Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Yet more good chart news for In The Court Of The Crimson Queen. The album entered The Official Charts Top 100 Album Sales at number 22 on the 19th April.

In The Court Of The Crimson Queen became Toyah’s first album to dent the Official UK Album Charts since 1985 when it placed at number 74 last Friday.

More good chart related news for In The Court Of The Crimson Queen – The album is also currently number 3 on the Official Rock & Metal Top 40.

Edinburgh’s The Liquid Room is ready for Toyah tonight, and vice versa… She tweeted: “So excited 2 b opening tour at Liquid Rooms Edinburgh 2nte. Let’s Rock“.

NB: UPDATE: 7th May – This has vanished from the TV listings!!!

Celebrity Money For Nothing: Quest Red: Tuesday 7th May: 7pm
Celebrity Money For Nothing: Quest Red: Wednesday 8th May: 1pm
Series 1, Episode 1. Sarah Moore and Jay Blades search the homes of celebrities to uncover unloved and unused gems for charity. Sarah and Jay look through the homes of 1980s pop stars Sinitta and Toyah Willcox in the hope of uncovering four pieces of junk to transform and sell on for a profit. Woodworking wizard Norman Wilkinson is tasked with taking on Toyah’s tired chairs, while robot-mad Mark Haig gives Sinitta’s broken fan a steampunk-inspired makeover. But will Sarah and Jay find new homes for their revamped items?

Toyah, along with In The Court Of The Crimson Queen co-creator Simon Darlow, is interviewed in the new issue of Classic Pop magazine (May 2019, Issue 52) in a four page feature entitled “Long Live The Queen”.

After more than 40 years in the music business, Toyah Willcox is as creatively hungry as she was in her teens. Classic Pop chats to the high priestess of punk and her long-time collaborator, Simon Darlow about their bold reimagining of 2008 album In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, and why the material deserves a second outing… Here’s a preview of the fab looking feature.

• Classic Pop, Issue 52 is on sale now – or very soon will be. (Thanks to Minna for the preview)

Ahead of her appearance at Church, Dundee on April 26, singing sensation Toyah Willcox shares some glimpses into her life

Q Which singers, alive or dead, inspire you?
A David Bowie, Jim Buckley, Antony Hegarty.

Q What was your plan B career-wise?
A I always wanted to be a sculptor.

Q Your house is on fire, what one item do you save?
A My husband. If it was an object, then one of my paintings by my friend Frankie Sundsten.

Q Theme song for your life?
A All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix. He was one of the ‘27 Club’, like Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, who died aged 27 and the philosophy is that their work is done by then. That’s a tragic but also slightly romantic notion.

Q Last meal on earth?
A Superfood salad with fresh mango.

• Continue reading at The Courier. See the print version of this article. (Thanks to Sharon Dickson)

Toyah Willcox: “I was high in the charts yet had to punch sex pests to be left alone”

Eighties singer Toyah Willcox was groped and sexually harassed during her pop heyday and had to be chaperoned to protect her from sex pest club bosses. The star, who had hits with It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free, has revealed a string of shocking encounters at the beginning of her career.

At a club where she was performing, she was warned that the owner expected to sleep with her and was urged to have an escort to the toilets. In another encounter, a director asked her to remove her top during an audition, forcing her to walk out. Toyah also fended off sex pests by punching them and reveals that the pressure to be thin was so great that she was weighed by a dietitian before being on Top Of The Pops.v The singer, who has just released the album In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, welcomes the #MeToo movement because it gives “vulnerable women a voice”. Toyah, 60, who first took to the stage in 1977, aged just 19, says: “It was unbelievable being a woman very much in a man’s world. We mostly played working men’s clubs, I don’t want to put these places down as the audiences were fantastic but you were just groped. There are even photographs out there of me being groped.

“Some extreme things have happened to me. My band really looked after me, though. I remember going to a club in Leeds in 1979. I arrived and my lighting man said, ‘Do not stay here alone, the owner thinks he has the right to sleep with you. Don’t even think of going to the ladies without one of us escorting you’.

“It’s cool, that’s what my band did, they looked after me. As for the casting couch, there’s one I’m actually quite proud of.This director was legendary. I arrived and I was asked to take my top off. I put two and two together and I just walked. But that happened in those days, it did happen.”

• Continue reading at The Express. NB. This article was created from quotes from Celebrity Radio’s recent interview with Toyah.

• Thunder In The Highlands, Toyah’s four-date Scottish tour gets going on Thursday 25th April at Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh.

• There are also dates in Dundee (Church), Inverness (Ironworks) and Glasgow (Classic Grand) over subsequent nights from 26th – 28th April.

• This will include the first live performances of Dance In The Hurricane and features a set of Crimson Queen songs and classic hits and favourites from the last 40 years.

• The Glasgow venue has been upgraded to Classic Grand. Original tickets remain valid.

• A new 2019 Toyah T-shirt will be available alongside signed copies of a selection of recently discovered vintage Toyah vinyl.

• Buy your Thunder In The Highlands tickets here / Thanks to Breaking Through – The Official Toyah Mailing List.

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

Robert Fripp Recalls ‘Missed Opportunity’ With David Bowie

King Crimson leader Robert Fripp recalled the “missed opportunity” of working with David Bowie in 2002, and said his wife, singer Toyah Willcox, had never forgiven him for the incident.

Fripp appeared on Bowie’s celebrated albums Heroes and Scary Monsters during a period in which he had also worked with Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno and others. In 2002, Bowie curated the Meltdown festival in London, England, and invited Fripp to take part.

“[There] wasn’t enough time to do it properly, so I declined,” Fripp told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “My wife has never forgiven me. My wife is a very considerable Bowie fan. That’s an opportunity missed, but I don’t feel I could honorably have engaged with it.”

• Continue reading at Ultimate Classic Rock.

Toyah’s recent interview with Tammy Gooding, which aired on BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester, is now available as a standalone clip.

Pershore’s Toyah in conversation
The queen of punk tells tales of pranking Margaret Thatcher and her love of her home town with Tammy Gooding, as we preview the new album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’. Tammy also finds out just how much Toyah and her husband enjoy (or not!) singing together in their home in Pershore, and how their house has a touch of the supernatural about it!

Release date: 17 April 2019 | Duration: 17 minutes

• Listen at BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester.

One of our sporadic looks at which countries are visiting this website, and thus interested in the latest news on Toyah and, currently, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen…

As always the majority of our hits are from within the UK, but there are numerous other countries checking in, including a significant total from the USA.

The last 500 visitors to www.toyah.net are from: United Kingdom (371), United States (51), South Africa (11), Finland (8), Canada (6), Netherlands (5), Italy (5), Ireland (5), Germany (5), Denmark (4), Australia (4), Estonia (3), Russian Federation (2), Korea (2), Spain (2), Luxembourg (1), France (1) and China (1).

Interest is truly global and not strictly limited to the digital world. The latest fanzines were posted out to the UK, US, Australia, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Estonia, Switzerland, Spain and France.

Great News… In The Court Of The Crimson Queen is doing well in The Official Charts Album Midweeks. The album was at no. 72 on Monday, after just a couple of days of CD, download and vinyl sales. As of today it’s now at no. 34 (according to Music Week). The definitive Top 100 Albums of the week is published this Friday by The Official UK Charts Company.

This chart entry is significant because In The Court Of The Crimson Queen is Toyah’s first album to place in the official UK album chart since Minx in August 1985. Below is a screenshot of Monday’s chart placing.

Toyah tweeted yesterday: “This means so much to me. Thank u thank u thank u” in response to HMV’s In The Court Of The Crimson Queen tweet. (Photo © HMV)

In The Court Of The Crimson Queen is BBC Radio Lincolnshire’s Album Of The Week.

A track will be played each day this week by Amy Claridge (sitting in for Melvyn in the Morning) at 10.30am. There’s also the chance to win a signed copy of the CD on Friday.

• Listen online at BBC Radio Lincolnshire. The morning show begins at 9.30am and airs for 3hrs and 30mins. (Photo © BBC Radio Lincolnshire)

Toyah guests on Richard Green’s show on BBC Radio Devon this weekend. Richard’s show airs for two hours on Saturday from Midday.

Richard Green Show: BBC Radio Devon: Saturday 20th April: 12pm
Bananarama and Toyah. Bananarama’s Keren Woodward drops by to talk about the groups’ latest album, and in the second hour, Legendary Punk Queen, Toyah , reveals some of her latest music too.

• Listen live at the BBC Radio Devon website, and post-airing at BBC Sounds.

As previously mentioned last year, Toyah will play Belgium’s W-Fest this Summer. The four day festival – with Toyah playing on 16th August on the Synth Scene stage – has moved venue.

The festival runs from Thursday 15th – Sunday 18th August (with a tribute band gig on 14th August for those with five-night camping tickets) and boasts an incredible line-up of bands.

The festival includes a significant number of great bands. These include: The Primitives, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Stranglers,  The Blow Monkeys, Toyah, Johnny Hates Jazz, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, Tony Hadley, Sigue Sigue Sputnik Electronic, Inertia, Lene Lovich, The Human League, Peter Hook & The Light, Killing Joke, Desperate Journalist, Nitzer Ebb, China Crisis, New Model Army, Jimmy Somerville and many others.

• Visit the W-Fest 2019 website for further details and links to book tickets.

Punk, rebel, icon. This week we are absolutely bloody delighted to be able to bring you an interview with a true legend. We will not lie to you readers, we are starstruck. Fangirl-ing all over the shop. She is an era-defining songstress, star of stage and screen and – pardon my millennial-ness – #hairgoals extraordinaire. She is, of course, the incomparable Toyah Willcox, and we chatted to her (ever-so-coolly) this week about rebellion, creativity, and her most recent album In The Court of the Crimson Queen.

Your career began in acting but many know you better as a musician. If that’s not enough, you have also presented and produced – what’s it like to have so many ‘hats’ you can wear, and do you prefer one to the others?

I think my career is purely accidental.  If I had superstar status, I would not be able to be diverse. My career is such that I am able to kickstart everything I do, and I think that’s what makes my career so unique. I do love being asked to do projects but most of the time I have to create my own.

So much of your work is based around – or an expression of – nonconformism, of rebelling. What do you think we should all be rebelling against nowadays, and what do you think the best form of rebellion is?

I am going to answer the latter first. The best form of rebellion is non commitment to what you don’t believe in and don’t want to support. The internet has proven that hatred is a too easy and convenient instrument to block all creativity. And, answering the first part of the question, the best rebellion we can have as exceptionally creative unique creatures is not to accept the mundane. For me the mundane is when you are encouraged to imitate others. None of us needs to imitate – we are all unique.

• Continue reading at Velvet Box Office.

Further In The Court Of The Crimson Queen radio interviews from Toyah over the past few days – all aired by various BBC Radio stations:

BBC Hereford & Worcester: Tammy Gooding: 09.04.2019 – Pershore punk rocker Toyah: Top celebrities, theatre, film and great music – including the ‘Top Ten From When?’. Listen at BBC Sounds for the next month.

BBC Hereford & Worcester: Tammy Gooding: 10.04.2019 – More from Toyah and Malvern’s ‘Octopus Soup’. Top celebrities, theatre, film and great music – including the ‘Top Ten From When?’. Listen at BBC Sounds.

BBC Radio London: Jo Good: 12.04.2019 – Toyah Willcox, Harry Harrington and Pauline Butcher. Singer Toyah Wilcox speaks about the release of her new album, actor Harry Harrington and writer Pauline Butcher chat about ‘Honest Betrayal’ and author Jodie Jackson talks about her new book. Listen at BBC Sounds.

BBC Radio 4: Loose Ends: 13.04.2019 – Emma Bunton, Toyah, Peter Doherty, Alex Rex, YolanDa Brown. Clive Anderson is joined by Emma Bunton and Toyah for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Peter Doherty and Alex Rex. Listen at BBC Sounds.

BBC Radio Sussex/Surrey: Mark Carter Show: 14.04.2019 -Special Guest: Toyah – Laid Back Sunday – Great music, special guests and local features. Listen at BBC Sounds.

• Catch up on previous In The Court Of The Crimson Queen radio, and video, interviews here and here.

Another new In The Court Of The Crimson Queen cover for Toyah – Your Weekend, the Press & Journal supplement, published in Northern and Highland Scotland, including Aberdeen, Inverness and Moray. The print feature included in Your Weekend is previewed below.

• The Press & Journal: Return Of The Crimson Queen – It’s no mystery as to why Toyah Willcox, who recently celebrated her 60th birthday, looks and sounds amazing. “I don’t drink, I don’t overeat, I drink lots of water and en route to shows I travel alone so I don’t have to speak to anyone,” said Toyah — This feature was previously published online earlier this week. See here.

Toyah was also interviewed in Friday’s Express, which only appears to have been available in the newspaper’s print edition as it hasn’t been published online, so far.

• The Express: Music: My Six Best Albums – Toyah Willcox, 60, is a pop star and actress whose eight Top 40 hits include It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free. Her latest album, a new version of In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, is released today…

Toyah: “There’s a common theme on my new album: how grief makes us better people. It makes our hearts stronger.”

Celebrating over four decades in music, Toyah this week releases a new studio reworking of her 2008 album In The Court Of The Crimson Queen.

Written and arranged by Toyah Willcox and Simon Darlow, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen has been newly recorded and mastered with the added bonus of extra tracks. The album’s 15 tracks explore life, love, empowerment and wonderment.  

In 1977, whilst playing the part of Emma in Tales From The Vienna Woods at The National Theatre, 18-year old Willcox formed a band. After several line-up changes, they spent a brief period under the name Ninth Illusion, without recording any music. The following year, the band – comprising of Joel Bogen (lead guitar), Pete Bush (keyboards), Dave Robin (drums), and Windy Miller (bass) – decided on naming the group Toyah.

• Continue reading at philmarriott.net.