wall.

In January 2012 Damon King sent us photos of the Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! (K-Tel) album he had spotted on one of the market stalls and now, the ultimate… one of the greatest live albums… Warrior Rock hits Elstree/Walford!!! Click on the photos to zoom. (Thanks again to Damon and also to Larwi)

There will be a series of live dates this autumn to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album Love Is The Law. Last year there was a voting element to the autumn tour. For the moment whilst the tour is in planning stages toyahwillcox.com wonder which songs you are most wanting to hear on this autumn tour from the period in question. There’s a rare wild card bonus track too. Take part in the survey and select the two songs you want to hear the most. After that it’s up to Toyah and the band to see what works best. Vote online by clicking below.

• View a larger version of the Dreamscape LITL creation above here.

Another report on the recent news about Simon Darlow. This one from Record Of The Day.

The article mentions Toyah, ‘Sensational’, and ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’: You can currently hear Simon’s music on every X Factor show and the Weight Watchers TV advert with Patsy Kensit featuring ‘Sensational’ from his recent album with Toyah Willcox, ‘In the Court of the Crimson Queen’.

• Read other reports on Simon being named Chairman of U.K. Rights Org BASCA at Billboard and Complete Music Update.

Another two “new” Tom Leon Toyah tracks/mixes were uploaded to house-mixes.com over the weekend: Pop Star – A Dream Within A Dream (Tom Leon Full Vocal Ultra Long Version 2013), and mARTian cowBOY (Tom Leon Extended Version 2013).

As with Tom’s other mixes, these are unofficial and for “private and promotional use only”.  Great use of Andrew’s Toyah art too ;)

• View all of our news posts on Tom Leon and his Toyah remixes here (I’ve updated the links and all are now working again). Visit Tom’s Official Website.

A third remix of a classic Toyah song, this time ‘Jungles of Jupiter’ from Anthem, has been made available by Tom Leon.

First it was “Awake’n Dreams: Alan Parsons Project vs Toyah Willcox” (using ‘Pop Star’), then “Let Me Go (Here It Comes Again 2012 Remix)”, and now TOM LEON brings us “Jungles Of Jupiter (Tom Leon and Toyah: Sad Android Extended Version)”.

Completely unofficial and, as with Tom’s previous mixes for “private and promotional use only”, it’s interesting to hear Toyah’s songs being experimented with. Not everyone will approve, as these are of course regarded as classics, but Tom doesn’t do anything too drastic with them!

The track is also included on the album ‘Quantam Sequences 2013’

• Listen to ‘Jungles Of Jupiter (Tom Leon and Toyah: Sad Android Extended Version)’ here. View more details about Tom’s album here.

• View info on the previous Toyah remixes by Tom Leon in our past news posts.

Fragments, a new blog series by Craig Astley, is sure to be an interesting read for Toyah fans over the coming months, as we head towards the 30th anniversary of the ‘Love Is The Law’ album and ‘Rebel Run’ UK Tour. Craig met Toyah for the first time during the tour back in 1983 (before he was even 5!!)

I Was A Child Toyah Fan…….

2013 marks something of a milestone for me. It is thirty years since an exciting thing happened to me as a child. A child who was a pop music lover and devoted fan of Toyah.

• Continue reading at Fragments: Toyah Tales From Now & Then.

I’ve had a few great comments about the “imaginary” single cover for Snow Covers The Kiss (a wonderful song from 1985) so I thought I’d share the “ad” for it too. Please click to zoom.

Photos of Toyah taken in 1979 during the soundcheck/rehearsal for the gig at Hammersmith Riverside Studios, West London, on 18th July. Thanks to Craig Watkins. (Photos © Philip Grey)

More rare photos of Toyah, taken at Mayhem in Battersea in July 1979. See four more photos from this session in our recent post and click below to view larger versions of these. Thanks again to Craig Watkins. (Photos © Philip Grey)

• Portrait Records: A history of the label Toyah was signed to for around 18 months in the mid-1980s has just been updated at Wikipedia: In 1985, British singer Toyah released her album Minx on the Portrait label.

• Vents Magazine: Dutch pop-rockband Chabliz, who play adventurous alternative rock, popnoir and gothicjazz, cite Toyah as one of their musical influences in a new interview at ‘Vents Magazine’.

• The Changeling Resurrection: Lots of video footage of Toyah’s gig at The Tunnels Bristol last April has been added to You Tube over the last couple of days.

• Channel 4 News: Is Punk Back From The Dead? is now available to watch at You Tube. As a new book is published featuring the origins of punk music in the lower east side of New York, Katie Razzall looks at how Punk magazine changed life in Britain.

• FM: The epsiode of FM in which Toyah makes a, very, brief appearance, but is mentioned a lot, has recently been uploaded in full at You Tube. Series One, Episode Two – System Addict: The group try to stick to some new resolutions: Dom gives up booze, Jane gives up cigarettes, and Lindsay gives up giving up on girls. Featuring a performance by The Wombats, and guest appearance by Toyah Willcox.

• Back To The 80s: The Ultimate Megamix Of The Year: A 43-minute mix which includes ‘I Want To Be Free’ (or “Upside Down”) and ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ and numerous other great tunes from 1981.

• Absolute 80s Radio: ‘It’s A Mystery’ has just been played this afternoon on AR. Apparently the ‘I Want To Be Free’ video is also being shown a lot on Vintage TV at the moment. (Thanks Michael)

• The Visitors: No, not ABBA’s 1981 album… The hits to Dreamscape last night and this morning have went through the roof. Always great news when the site is busy, though this time a large chuck of the visitors have arrived after searching for “wagon’s den geordie shore charlotte” or similar!!

We’re “Remembering ’83” etc… Another little something I threw together recently while playing ‘Love Is The Law’. I say this about all of Toyah’s albums (and images and everything else) but it truly is underrated. I’m also doing another “Opinion Wall”, along the lines of last year’s for The Changeling website. I’ve already had some great responses from fans at Facebook, and if you would also like your opinions/memories of this great album included send them to me. The “wall” will be added to Dreamscape nearer to the 30th anniversary of the album’s release.

• Toyah, photographed at RTÉ in Dublin, last night guesting on Katherine Lynch’s Wagon’s Den. I think this airs this Thursday at 10.30pm on RTÉ 2, and will no doubt eventually appear on You Tube. There’s a little more info on Wagon’s Den in our previous post here. (Photo © Contact Music – View the full version at their website)

• Quadrophenia Live: It was announced yesterday that The Who will play the full Quadrophenia album on their forthcoming UK and Ireland arena tour. This was reported all over the internet and many of the articles included a namecheck for Toyah: Metro, NME, Contact Music.

• Toyah on TV: While on the subject of Quadrophenia, just a reminder that the film airs again tonight. Full details here.

• I Am Still Ashley Elsdon: Still Buying Vinyl: There are a handful of tracks that are on a list, the kind of list you know somehow you’ll never get to the end of. For me it’s a list of tracks I had once and now I’ve no idea where they are, so I have to get them again. This EP from Toyah is one. It has a track on it called Urban Tribesman, which I really loved, but it just doesn’t seem to be available on download or on a CD anywhere.

• In The Court Of The Crimson Queen: Every Home Should Have One! Just a little something I threw together while playing “the album of 2008” the other day. Please click to zoom. (All photos used © Dean Stockings/Toyah)

Two more rare-ish photos of Toyah from history! Both have been previously available but in far poorer quality. The first is from Toyah’s very first ‘Spotlight’ (the film, theatre and TV casting agency) profile in 1977. It was originally b&w rather than this colourised version. The second picture is from a Blue Meaning era photoshoot, photos from which were used in ‘Fab 208’ and ‘Jackie’ magazines in 1980. Please click on each to zoom. (Thanks to Craig Watkins (photo 1), Andi (photo 2) & Andrew York for colouring photo 1)

Dreamscape is ‘Remembering ’83′ all through 2013, with sporadic updates related to Toyah’s career in 1983, in the build-up to the ‘Love Is The Law & Greatest Hits’ tour in the Autumn. Here is a beautiful Japanese press advert for the ‘Love Is The Law’ album. This is is not fan created, it’s a genuine ad used in Japanese press. Click to zoom! (Thanks Andi)

It’s become a tradition over the years for Dreamscape to put together an “ad” for Toyah’s latest release… So, here’s one for ‘Sensational’. Available at iTunes, Amazon etc… Click here to view a larger version and below to watch the video at You Tube.

Rather than celebrating the fact that almost 40 years into her career Toyah is still making music, releasing videos and imagery, entertaining her fans (is there anybody else from the New Wave era that is still so busy and visible that a news website about them can be updated almost every day?) and much more, there seems to be even more negativity swirling around than usual, especially regarding the video for ‘Sensational’. Check out the video on You Tube for Toyah’s feelings on the matter!

Some people seemed quite excited yesterday that Pop Justice ran an article on Toyah and ‘Sensational’.

Toyah was a fairly big popstar in the early 1980s. It’s probably overstating things slightly to say that she was the Lady Gaga of her day because she didn’t really have the tunes, but you can’t argue with magazine covers like the one you see to your right. We reckon Toyah could probably have pulled off a fairly successful comeback on the back of this Weight Watchers ad appearance. You know the sort of thing – you find one or two up-and-coming acts who might be prepared to drop her name as an influence, Radio 2 play the single quite a bit, broadsheets do the usual ‘she was there at the dawn of the pop age now the original Gaga is back and she’s as colourful as ever’ pieces…

• Continue reading at Pop Justice.