Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Just a reminder that Toyah, along with Hazel O’Connor and Annabella Lwin, guests on Keith Middleton’s Late Show tonight on ‘BBC Radio’ (various stations: Shropshire, Stoke, WM, Hereford & Worcester and Coventry & Warwickshire).

Keith Middleton Show: BBC Radio (Various): Sat 31st March: 9pm
Keith is joined by Toyah Willcox, Hazel O’Connor and Annabella Lwin (of Bow Wow Wow) for a ‘Punk Extravaganza’. Is there a punk track you haven’t heard for a while? Let Keith know and he’ll do his best to play it…

Listen to the show online as it airs, or via ‘BBC iPlayer’ post-broadcast. (Available for one week only)

20 years ago! An interesting and honest interview from This Morning in 1992. Richard and Judy talk to Toyah about Memoirs Of A Survivor, her childhood, privacy, the press, fans, the recent Anthony Clare radio interview, being a parent and more. View the full interview below or at ‘You Tube’ here. Click on the screen caps for larger versions.

Toyah guested on BBC1’s Ask Aspel on 16th June 1981, talking music, songwriting, acting, presenting and answering viewer’s questions. Includes clips from the ATV docu and The Tempest. Not great quality but interesting all the same.

80s Music. All Grown Up. ‘Remember The Eighties’ website was relaunched today and is now ‘This Is Not Retro’. The site is looking great and is packed full of news, interviews, reviews and much more. There is also substantial Toyah content, including four interviews. Visit ‘This Is Not Retro’ here and click below for lots of Toyah.

DJ Phil Marriott announced today that he will be interviewing Toyah later this week.

There’s no confirmation as yet where or when the interview will air but it will possibly be on Phil’s ‘Gaydar Radio’ show.

The show airs from 6-10pm each weeknight on the station and can be listened to, at their website, here.

One you may have missed, or might just want to listen to again: Chris Limb’s interview with Toyah from 1987. Listen here. There’s also a full transcript of the interview, at ‘The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive’, here.

A new interview with Toyah, published today by the ‘Derby Telegraph’.

Despite a career in showbusiness spanning more than three decades, it’s a performance in New York last week that Toyah Willcox cites as her absolute highlight.

The show, on a promotional tour for her band The Humans’ second album, was capped off with a standing ovation and almost endless cheers from the adoring crowd.

“That was incredible,” says Toyah fondly. “There have been so many amazing moments in my career that I will always look back on fondly but playing in New York City and getting a standing ovation for The Humans is at the top.”

That tour of the east coast of the USA was a precursor to a trek around the UK, which sees The Humans visit The Flowerpot in Derby tomorrow night.

• Read the full interview at ‘This is Derbyshire’ here.

A great new interview with Bill Rieflin from NPR Music’s ‘The Record’.

Talking Shop With Bill Rieflin, Journeyman Musician

This is a songs-oriented record, but the instrumentation is unusual. Explain why you decided to be a singer and two basses (augmented by other things, including Robert Fripp’s guitar).

The fact is, I didn’t decide anything. It was all Toyah’s doing. For some reason, out of the blue, she asked if I wanted to play bass with a new project. After recovering from the sheer confoundment and confusion, I said, “OK.” I had no idea why she would want a drummer to play bass. The concept of voice and two bassists as the musical core of the group is solely hers. Being that it’s her vision, I can’t exactly tell you the “why” except to say that, as a singer, I’m told, it’s much nicer to sing without having to fight over guitars and drums eating up all the frequencies they eat up. From this basic trio grows further augmentation and adornment. As the producer, I will usually fill in where I see fit, adding musical highlights and emphases. Plus, it gives me an opportunity to show off. Robert joined us on this record as a continuation of touring we did together last year, so this was a natural step.

• Read the full interview with Bill at the ‘NPR Music’ website, here.

The ‘Coventry Telegraph’ also has a new interview with Toyah:

Pop Icon, Toyah Willcox Takes New Band On The Road

The lady in the thigh-high boots and flaming basque-cum-breastplate is unmistakably Toyah Willcox – the stack-heeled wench with her back to camera requires a tad more explanation.

“Ah yes,” says Toyah, “that’s John Wayne! He’s actually a transvestite who owns a nightclub in Stoke-on-Trent – I met him because he’s a Toyah impersonator and now he’s my PA.

“He was there when we were making our video and the director said ‘right John, get your gear on, we’re filming you’.”

Toyah (the surname has been superfluous since It’s A Mystery provided her breakthrough hit in 1981) supplies the information in a matter-of-fact tone which confirms that the bizarre is perfectly normal in her world…

… Artists can sometimes get decidedly sniffy if interviewers attempt to pin down their sound, but Toyah, fortunately, warms to the suggestion that there is a Brechtian feel to The Humans’ music.

“That’s a nice comparison,” she says. “It’s not 100 per cent because there’s a lot of energy and we’ll be playing some new stuff which is very Seattle grunge, but it is a listening experience rather than the ‘come on everybody sing along’ when I’m out there as Toyah. And, yes, it is a bit dark and bleak – the Humans’ world is permanently in winter!”

That being the case, long-term fans expecting a quick chorus of Thunder In The Mountains or Brave New World will be disappointed.

“We will be doing some hits, but they’re not Toyah hits,” she says. “That’s not a possibility because we are so peculiar – it’s not a band set-up – it’s two bass players and a guitar and vocals.”

Read the full interview online at ‘Coventry Telegraph’ here.