Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

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!

“Next year we are going to tour ‘Love is the Law’, the album which came after ‘The Changeling’, but we are not going to do two tours of that, just one extended tour“…

(Info Source: Toyah Interview @ Penny Black Music)

A few Toyah bits and pieces from ‘Tellurian’, the Toyah Fan Club Newsletter which ran from 1986 until 2001: The Times: A Childhoood. View here. Toyah Willcox, interviewed by Deanish, plus a few ‘Ophelia’s Shadow’ related clippings. View here.

Fuck Yeah Toyah continues to be updated with brilliant Toyah content, including rare photos (howabout this absolute rarity from around the time of the ‘Anthem Tour’, 1981?) and audio.

Tom Leon has uploaded another track to ‘house-mixes.com’ – This one is ‘Let Me Go (Here It Comes Again 2012 Remix)’, a song that was originally released in 1994 on Toyah’s Dreamchild album.

Toyah is one of Tom’s favourite singers. In 1995 he created ‘Awake’n Dreams: Alan Parsons Project vs Toyah Willcox’, two tracks that used samples from the 1981 song ‘Pop Star’. He also put both of these online earlier in 2012. More info on that in our news from April.

• Listen to ‘Let Me Go (Here It Comes Again 2012 Remix)’ by Tom Leon here.

I’ve been thinking of doing some more occasional Toyah songwords/lyrics pages (inspired, of course, by Smash Hits & No.1). A good one to restart with: The magnificent Pop Star from ‘Anthem’. Click below to zoom. More Songwords: The Changeling and Four More From Toyah.

Possibly Toyah’s most iconic song? ‘Ieya’ was, of course, originally released as a single on Safari Records in 1980 and included on the album ‘The Blue Meaning’. It was also re-recorded and released again, as ‘Ieya ’82’, in the Summer of 1982, with Toyah performing it on various TV shows, including Hold Tight and the 6.55 Special. The single even charted. Here’s to the 30th (and 32nd!) anniversary of an absolute classic… Ieeeeeeeeeeyyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

It isn’t included in ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ set lists, but ‘Street Creature’ – which could/should have been a single back in 1982 – is still a huge fan favourite. Probably the “poppiest” track on ‘The Changeling’ and a song Toyah had an absolute ball performing on Get Set For Summer, Three Of A Kind and Razzmatazz in ‘Summer ’82 (For Michael :))

…Prostitute and Ophelia’s Shadow. Two ridiculously underrated albums (particularly the latter. I mean ‘Ghost Light’ is just… incredible!)

Here I stand on a large chunk of rock
Floatin’ in the piss-pot part of the firmament…

That could almost be a description of certain areas of Facebook. Apparently this site, and myself, have recently been getting bad-mouthed (again?) by some misery or other.

Fuck chuck a buck you… ‘Ghosts In The Universe’, 1988.

Toyah puts it far more eloquently, poetically and succinctly than I ever could :)