Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Screen caps from the 1982 interview. Click on these to view larger versions.

This rare television interview is from that amazing Summer of 1982, the fantastic era of ‘The Changeling’. I’m not sure what the programme was called (possibly… It’ll Be A Laugh, Let’s Get The Office Junior To Do The Interviews This Week… just kidding, we love him really!). Toyah looks incredible here (how absolutely vibrant did Toyah look throughout 1982?) and talks ‘Brave New World’, making the video, ‘The Changeling’ tour dates and more.

This is an interesting interview from around the time of ‘The Changeling’ album and the UK tour. Toyah and Joel talk the music, the imagery, the fans, the songwriting, sex appeal and much more. Toyah also explains the origins of the “breast bared” photo(s) and why it was taken.

“I’d like to have Bo Derek’s body and someone else’s brain…”

It wasn’t until my third interview in nine weeks with Toyah that I felt confident enough to broach the subject of sex. As casually as I possibly could, I suggested to her that compared to other female artists ranging from Kim Wilde to Kate Bush to Souxsie, her image contains virtually no sex appeal, despite being a young, vivacious, attractive girl.

“I think, supposedly onstage, there’s much more sex appeal than in the photos” she counters. ” But I couldn’t do an Annabella (Lwin of Bow Wow Wow), I couldn’t show parts of my body…”

WHAAAT!! There’s that infamous pic of you with one breast bared and daubed with painted circles which has appeared almost everywhere from Sounds and Punk’s Not Dead to The Sun!

“Oh the ‘boob photo’ that’s the only one that exists, and no one knows why that was done” she offers matter of factly.

• Continue reading at the ‘Dreamscape Press Archive’ here.

Marking tonight’s premiere concert of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’ UK tour: Available for one day only, ‘CASTAWAYS: Four (live) from Toyah’ EP.

1. Dawn Chorus/Moonlight Dancing (6.55 Special)
2. Brave New World (Get Set For Summer)
3. Street Creature (Get Set For Summer)
4. Castaways (Get Set For Summer)

Click on the artwork to view the EP at ‘Soundcloud’ or listen via the player below.

These tracks are all already available online, in video, at ‘You Tube’. As the new tour opens I thought creating an EP from them, showcasing four great live performances from ‘The Changeling’ era, would be a fitting way to celebrate this great occasion. Click here for a larger version of the artwork. (UPDATE: This is no longer available)

Yet another exciting Changeling tweet from Toyah yesterday: “6 songs from The Changeling gone into new set for Resurrection tour. Can’t wait. Love toyah“.

There’s now just one, yes one, day to go until the first gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’ tour.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of ‘The Changeling’, artist Mark Satchwill created this amazing Toyah art.

Mark said: “It’s 30 years since Toyah released The Changeling, and as she is touring the album I thought I would do a painting to mark the occasion. The painting is inspired by Toyah’s amazing and colourful image and the songs lyrics of the album. It was painted digitally in ArtRage 3.5 Pro.”

A fantastic, lasting tribute to the album, it’s lyrics, themes and imagery. Visit Mark’s official website, and his blog.

There are now just two days to go until ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’ is finally unleashed. What will be included in the set list? Which songs from the album have made it into the 30th anniversary celebratory tour? What will Toyah look like? What will she be wearing?

It really is fantastic that Toyah is taking the time to, yet again, indulge her fans in this way. I’m sure everyone who is heading to Brighton for Saturday’s gig must be getting ridiculously excited.

The imagery created for ‘The Changeling’ album is not only some of the finest of Toyah’s many different looks and guises but also probably the best of any pop star’s visuals. Especially when you consider that they were achieved without digital trickery, airbrushing and photoshop. Astounding creativity and ideas. The two below are particularly beautiful and timeless.

Just three days to go…

A short excerpt from Toyah’s autobiography, published in August 2000, ‘Living Out Loud’.

Toyah talks about ‘The Changeling’, and some of the events of 1982: Winning ‘Best Female Singer’ at The British Rock & Pop Awards, sacking her manager, feeling that her images and hairstyles were becoming outdated etc.

Toyah also mentions the reasons why herself and Joel decided to record an album with much darker themes after the huge success of ‘Anthem’ the year before.

• Listen to ‘The Changeling’ set of Toyah interviews and audio, at ‘Soundcloud’, here.

Yikes! Just four short days to go until the first concert of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’.

‘The Changeling’ has been my, and many other Toyah fans’, favourite Toyah album for almost 30 years. When you consider Toyah’s best album releases: ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’, ‘The Blue Meaning’, ‘Anthem’, ‘Love Is The Law’, ‘Desire’, ‘Prostitute’, ‘Ophelia’s Shadow’, ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’… ‘The Changeling’ can only be described as “the best of the best”. Impressive!

Back in early 2007 I started building a feature for Dreamscape on ‘The Changeling’. I didn’t initially realise the feature would end up taking months to complete and would become one of the Toyah creations I’m most proud of. I’ve always felt Toyah’s 1982 studio album deserves to be celebrated, which is why I did so throughout Dreamscape’s 12 years and continue to on FTE. Rather than “pretentious twaddle” (who said that? :)) it’s a brilliant, and brilliantly dark ,’concept’ album that has grown in stature and reputation over the last 30 years!

Six days to go… Another audio interview that’s been available at Dreamscape and The Changeling 30 sites but good to have it here too in this countdown week to the launch of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ tour.

This is the only audio that exists from 1982 with Toyah discussing ‘The Changeling’ in any detail.

Toyah guests on Rock On on ‘BBC Radio 1’, talking to Mark Ellen about the album, aliens, fairies, changelings, critics, the ‘Brave New World’ image and much more.

Mark Ellen sounds quite bemused but it’s fair to say that in 1982 he would probably have been far happier interviewing Bruce Springsteen or REO Speedwagon.

• There’s also a full transcript of this interview, at ‘The TW Interview Archive’, here.

‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’, Toyah’s highly-anticipated new tour, opens in a week’s time in Brighton. Toyah will be playing songs live that she hasn’t performed for 30 years!

Counting down to the first gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’… To mark the build-up to this exciting tour, and the first date, I’ll be bringing you something Changeling related each day…

Seven days to go and first up, let’s marvel, once more, at some of Andrew York’s incredible Changeling art. Click on these to view more.

Exciting news! A new ‘Changeling Resurrection’ related tweet from Toyah yesterday, mentioning what may, just possibly, be the opening song of the gig:

“Loving Creepy Room. Want to open set with it. It would set the mood for the show……BONKERS“.

• View the lyrics to ‘Creepy Room’ here, and the complete songwords/lyrics for ‘The Changeling’ album here.

Two brief excerpts from last night’s ‘BBC Radio Shropshire/Stoke/etc’ interview, with Toyah talking about ‘The Changeling’ and ‘The Changeling Resurrection’. See below for info on how to hear the full interview. (Apologies for the noises, they are included in iPlayer’s recording)

More ‘Changeling’ related tweets from Toyah yesterday: “Fab day plugging in2 The Changeling. Started to really like the songs again. Can c beyond the stresses at the time.”, and this morning: “Pop Star (Live) is online 4 ur pleasure. toyahwillcox.com/gigs. Only 13 days till 1st concert. Can’t wait. The devil in me is excited.”

Welcome to the month of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’… It’s going to be wild (child)!

From Toyah’s Official Facebook today: Welcome to April…the month of THE CHANGELING RESURRECTION 2012 tour which kicks off in Brighton on 14 April. Full details of the 7 tour dates plus lots of additions to Toyah’s gig diary are now online along with a new exclusive live track….. ONLY at www.toyahwillcox.com/gigs

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…

Mark Satchwill’s amazing painting inspired by Toyah’s ‘The Changeling’ is now available to buy as an 8×10 print from Etsy.

As well as a print, small poster or postcard from Red Bubble. A great gift for any Toyah fan.

The latest painting of Toyah by artist Mark Satchwill.

Based on ‘The Changeling’ imagery and the song lyrics on the album, it’s a beautiful tribute in this 30th anniversary year.

It’s a digital work, painted in ArtRage and would be around 16 x 20 inches on canvas.

Mark has previously created ‘Four From Toyah’ and ‘The Blue Meaning’ Toyah art.

Please click on the photo to view a larger version and thanks to Mark for this. (Painting © Mark Satchwill)

• Visit ‘Mark Satchwill Art’, to view more of Mark’s work, here.