Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Dreamscape celebrated the 30th Anniversary of The Changeling, in 2012, with a website!

New from the NME! One of the most interesting Toyah interviews/features for a long time…

In Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!, we quiz an artist on their own career to see how much they can remember – and find out if the booze, loud music and/or tour sweeties has knocked the knowledge out of them

1 You starred in Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk film Jubilee. Upon its release, who created a protest T-shirt deeming it “the most boring and therefore disgusting film”?
“Vivienne Westwood!”

CORRECT.

“I got one right! I’m so happy! Derek Jarman, the director, was thrilled by that (Laughs). When we started pre-production, people were behind the film, but then the punk world felt it was going to be exploitative. Derek Jarman was special and had no compromise. He saw talent in everyone and everything. Working with him on Jubilee, I quickly became aware that I was being catapulted from nowhere into the glitterati of this new movement and I immediately knew it was special.”

Ever run into Vivienne Westwood?

“I actually did some modelling for Vivienne. She probably wouldn’t have known it was me, but I did some modelling for TV at her shop [Sex] which was great fun. I got John Lydon through the screen test for Quadrophenia. Franc Roddam, its director, asked me to go over to Johnny Rotten’s apartment, learn two scenes with him, and accompany him to the studio to do the screen test for the role of Jimmy. He was an absolute gentleman and a brilliant actor, but nobody would touch Johnny because they felt he was unpredictable.”

You’ve acted with some big names including Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Oliver…

“Laurence Olivier was quite old when I worked with him [on the 1984 TV movie The Ebony Tower] and not terribly well so we could only shoot with him three hours a day, but he burnt brighter than anyone I’d ever met. He was a rebel and wonderfully naughty. I used to have supper with him in the evenings and was told not to let him drink – and we’d get through six bottles of champagne and he could still keep going! My first professional job was at the National Theatre so to be acting with him in a movie was thrilling.”

• Continue reading at the NME.

Dreamscape has 20+ years of Toyah news in our archives, but this isn’t only a news site – There are also tons of retro, and not so retro, Toyah career features – celebrating albums, eras, releases, significant Toyah “moments” and much more – to browse and read!

Check out Dreamscape’s newly updated Features section.

Happy 40th Anniversary to one of the great landmarks of Toyah’s music career – The Blue Meaning. The second long-player (as they were once called) and first full studio album, was released exactly 40 years ago today, in June 1980.

An amazing album and Toyah era, The Blue Meaning is significant for a number of reasons: It was the first Toyah release to enter the Official UK Chart (though earlier singles and the first album had all scaled the peak of the Indie Chart).

It also boasted incredible imagery, artwork and high design standard which would become synonymous with Toyah’s music career and future releases. The album also includes Toyah’s most legendary song, the perennial fan-favourite, Ieya! No Toyah gig is complete without it.

Over the past four decades the album has increased in significance, becoming a crucial part of Toyah’s discography. Everyone loves Anthem (who couldn’t?), The Changeling is a favourite of many fans, Love Is The Law saw Toyah’s vocals soar, Minx still divides opinion, Prostitute mindboggled us all, Ophelia’s Shadow as beautiful, intricate and unique as any album by Kate Bush or Tori Amos, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen introduced Toyah to a new audience while also delighting longtime fans, and yet The Blue Meaning came before all of the aforementioned and 40 years later still intrigues and entertains with each and every listen. Click below for our feature.

Dreamscape’s new Toyah Releases 2020 feature page is now online.

Toyah’s February Blog: “There is so much happening this year and it is all going to be announced in stages. Toyah Solo box set was announced in January and yesterday five Toyah Colour Vinyl were announced for pre-order“. Click below to take a look!

Dreamscape has features on four of the six Toyah solo studio albums included in the forthcoming Toyah Solo box set: Desire, Prostitute, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell.

Click below to see all four plus lots of other Toyah features.

Our Dance In The Hurricane mini-feature. Check it out in full by clicking on the preview below.

An interesting feature on Toyah, published by Punk Girl Diaries, in June.

Since the day we set up this blog and Twitter account, Polly and I have sometimes encountered the view that such-and-such ‘isn’t really punk’. By which they mean 1st generation saw-the-Sex-Pistols and lived-in-a-London-squat sort of punk. Here at punkgirldiaries.com, we tend to think that punk’s a way of thinking that lives on, and what’s more, it probably existed under another name back in Ancient Greece.

But having seen the Sex Pistols and then forming a band doesn’t even guarantee you full punk kudos. Some people seem to be sniffy about Toyah and whether or not she counts as a ‘proper punk’. There’s a Daily Mail article which describes Toyah as ‘the acceptable face of punk’.

Toyah cites the reason that punk attracted her was that it allowed her to be herself. As a child, she had many operations and years of physiotherapy to overcome spinal and leg problems. She was bullied due to her speech impediment and didn’t fit into the 1970’s version of fixed gender identity and roles.

• Continue reading at Punk Girl Diaries. See also Quadrophenia – Punk in Parkas.

Toyah’s amazing Brave New World was released as a single 36 years ago today. Read our interview with Melissa Mailer-Yates, discussing her Brave New World inspired painting of Toyah, by clicking below.

Just two weeks until Toyah’s 1987 album Desire is released on limited edition translucent red vinyl as a Record Store Day exclusive, on Saturday 21st April.

The LP will be available exclusively in independent record stores only on Record Store Day but will be available beyond this day until stocks are all sold. This new edition is mastered from the original master tapes.

Exclusive to RSD2018, this numbered 30th anniversary edition of Toyah’s Desire pressed on heavyweight red Translucent vinyl was her first album for the EG label, and features her hit single cover version of Echo Beach as well as a cover of Donna Summer’s Love’s Unkind. Produced by Mike Hedges (Tears For Fears, The Cure) the album features Robert Fripp (who co-wrote the title track) and Ronnie Wood. The inner sleeve features the lyrics. This is limited to 1000 units worldwide.

• In the meantime revisit Dreamscape’s celebration of Desire by clicking below… (Thanks to toyahwillcox.com and recordstoreday.co.uk for the above info)

Jubilee was on release in cinemas this week & month forty years ago in 1978 after premiering in London on 28 February. (Image © Official Toyah)

2018 is a big deal – This year Toyah celebrates the landmark event of turning 60, on 18th May. Not only that, this year is also the 40th anniversary of Toyah first making music.

Ten years ago I had a blast counting down to and celebrating Toyah’s fantastic 50th and hope to share some celebratory posts in the build up to Toyah’s 60th in just over two month’s time. Toyah’s official website and social media spaces are also celebrating #Toyah60 with special content and Toyah memories, career achievements and highlights.

• Dreamscape is now in its 19th year of sharing Toyah news so we have a comprehensive archive to look back on and simultaneously celebrate Toyah hitting 60! Have a browse at our many features looking at Toyah’s flabbergasting career and stay tuned for more memories…

Snow, snow and, yup, more snow! Brrrr!! Welcome to March in the UK…

Official Toyah’s gorgeous At The Rainbow anniversary image, along with info on the gig:

On This Day 22.2.1981 Toyah performed a headline gig at the Rainbow Theatre, London with Joel Bogen, Phil Spalding, Nigel Glockler, Adrian Lee. The gig was hot on the feels of the EP Four From Toyah charting in the Top 40 singles chart. Safari Records decided to film the concert and record the audio on the Rolling Stones mobile recording unit. It was then licenced it to BBC who televised a 30-min edit and released a 55-min version on the recently launched home video market on #VHS and #Laserdisc formats, the latter containing Nick Tauber’s stereo mix. The full concert had a rather long set list but since the band had only recently formed they performed arrangements of material from the albums Sheep Farming and The Blue Meaning. They did however perform all 4 of the songs from the EP Four From Toyah which at this point were the only recordings they’d made together. The full set list for this gig was as below and the repeated encore versions of War Boys and Mystery were used in final video edit. (Image © Official Toyah)

37 years ago this very evening Toyah played their, legendary, At The Rainbow concert at The Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London.

“The irrepressible Toyah Willcox is marching on, opening up new horizons in audio-visual entertainment… She is now number one in a field of one… An original.” London Trax

The Rainbow Theatre, originally known as the Astoria Theatre, is a former cinema which still stands today in Finsbury Park, London and is now a Grade II listed building. It closed as a music venue in December 1981 and lay derilict for many years but was restored in the 1990s and is now used as a church.

“Toyah – a great rock performer, an inimitable individualist of the music scene. The legendary Rainbow Theatre in North London is the setting for this spectacular show, among the laser beams, through clouds of swirly smoke, Toyah struts and strides – a truly spine tingling performance. “Toyah” – band and vocalist – frenzied, pulsating, mystical fabulous – an explosive experience.”

RAINBOW SET-LIST

A 30-minute edit of the gig was aired by the BBC in 1981 and a 55-minute version was released on BBC video and laser disc. Neither of these included the full set-list of songs played at the gig:

War Boys, Neon Womb, Waiting, Our Movie, Revelations, Danced, Race Through Space, Angels & Demons, Love Me, Mummies, Insects, It’s A Mystery, Computer, Indecision, Tribal Look, Ghosts, Victims Of The Riddle, Ieya. ENCORE: It’s A Mystery, War Boys , Bird In Flight, Danced

Toyah Willcox (Vocals), Joel Bogen (Guitar), Phil Spalding (Bass), Nigel Glockler (Drums), Adrian Lee (Keyboards). See the Discography page at toyahwillcox.com and read Dreamscape’s 2011 At The Rainbow mini-feature. Re-live the magical gig at You Tube.

Revisit our 2012 interview feature with Melissa Mailer-Yates and marvel at her wonderful “Brave New World” art – Which is still available as a print here.. Please click below to read.

This year I’m planning on sporadically looking back at a few of Dreamscape’s past Toyah features – What better way to kick off than with In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, especially as Toyah begins her year-long Crimson Queen/Greatest Hits… Live! Tour later this month. Click below to view our feature all about Toyah’s brilliant 2008 studio album.

• Dreamscape also had a dedicated News & Press page for all things In The Court Of The Crimson Queen – this was updated between September 2007 and May 2010 – View that here.

The final three covers for Imaginary Toyah Singles. I’ve had some great feedback about these and I’m glad some of you have liked them. The final three are ‘Dreamscape’ (from Love Is The Law), ‘Stand Proud’ (from the flexi that was included with the first 100,000 copies of Four More From Toyah) and ‘Angel in You’ (from In The Court Of The Crimson Queen). View full size versions of these and many others by clicking below.

It’s the penultimate Imaginary Toyah Singles update. Four more covers that don’t, or ever did, exist, though luckily for us all the great songs are real: ‘Haunted’ (from The Vow 12″), ‘Baptised in Fire’ (from the Rebel Run 12″), ‘Heal Ourselves’ (from In The Court Of The Crimson Queen) and another cover for ‘Elocution Lesson’ (from Anthem). View full size versions of these and many others by clicking below.

A few more covers for Imaginary Toyah Singles: ‘Elocution Lesson’ (from Anthem), ‘She’ (from The Blue Meaning), ‘Street Addict’ (b-side of Thunder In The Mountains) and ‘Space Between The Sounds’ (from Minx). View full size versions of these and many others by clicking below.