Vote for your top albums of 1983 in the fourth Slicing Up Eyeballs poll. ‘Love Is The Law’, celebrating its 30th anniversary, is included as an option. Voting closes on 24th May and the results will be announced at the beginning of June. Click below to participate in the poll.
Dreamscape is Remembering 1983 all this year! Toyah guested on ITV’s The Saturday Show (the successor to TISWAS) that year, co-hosting the programme with Isla St Clair. Click below for larger versions of the screen caps. (Thanks to Andi for this great Toyah footage)
Toyah appearing on The Saturday Show in 1983. (Thanks to Andi for this great Toyah footage)
Exactly 30 years ago Toyah was starring in Claire Luckham’s Trafford Tanzi at the Mermaid Theatre, London. BBC1’s Get Set aired a great interview on the Tanzi set, with Toyah, looking quite amazing, putting Peter Powell in his place! And here it is.
Praying to the silent man…
‘Rebel Run’, released in September 1983, was Toyah’s 13th single in the UK. It’s fitting that the song is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary in 2013.
This was one of only two singles to be released by Toyah in 1983 and was the debut from the album ‘Love Is The Law’. It was written by Toyah and Simon Darlow and reached number 24 in the UK Top 40.
Toyah made a memorable video for the single and promoted it with numerous appearances and interviews on shows including TVAM’s Summer Run, Hold Tight, The Saturday Show, Saturday Superstore, and German TV show Jugendabend. The video was also played on Top Of The Pops.
Toyah said of the imagery: “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.”
• Download ‘Rebel Run’ at iTunes, view the promo video, and the airing on Top Of The Pops. Watch Toyah perform the single on Hold Tight and Saturday Superstore. Listen to the song live at Hammersmith Odeon on the ‘Rebel Run’ Tour in December 1983. Andromeda Rising covered the song in 2005. Listen to their version here.
Happy Easter! It’s the end of March, and by this time in 1983 Trafford Tanzi was in residence at The Mermaid Theatre in London with Toyah in the lead role. She was also just about to start recording the album ‘Love Is The Law’. Dreamscape is Remembering 1983 all this year… here is the full set of LITL imaginary singles. Please click below to zoom.
The March 17-30 1983 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has been uploaded to the Smash Hits Archive, exactly 30 years ago to the day it was originally published.
The magazine, with Tracie Young and Paul Weller on the cover, includes a “Bitz” news clipping with the first mention of Toyah appearing in Trafford Tanzi.
Poll-winning warbler and sometime actress, your very own Ms Toyah Willcox, is due to begin treading the boards of the Mermaid Theatre, London from some time in late March. She’ll be taking over the title role in Trafford Tanzi, a very successful feminist musical that takes the form of a wrestling match. Rehearsals for the new cast have just been started, and they sound somewhat strenuous! The reason that there’s no precise opening date is because the show can’t go on until they’re all “in shape”.
Meanwhile, over in New York, Debie Harry is getting in shape to take the same role in a Broadway production of the same play! All this theatrical activity means, of course, that meantime there won’t be many records from either of this pair.
• Continue reading at the Smash Hits Archive.
There will be a series of live dates this autumn to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album Love Is The Law. Last year there was a voting element to the autumn tour. For the moment whilst the tour is in planning stages toyahwillcox.com wonder which songs you are most wanting to hear on this autumn tour from the period in question. There’s a rare wild card bonus track too. Take part in the survey and select the two songs you want to hear the most. After that it’s up to Toyah and the band to see what works best. Vote online by clicking below.
• View a larger version of the Dreamscape LITL creation above here.
The March 3-16 1983 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has been uploaded to the Smash Hits Archive, exactly 30 years ago to the day it was originally published.
The magazine, with Eurythmics on the cover, includes their first “Personal File” on Toyah (they printed another one in 1985 around the time of ‘Dont Fall in Love’ & ‘Minx’).
NAME: Toyah Ann Willcox
BORN: May 18, 1958, in Kings Heath, Birmingham, at home. I can’t remember much about it.
FIRST MEMORY: Sometimes I feel I can be aware of when I was inside my Mum. Otherwise, my first memory is of my first day at school. I was never told what school was; I was told about the day before that I was going to school. It was the first time I was ever parted from my mother and I never forgave her for it. I was petrified and cried and fought all day. I remember holding on to my Mum’s clothes and having to be ripped apart from her.
• Continue reading at the Smash Hits Archive.
Crackerjastic photos of Toyah and Joel at BBC Television Theatre (now the Shepherds Bush Empire), in late 1983, to film Crackerjack. They performed ‘The Vow’ (view the clip at You Tube), and appeared in the end-of-show line up, on the show which aired on 9th December 1983 on BBC1. Please click on the photos to zoom. (Thanks to Kev Tucker for these rare photos)
We’re “Remembering ’83” etc… Another little something I threw together recently while playing ‘Love Is The Law’. I say this about all of Toyah’s albums (and images and everything else) but it truly is underrated. I’m also doing another “Opinion Wall”, along the lines of last year’s for The Changeling website. I’ve already had some great responses from fans at Facebook, and if you would also like your opinions/memories of this great album included send them to me. The “wall” will be added to Dreamscape nearer to the 30th anniversary of the album’s release.
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. Here is a beautiful Japanese press advert for the ‘Love Is The Law’ album. This is is not fan created, it’s a genuine ad used in Japanese press. Click to zoom! (Thanks Andi)
• 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.
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)
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!
The Smash Hits Archive uploaded the full ‘Smash Hits Yearbook 1983’ over Christmas. The annual includes two pages on Toyah, with a great late 1981 photo and quotes from three previous interviews, plus a BNW photo at the start of the book. Visit the Smash Hits Archive here and click below to go directly to the scans at flickr.
A new ongoing Dreamscape feature for 2013: Remember ’83 – Sporadic updates looking back at Toyah’s year.
1983 was a really interesting time for Toyah and her fans, the last one at Safari Records, a final Toyah band album/tour and a real period of change!
It’s a busy year to recall; Toyah’s fifth studio album ‘Love Is The Law’, Trafford Tanzi, The Ebony Tower, the ‘Rebel Run’ Tour, more great images and photo-shoots, many TV and radio appearances & interviews, numerous magazine covers & press articles…
• Apologies! My tv guide had the first showing of Toyah’s Christmas At The Zoo on Vintage TV as airing this Thursday but it was actually broadcast tonight between 7 and 10pm. Luckily there are numerous other opportunities to watch. View the dates and times here. (Thanks to Kevin McNamara)
• Baby Satellite: A demo of the track ‘Baby Satellite’ which samples the fabulous Toyah Willcox. The song it samples is Homeward from Ophelia’s Shadow. (Thanks to Dave Powell)
• Toyah on Tour 2013: Love Is The Law 2013 Tour is already in the planning, and dates are going in thick and fast for late Sept/ Oct/ early November. The tour will be called LOVE IS THE LAW & GREATEST HITS……. bit of a mouth full but promoters want all ages to come! (Source: Toyah’s November blog)
More Saturday Show photos. These were taken when Toyah co-presented the programme in 1983. Please click below to zoom. (Thanks again to Ray Sears for the photos)
More great photos of Toyah in 1983. These were taken when Toyah was recording the Love Is The Law album while, simultaneously, starring in Trafford Tanzi at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Click on these to view larger versions. (Thanks to Andi)
Is it just me who can’t quite believe that Trafford Tanzi was almost 30 years ago!!?!! These great photos of Toyah, from various months through the Summer of 1983 while she was starring in the play at the Mermaid Theatre, were sold through the Intergalactic Ranchouse newsletters. Click on the photos to view larger versions. (Thanks to Andi)
