Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

‘Bird in Flight’ at The Robin2, Wolverhampton on Saturday. (Thanks to popsikate)

• The rare promo poster for the American video release of Murder: Ultimate Grounds for Divorce from the mid-80s. View a larger version here. (Thanks to Sean Green)

• According to a tweet today by ‘The Showbusiness Co’: “Joe Pasquale, Bobby Davro, Toyah Willcox, Richard Digance and many more appear in the Dave Lee tribute show at Marlowe, Canterbury on 6 May.”

• View more details about Dave Lee A Celebration at The Marlowe theatre website. There are other news reports  today about the show. None of these mention Toyah.

• Three musicians, who have all worked with Toyah at various stages of her music career, play at ‘Jammin Java’, Vienna tomorrow. STICK MEN ft. Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter. More info here.

• Manchester Pride Twitter today: “The Women’s Stage will return to Sackville Gardens for this year’s event. We’ll welcome Toyah as the headline act!”

• Canal Street (Manchester) Twitter today: “Look who is headlining the Women’s stage at Manchester Pride this year.. Toyah”

• Collapse Board: How I lost my love for music (and how I found it again): The first record I think was mine was ‘I Want To Be Free’ by Toyah…

• So So Gay: Blue To Headline Blackpool Pride 2012. Toyah is also mentioned in this article published today.

• Toyah Montaging: I’ve, quite literally, thrown together a couple of Toyah video montages. At The Rainbow and some career clips. I’d love to do a more professional and substantial career montage at some point, with lots of interview and music clips, almost like a documentary type retrospective.

Yes ‘It’s A Mystery’ has possibly been uploaded to ‘You Tube’ more times than is necessary but this addition today is quite cool. The video clip looks great thanks to a clever montage of photos and clips from one of the Top Of The Pops appearances. Click below to view.

• As expected with a sold out London gig, a lot of footage has been uploaded to ‘You Tube’ over the last couple of days. Check out Steve Day’s, up close and personal, Warrior Rock. It has the distinction of being the very first clip made available online, from a gig that is already being compared to some of the legendary Toyah concerts.

• The Birmingham Press: What’s On At The Robin: On Saturday there’s the return of eighties icon Toyah, who since her chart days has honed her act into a top-line live performance. She’ll be celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of her influential album The Changeling, which itself spawned the live follow-up Warrior Rock. There are four support acts and the fun starts at 7pm. Tickets £19.50,

• Lost Turntable: Tony Banks’ Soundtracks: In 1984 he composed the score for a low-budget sci-fi flick called Lorca And The Outlaws (it was released as Starship on VHS). In addition to the score, he also composed the original songs, “You Call This Victory” featuring vocalist Jim Diamond and “Lion of Symmetry” featuring vocals by the amazing Toyah Willcox.

An amazingly positive post-gig response for last night’s London concert, the third date of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ tour. Footage from the gig has already been uploaded to ‘You Tube’. View a selection here and here.

Official footage from last night’s sold out gig will be available at toyahwillcox.com soon.

The post-gig response to the second concert of ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ tour, at The Tunnels in Bristol, has been as positive and enthusiastic as the premiere in Brighton at the weekend.

‘Demolition Men’ and ‘We Are’ which weren’t played at Brighton due to time constraints were played in Bristol. View a selection of fan videos from the gig at You Tube. (Thanks to Stuart)

View an excellent collection of video clips, from ‘The Changeling Resurrection’ gig in Brighton, at You Tube.

Including ‘Brave New World’, ‘The Packt’, ‘Dawn Chorus’, ‘Creepy Room’, ‘Angel & Me’ and more. Changeling-tastic indeed! (Thanks to Claire Wheeler)

I must confess, this is the song I’ve been dying to hear. It doesn’t disappoint. (Thanks Claire)

Slightly odd hearing this performed live after 30 years. Singing these songs again after all this time must be cathartic for Toyah, especially as ‘The Changeling’ was an unhappy time. I’ll bet a few demons are being laid to rest. (Thanks to Claire Wheeler for uploading ‘The Packt’)

Awash With Colour, from BBC2 September 2001, with Toyah learning to watercolour, has just been uploaded, in three parts, to ‘You Tube’. Click on each cap below to view each part.

The scenery in this programme is stunning. Presenter Dermot Cavanagh and Toyah visited Yeats’ country, Co. Sligo in Ireland. Toyah talks about her career. Toyah and Dermot then paint the picturesque Glencar Loch, set in the shadow of the majestic Benbulben Mountain. Toyah recalled an artist using watercolour on her face to create her ‘Brave New World’ look.

Two fantastic photos, from last night’s gig, by Angus Turner. Click below to view larger versions. FTE has been incredibly busy today, definitely the busiest since the site started just over a month ago! There are probably more that I didn’t notice, but as of half an hour ago at ‘You Tube’ there are clips of Angel & Me, Warrior Rock, and It’s A Mystery. More amazing photos of Toyah by Angus, and that news round-up, tomorrow. (Thanks to Angus)

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.

Toyah guested on Parkinson on BBC1 in October 1981. This was at a time when Michael Parkinson’s chat show was still considered the best of the “talk shows”. Toyah appeared alongside legendary comedian Dave Allen. She talks about her childhood and upbringing, time at The National Theatre, her imagery and hairstyles, music career and more.

The full Sky Trax Toyah Special. This aired in 1985 around the time of the release of ‘Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)’. It’s a great programme, hosted by one of Toyah’s biggest supporters in the 80s, Peter Powell. This was a one-hour show with Toyah talking about her career, including Glitter, Jubilee, Katharine Hepburn, Quadrophenia, the early live gigs, 1981 and a lot more. Sky Trax was a music show, with a variety of hosts including Radio 1 DJs, covering music from all over Europe. It aired on ‘Sky Channel’, Europe’s very first satellite channel (which began as a cable channel in 1982) and was renamed ‘Sky One’ in 1989. View larger caps here.

There are now just five days to go until the premiere gig of ‘The Changeling Resurrection 2012’ tour.

Click below to view Toyah’s 1982 feature on Nationwide. This originally aired in early July 1982 on BBC1, and includes a great interview with Toyah. She talks about her career, music, acting, individuality, her lisp and much more.

There are clips from ‘At The Rainbow’ Shoestring and the ‘Brave New World’ video,

What is significant about the Nationwide clip is that it contains the only, known, footage of 1982’s ‘The Changeling Tour’ as no other video recordings seem to have been made (strange when two full concerts were captured, and televised by the BBC, the previous year). Some of the rehearsals were filmed for inclusion in the programme’s piece and there are brief clips of Toyah performing ‘Dawn Chorus’. The stage set looks great onscreen! (Thanks to Andi)

Life & Times of Toyah Willcox aired in either late 2000 or early 2001 (can’t remember!) on BBC1. Vanessa Feltz interviews Toyah about her life and career. Unfortunately this is incomplete. I rescued just over 20 minutes (of approx 26 minutes) from a damaged DVD and thought I’d upload it anyway as it’s worth watching, there’s not too much missing and it includes numerous clips and photos from Toyah’s career. Click on the caps to view larger versions.

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…

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.

The aforementioned Formel Eins appearance. ‘Don’t Fall in Love (I Said)’ in all its glory!

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.

I hope to occasionally bring you some rare Toyah footage. Here’s Toyah performing ‘Danced’ live on Friday Night Saturday Morning in 1980. The also performed ‘Mummies’.