Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

• Dreamscape is “Remembering 1983” all this year. Yeah it’s in the past but what a great year it was… Just for fun – Wouldn’t a double A-Side single, ‘Time Is Ours’ and ‘Dreamscape’, have been a great release from the album? Lots of fans agree at Facebook. It didn’t happen but here is our “wishful thinking” artwork anyway. (please click to zoom)

• Love Is The Law at iTunes: Currently the only songs from the album that are available to download at ‘iTunes’ are the two tracks that were released as singles from the album; ‘Rebel Run’ and ‘The Vow’, both included on the mid-90s compilation Best of Toyah.

Yikes! Highly rare photos of Toyah taken at Mayhem in July 1979. A few from this session have been available for a few years (view them at Dreamscape’s 1978/79 Gallery). Please click below to view larger versions of these great photos. Thanks to Craig Watkins. (Photos © Philip Grey)

The full length video for Sensational was released this morning. Uplifting song, great visuals!

A very rare, and fantastic, photo of Toyah from around the time of the release of ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’ (AP, not album) in 1979, along with a mini-poster by Dreamscape. Please click to zoom on that. (Thanks to Andi for the original photo)

Classic Toyah @ Dreamscape: Celebrating Toyah’s unique, colourful and exciting past while reporting the bang up-to-date Toyah news and views too. The Best Of Both!  ;))

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.

Toyah talks ‘Love Is The Law’ in 1983: “For the first time I’ve written real love songs, a field I’ve never ventured into before. The songs are all inter related. There’s a loose story behind it but I’m not telling anyone that. There’s a very emotional feeling to the whole thing.”

Toyah talks the ‘Love Is The Law’ and ‘Rebel Run’ imagery in 1987: “This is the Rebel Run look. I was into armour. A friend, Simon, made a bronze headdress based on the skeletal structure of American football players. What I wanted to put acros was The New Woman. I believe we’ve got into a new kind of feminism. Women’s bodies are becoming more muscular, more streamlined. They’re not based on having babies. I won’t be having babies. By now I’d changed from a girl into a woman. Everything is based on becoming the Ultimate Woman.” (Thanks to Andrew York)

Yes, this is a word in your ear… Just uploaded to You Tube. Excellent quality footage of Toyah performing ‘We Are’, on German music programme RockPop, in 1981. Amazing! (Why didn’t British music shows emblazon huge photos of Toyah as backdrops?)

Exciting news! A newly edited, previously unseen, video for ‘Sensational’, from ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, is coming your way soon! Tune into Toyah’s official online channels first thing Monday morning. Here are some screen caps from the excellent 2007 video.

Check out Dreamscape’s 2009 feature on Toyah’s most recent studio album, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen. Charting the build up to the album’s release, official updates, reviews, fan opinions, photo sessions and much more. It’s sensational! ;)

There’s also Dreamscape’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ News Archive. Three years of news, info and updates all related to the album…

BBC Breakfast Time went on air 30 years ago this morning. The original programme logo and memorable theme tune still remind me of getting ready for school.

Toyah has guested on the programme numerous times over the years: In 1983, talking about ‘Love Is The Law’ and The Ebony Tower; in 1985, around ‘Minx’ time, talking about a tour that didn’t happen (see below); in 1987, talking about ‘Desire’ and Cabaret; in 2007, talking about panto in Reading and in 2008, talking about Vampires Rock.

BBC Breakfast is celebrating 30 years of broadcasting with a trip down memory lane

Considered a “huge risk” when it launched on 17 January 1983, Breakfast Time was the UK’s first regular national breakfast show. Famous for its magazine-style approach, it combined news and lighter features. The 30th anniversary show will feature appearances from some of the original team.

Introduced two weeks before rival broadcaster ITV’s TV-am with David Frost, Breakfast Time hoped to lure audiences away from radio with a combination of news, travel information and lifestyle segments. Although breakfast TV had been the staple diet in the US for three decades, the British public was wary of the innovation in 1983.

• Continue reading at BBC News. View Toyah’s 1985 Breakfast Time appearance below.

Written by Toyah and Joel Bogen, the opening song on ‘Love Is The Law’, the wonderful Broken Diamonds. Strange to consider that this album marked the end of the Willcox/Bogen songwriting partnership after six years of creating incredible music together!

Over the last couple of days we’ve been running a “Favourite Songs” from the ’Love Is The Law’ and ‘Desire’ albums poll at Dreamscape’s Facebook Group. A bit of fun and hardly definitive but an interesting current gauge of what some fans think of the songs on these great albums. Some chose two songs and others opted for related songs not on the albums, I’ve included these in the totals.

LOVE IS THE LAW: Broken Diamonds – 8, I Explode – 10, Rebel Of Love – 2, Rebel Run – 1, Martian Cowboy – 6 , Dreamscape – 5, Time Is Ours – 8, Love Is The Law – 4, Remember – 2, The Vow – 2, (To The Mountains High – 1, Haunted – 1, Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard) – 1)

DESIRE: Echo Beach – 1, Moonlight Dancing – 5, Revive The World – 4, The View – 4, Moon Migration – 2, Love’s Unkind – 2, Dear Diary – 0, Deadly As A Woman – 3, Goodbye Baby – 1. When A Woman Cries – 5, Desire – 3, (Re-Entry Into Dance – 5, Sun-Up – 2, Plenty – 1)

‘Sensational’ is currently playing on numerous UK television and radio channels…

• Great Toyah art for 2013 by Colin Dewhurst. Click on the photo to view a larger version. (Thanks again to Colin)

• Toyah @ Twitter: “I’m lovin 2013 already! Phone ringing off the hook…..busy busy bee! Very interesting projects in the offering“, “Crazy day: dealing with 4 national publications, put chapter in Jarman book 2 bed“.

• The Guardian: Why we should all mourn the loss of Gaydar Radio: Toyah is mentioned in this article on the demise of ‘Gaydar Radio’: …or hearing Phil, the evening presenter, confess that he’s been to his 7,000th Toyah Willcox concert.

• Doctor Who Online : A comprehensive review of The Legacy Collection, (which includes Toyah in More Than Than 30 Years In The TARDIS), the DVD box set just about to be released worldwide.

• Daily Mail: Toyah was the subject of one of the questions in the Mail’s Christmas quiz, Mike Read’s Poptastic Puzzlers.

• Sensational: As well as airing all over the tellybox, the Weight Watchers’ ad featuring Patsy Kensit and Toyah’s ‘Sensational’ is also on the radio. (Thanks to Michael & Sharon)

• This is Kent: A Feast of Pantomimes: Christmas may seem a lifetime away now, but the festive spirit continues into the new year with a feast of pantomimes. The Marlowe Theatre’s spectacular pantomime Sleeping Beauty, starring pop idol Gareth Gates, punk singer Toyah Willcox and Margate born comedian Lloyd Hollett runs until January 20.

• This is Kent: Pupils Pepper Panto Stars with Questions: Theatre group the Marlowe Spotlighters cast a critical eye over this year’s pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, after interviewing the stars of the show.

Welcome to our final update of 2012! Happy New Year’s Eve/Hogmanay to each and every person who takes the time to visit this website. Wishing you a happy, successful and Toyah-filled 2013. It’s the 30th anniversary of Toyah’s glorious ‘Love Is The Law’ album! Can’t wait…

A new edition of Toyah’s 2008 studio album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ is coming in early 2013. It will include the 2011 single ’21st Century Supersister’.

Great photos of a weekend in Brighton! Sharon Dickson with Toyah, and Chris & Andy. Andy Mansfield with Toyah, and Sharon visiting Wykehurst Place. View larger versions of these photos at Dreamscape’s TCRII Gallery. (Thanks to Sharon)

A slightly different version of ‘Ghosts In The Universe’ from Toyah’s 1988 album Prostitute has recently been uploaded to You Tube. It isn’t vastly different but it certainly isn’t the same as the version available on the album. (Thanks to secondsish)

Two more: Waiting (Goodbye Mankind) and Last Goodbye. Unsure if these “slightly different” versions of well-known Toyah songs are fan “mixed” or not.

Well I sell my soul to Faust, each and every night for you…

An incredible lyric to start a song with. Even at 13 it impressed me, although I didn’t actually have a clue what it meant at the time. ‘Run Wild, Run Free’ is one of the standout tracks on The Changeling. No mean feat when you consider how good the entire album is.

A muted and subdued beginning belies the intensity of the song, and some of the lyrics sound incredibly personal and directed at a particular person: “It’s a lonely time, I’ve walked from the limelight, into an empty cobbled street… for you” .

Toyah’s voice is outstanding throughout, as are her own backing vocals. I really believe(d) she means every word she sings, and the band as always sound great. I love the energy and intensity, and the drama, of ‘Run Wild, Run Free’ from beginning to end – although there isn’t really an end as it segues brilliantly into ‘Brave New World’!

Written by the juggernaut songwriting team of Willcox/Bogen, produced by Steve Lillywhite and released in Summer 1982, it is one of the best Toyah songs of the Safari years.

Nigel Glockler, a former member of Toyah, presented Toyah with a Changeling cake at the final concert of The Changeling Resurrection II Tour at Concorde2, Brighton on Saturday night. Here’s the unique cake, and Toyah… (Photos © Damon King)

View Damon’s Concorde2 footage (I Want To Be Free, It’s A Mystery, Thunder In The Mountains, Obsolete, Good Morning Universe) here, and Kevin Tucker’s (Ieya) here.

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 :)

When this album was released in 1991 I bought it immediately of course – it had been three long years since ‘Prostitute’ – but my music tastes had changed radically through the mid-80s to the early-90s: Mudhoney, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Fugazi, Big Black, Ministry, Ride, The Smiths, The Wedding Present were just some of my favourite bands, but I still had a real soft spot for Toyah, being a loyal fan since 1980, and always bought everything she released and still followed her eclectic career… ‘Ophelia’s Shadow’ was an album that took a while to grow on me – something like 10 years! I didn’t really appreciate it’s brilliance immediately, it took until around 2000 for that to happen – Over the last few years it’s become one of my favourite Toyah albums and over the last year I’ve listened to it more than ever. Happy 21st birthday!