A great photo of The Humans, taken in Portland, Maine By Paul Nicholson (Toyah’s Sound Engineer for over 20 years) when they toured America in September 2011. The Humans’ third album is mixed, mastered and should hopefully be available “late Spring/early Summer”. Click below to see the full version. (Thanks to Paul for the photo)
Screen caps from The Humans: Live, Up Close & Personal, recorded at the HMV Institute, Birmingham last October, and recently uploaded to You Tube. The footage is comprised of the gig, an interview with The Humans plus comments and opinions from fans who attended the special concert. Click on the caps to view larger versions. (Thanks to Sanctuary Music)
• Setlist: Sugar Rush, Titanium Girl, Labyrinth, Love In A Different Way, This Reasoning, Fragment Pool, Sea of Size, Quicksilver, Telekenisis, These Boots, Twisted Soul, Pebble, Put A Woman On The Moon, Small Town Psychopath/Playing In The Dark, Demigod.
• Immerse yourself in more of The Humans at thehumansofficial.com, the brilliant Sugar Rush fansite and Toyah @ Twitter (a fortnight of updates from the recording sessions in Seattle).
THE HUMANS: TOYAH WILLCOX vocals, BILL RIEFLIN guitar/bass, CHRIS WONG guitar/bass, IGOR ABULADZE percussion: were LIVE, UP CLOSE & PERSONAL: Recorded at HMV Institute, Birmingham, Monday 10 October 2011. Sound: PAUL NICHOLSON
The albums SUGAR RUSH and WE ARE THE HUMANS available from iTunes & thehumansofficial.com.
• Check out Toyah’s Official Twitter for regular updates and photos from The Humans third album recording sessions, direct from Toyah in Seattle.
Sugar Rush: The Humans Fansite have an exclusive Q&A with new Human Igor Abuladze.
Igor plays guitar, keyboards and percussion. He lives and works in Seattle as a music instructor at Seattle Drum School. He is currently working on a second solo album. See his mini-bio at The Humans Official.
• Read the full Igor Abuladze Q&A at Sugar Rush.
A news update from The Humans Official/Official Toyah today: A huge apology but due to circumstance out of our control, the work permits for The Humans live dates in July cannot be processed in time. Anyone holding tickets for these three shows can obtain a refund from the point of purchase or can use them to gain access to the Birmingham Ballroom on the 31st October to see the Toyah The Changeling Resurrection II. The rescheduled live dates for The Humans will be announced this autumn and are likely to take place in spring 2013 to coincide with the release of the band’s third album. Apologies for any inconvenience and we will bring you news fo the re-scheduled show ASAP.
• Sanctuary Music Presents: The Humans: Live, Up Close & Personal: Sanctuary’s promotional poster/flyer for The Humans’ July 2012 dates. View a larger version here.
• The Press Association: BBC Celebrates Birth Of Punk: Never mind the Jubilee, here’s a punk season … the BBC is to celebrate the birth of a musical revolution with a series of programmes on radio and TV.
• There’s less than a week to go until Toyah’s birthday. In the past Dreamscape always celebrated Toyah’s special day by bringing you a rarity or three from the archives, and why break a tradition? Please do look! back hear! on May 18th for something just a little bit groovy :)
• Thanks to some amazingly loyal Toyah fans, who have stuck by Dreamscape since the very beginning, for the lovely messages over the last week or so. Despite having a degree in Marketing (yuk!) I never really thought, or think, in the terms of “Brand Dreamscape”, as someone suggested I should. I do agree, though, that it’s not a great idea that everything should revolve around Facebook or social networks in general. It is a fantastic way to communicate news immediately but great bands and artists should always be represented by at least a couple of independent/non official websites… FTE will stay, as I think it works well having a seperate site/url for a news (yes, and trivia/occasional nonsense) resource, but there may be a sporadic update or two to Dreamscape’s Gallery (one possibly quite soon!). In archive status the site is still as busy as it was when “active”.
• Toyah plays Let’s Rock The Moor 2012 this afternoon. It’s been officially confirmed Toyah is onstage at 4pm. Great weather up here today, here’s hoping it’s the same for Toyah and all the other bands in Cookham, Berkshire…
• Early bird price tickets for ‘The Changeling Resurrection II’ at Sheffield Corporation (29th September) now on sale!
• Early bird tickets for ‘The Changeling Resurrection: Rewound & Extended’ final gig (3rd November) at Concorde2, Brighton – SOLD OUT! :)
• Raw Promo Derby: A return visit to the Flowerpot Derby is now confirmed for Sat 28th July for THE HUMANS featuring Toyah Willcox. Check out www.rawpromo.co.uk for info and tickets.
• View the RAW Promo ‘Live At The Flowerpot’ The Humans flyer here.
• The Humans: Live, Up Close & Personal: Direct ticket links: Birmingham, Derby, Manchester.
Renowned and celebrated performer Toyah will step out onto the stage with her transatlantic rock band THE HUMANS this July. Following the acclaimed album Sugar Rush, highly praised international concerts in the UK, America and Estonia, THE HUMANS present their hybrid of haunting and sweet in a trio of intimate, exclusive UK live dates.
THE HUMANS – LIVE, UP CLOSE & PERSONAL
Friday 27 July : BIRMINGHAM Ballroom
Saturday 28 July : DERBY Flowerpot
Sunday 29 July : MANCHESTER Ruby Lounge
Birmingham/Manchester £9.50, Derby £10, on sale now.
• Continue reading at The Humans Official and/or The Official Toyah Website.
A marvellous announcement this morning for fans of The Humans. A trio of live UK dates at the end of July: Birmingham Ballroom, Friday 27th July; Derby Flowerpot, Saturday 28th July; and Manchester Ruby Lounge, Sunday 29th July. Visit The Humans Official for further information, and the Gigs page at toyahwillcox.com for direct links to book tickets.
• Exciting news for fans of The Humans: “The Humans are stirring. Keep an eye out for an announcement by the end of this Friday”: The Official Toyah Facebook, yesterday.
• Kent Online: Stars shine to honour panto legend Dave Lee.
• Toyah Playlisted: ‘Good Morning Universe’ was included in Dark Night of the Soul with Julie (8 May) on WFMU. Toyah is being played all over the place at the moment. Twitter seems to update by the hour with info on Toyah on another playlist.
• Coming Soon: Toyah: Thru A Photographer’s Eye – A new FTE Toyah feature.
‘PAC Photography’, who will be at The Robin, Wolverhampton this Saturday to photograph Toyah’s ‘Changeling Resurrection’ gig, have an excellent selection of archive photos of Toyah and The Humans at their website.
The website includes photos of Toyah from the ‘From Sheep Farming To Anthem’ gig at the Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton last October and photos from two of The Humans concerts, at The Public, West Bromwich and HMV Institute, Birmingham, both also from last October. (access via: View your pictures – Live Music)
There are also photos taken at The Power of Three film premiere at the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead, London in November last year. (access via: View your pictures – events)
• Visit ‘PAC Photography’ here.
Toyah tweeted yesterday: “Humans dates, humans album & TOYAH autumn tour schedule all shaping up beautifully :-)“.
Lots to look forward to for fans of Toyah and The Humans. One of the Autumn dates (aside from the rescheduled Glasgow gig) has already been posted on a support band’s Facebook. The full Autumn dates will be officially announced soon.
Tweeting with Toyah #1: Toyah tweeted a fun photo of Robert (aka Frank Fripp) yesterday morning. Tweeting with Toyah #2: Toyah also tweeted last night: “Small world! Bill rieflin & don gunn (humans producer) are with simon phillips (drummer on the changeling) in seattle!” Tweeting with Toyah #3: Toyah tweeted today: “Talk about synchronicity! Booking seattle recording studio for Humans 3 & steve lillywhite is mixing there!“
Last August Toyah was interviewed about her meteorite collection for BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live in their ‘Secret Life’ series. This was repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra’s The 4 O’Clock Show last October.
That edition of The 4 O’Clock Show is currently available to listen to again, here. Be quick as it will only be online for one more day. The seven minute clip also includes brief bursts of The Humans’ ‘This Belongs To You’ and Toyah’s ‘It’s A Mystery’.
Toyah has been tweeting, over the last few days, about The Humans.
Bill Rieflin has recently arrived in the UK, and inbetween writing songs for The Humans’ third album (referred to as Humans 3 by Toyah) a number of practical jokes have been played on Bill. Most consisting of various objects being placed on his bed.
So far the tally is: A whole pineapple, followed by a hoover, then it was Willyfred the rabbit and a roll of gaffer tape. Bill also had two tangerines and a banana put in his shoes :)
Toyah also tweeted on 16th March: “Humans wrote 5 great song ideas y”day. We are on a roll.” and today: “The Humans have written 17 ideas in three days! Just going over them with fine tooth comb.”
From ‘Sugar Rush: The Humans Fan Page’: Bill Rieflin has co-produced the single “Crush Vaccine” by Atomic Bride, a band from Seattle, with a new album out 23rd May called “Dead Air”.
• Visit ‘The Humans Official’ here, and the ‘Sugar Rush’ fansite here.
Sugar Rush: The Humans Fansite launched last night. Great to see a new website online and best wishes to those who made it happen. Please click below to visit Sugar Rush.
All these NY Ballrooms that start with “H”… The Highline Ballroom played host to The Humans ,a band fronted by 80’s U.K. icon Toyah, and this was, amazingly, her first ever U.S. performance, 30 years after her chart run in the UK and Europe began. The Humans enjoyed a raptureous response, several standing ovations and an encore, and I enjoyed a brief chat with Toyah before the show (I intercepted her on her way to the ladies room), and was thrilled to see that she is bursting with energy and fervor about what she does.
• Read the full mini article at ‘Punk Globe’ here. (Thanks to Jimi LaLumia)
More human than Human
Comprised of singer Toyah Willcox and bass players Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong, The Humans are a surprising group who combine waves of acid jazz, Massive Attack-like grooves and the occasional burst of ’80s pop and early ’90s industrial. It adds up to a mixed bag of tricks on their second album Sugar Rush, but still one worth a listen.
The album opens with “Titanium Girl” via a disjointed vocal “wah wah” effect before the ethereal voice of Willcox dances above it. Then it is slammed with a driving bassline and deep, guttural guitar pulses. After that, “Love in a Different Way” is a quiet, strummed track with a slightly ’80s feel thanks to the breathy vocals and synth. The same retro feeling is found in “Small Town Psychopath,” which mixes pure jazz club with a overdrawn beginning, as well as in “Sweet Agitation.” It seems with The Humans, the more subdued the song, the more it sounds like it would have been played in a late ’80s film.
• Read the full review at ‘mxdwm.com’ here.
Our latest favorite album, by consensus, is “Sugar Rush” by The Humans. The Humans are British – their star is singer/performer phenomenon, Toyah Willcox. Her hubby, guitar legend Robert Fripp, plays on the entire album. This is one worth buying. There are some videos on YouTube. “Sea of Size” is 1st video release:
Toyah Willcox is one of the most amazing female performers on the planet. We love her – and wish she would develop her American audience more – young American girls could use a role model like her. If you want to read a bio that will leave you feeling that you have never accomplished anything – the Toyah Willcox “Wiki.”.
Definitely THE best new album out there right now – just released.
More photos of The Humans from the ‘Sugar Rush’ UK tour dates earlier this month. 1/2. The Public, West Bromwich, 3-6. The Flowerpot, Derby. Please click on each for a larger version. All of these, and more, have been added to the 2010 – gallery page. (Thanks to Angus Turner for 1-3, and Michael O’Brien for 4-6)
