Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah’s Q&A at Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax has now Sold Out!

Some tickets for Toyah’s Acoustic, Up Close & Personal gig, taking place after the film screening/Q&A on Saturday 16th February, are still available.

Quadrophenia plus a Q&A and live music with Toyah Willcox

Here’s a brilliant evening’s entertainment with not only an anniversary screening of iconic movie Quadrophenia, but a Q&A with one of its stars, the legendary Toyah Willcox and a live music set with her too. Toyah who went on to be a music, film and TV star and an author played the character Monkey in the 1979 Who album-inspired film which depicts the Mods and Rockers era of the late 1960s and which is celebrating its 40th year. The film will be screened before Toyah takes the stage to talk about the movie and her career at Square Chapel. The film stars Phil Daniels as Jimmy, a young 1960s London-based Mod who escapes from his dead-end job as a mailroom boy by dancing, partying, taking amphetamines, riding his scooter, and brawling with the motorcycle-riding Rockers. After he and his friends participate in a huge brawl with the Rockers by the seaside in Brighton, he is arrested and his life starts to spiral out of control. Toyah has had eight Top 40 singles and released over 20 albums, Her biggest hits were “It’s a Mystery”, “Thunder in the Mountains” and “I Want to Be Free”.  She has written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays and ten feature films.

• Further info, and ticket booking for Toyah’s acoustic gig, available here.

Toyah plays the Rock & Bike Fest 2019 this Summer. She previously played the festival in 2010 as part of the Vampires Rock tour, and again the following year with her own live set and in 2012 she was a Guest Presenter.

2019 sees Toyah return to the Rock & Bike Fest, which takes place at Carnfield Hall in Derbyshire, to play another full band live set.

PROBABLY THE BEST SHOW ON EARTH
11th -13th July 2019 Earlybird tickets just £35
For 3 days of entertainment – While stocks last
The original Rock And Bike Fest established 2004
3 days of unforgettable music and pure entertainment
All for the unbeatable price of just £35 including free camping – Earlybird

Established in 2004 in the grounds of Burton Abbey, Staffordshire the Rock and Bike Fest has gone from strength to strength and is currently held in the historic grounds of Carnfield Hall, South Normanton, Derbyshire.

• Click below – on our collage of past (and current 2019 flyer) R&BF promotion and photos – to visit the festival website for further info and/or to book tickets.

Bird in Flight, Ieya, The Blue Meaning, Sugar & Spice, The Old Grey Whistle Test, The Ieya Tour, Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!, ATV documentary… 1980 was a great Toyah year! Visit the 1980 Gallery by clicking below.

Toyah’s debut studio album, The Blue Meaning, was released in June 1980. There has always been a degree of confusion regarding this as Sheep Farming In Barnet was, obviously, released first but that album is a compilation. Not that these details matter as both albums are incredible, accomplished collections of recordings.

The Blue Meaning was recorded during April 1980 at Parkgate Studios in Battle, East Sussex and mixed at Marquee Studios, London: The band line-up was Toyah Willcox – Verbals & Unusual Sounds, Joel Bogen – Guitar, Pete Bush – Keyboards, Trumpet, Charlie Francis – Bass Guitar, Steve Bray – Drums. All songs were written by the Toyah band, and the album was produced by Steve James and Toyah. James also engineered and mixed the album with Perry Morgan as Assistant Engineer.

The album was released while the band travelled the UK on the Ieya Tour. Promotion for The Blue Meaning was “multi-media”, an idea that was a fairly new concept in 1980 but something Toyah was interested in and had mentioned previously in interviews.

Aside from the month-long UK tour there were television appearances by Toyah and the band – mostly regional – including Granada Reports in the North West, and Straight Talk in the Midlands. Press ads ran in most of the major music press and Toyah was interviewed by NME, Sounds, Zig Zag, Record Mirror, Time Out, Fab and Smash Hits. Some of these also reviewed the album.

An innovative and interesting aspect of the promotion for The Blue Meaning was a series of in-store appearances at various Woolworth stores, with Toyah meeting fans and signing the album and single(s).

The Blue Meaning was first released on CD in 1990 by the Great Expectations label, along with a cassette and coloured vinyl. There was also a 2CD set in 2002 by Safari Records (with bonus songs and new sleeve notes) which saw the album coupled with Sheep Farming In Barnet.

The Blue Meaning peaked at number 40 on the UK Album chart upon its release and in retrospect is viewed as a crucial part of Toyah’s mighty 40-year discography. A pop-punk-gothy mix of mayhem, magic and magnificent music. A classic!

• See further info on The Blue Meaning at Toyah’s Official Instagram and the album’s Wikipedia page.

Toyah has always been a great interviewee – Click below for a page of classic Toyah interviews!

Ieya, Toyah’s fourth single, was released in June 1980. The song has become one of the cornerstones of Toyah’s music career. Ieya began its extraordinary life as a soundcheck jam:

A lot of my band were Jewish, and we all found it particularly offensive that the NF would recruit at concerts – they’d go around the audience intimidating the youngest, the smallest, the scrawniest boys into joining the NF By the end of this concert in Bath, the NF were chanting ‘Sieg heil’ at the back. Charlie Francis, our bass-player, found this intolerable, and Joel kept taking his guitar off to go and beat them up, which we all had to stop him from doing. Instead we just shouted back ‘Nazi scum’ and got the audience to chant ‘Nazi scum’. For the fourth encore, all we could think of doing was something that had started as a jam in the sound-check that day, which was ‘IEYA’. It was a sequence of chords that grew, so every verse had more chords added to it, and it had a fantastically simple chorus, a chant, ‘IEYA’. ‘IEYA, I am solar, IEYA I’m the beast.’

Ieya was re-recorded and re-released as a single in 1982. The song is almost always played during a Toyah gig, often during the encore. Ieya was written by Willcox/Bogen/Bush. Browse the full history of the song at Wikipedia.

In Case You Missed The News…

If you haven’t already heard, I have some great news. After 7 years in production and nearly 10 years before that in development, our super ambitious sci-fi thriller, Kaleidoscope Man, is at last completed.

The last 3 months have been a true roller-coaster for me. It started back on the 18th Aug 2018, when we finally locked the picture. This had been after a good 6 months of working on the fine cut.

Next we got to work on the sound track. I did the foley recording (footsteps), Keith Tinman track laid the sound effects, Benjamin Symons fine-tuned the music score and Alan Snelling recorded the ADR, mixed the music and then did the full 5.1 surround sound mix.

On the picture side, the edit went to Narduzzo Too at Pinewood Studios, where it was fully colour graded by Harry Conquest and Vince Narduzzo, then it went to Out-Post Post production where the film was on-lined by Nigel Gorley and converted into various formats ready for delivery for cinema, TV, DVD and online.

We were very VERY lucky in that one of our stars, the lovely Toyah Willcox recorded an amazing song for the end titles. It’s a powerful and inspiration song called, Step into the New World, and it really captures the heart and soul of what the film is about. It was written by Alan Snelling and myself and we hope to officially release it soon.

• Continue reading at the Kaleidoscope Man website. Browse Dreamscape’s Kaleidoscope Man news archive. (Photos/Images © kaleidoscopeman.com)

This article, Royal bombshell: Why Prince Charles once asked ‘Shall I go gay?’, at today’s Sunday Express suggests Toyah will be appearing in a new Channel 5 documentary series which begins airing this Tuesday.

Prince Edward may also cringe at the sight of another re-run of his much-maligned It’s A Royal Knockout TV show. The one-off charity extravaganza saw members of the Royal Family compete alongside celebrities from the worlds of sport, music and TV in a series of wacky challenges and events. Toyah Willcox, who took part, reveals that the press took against the show because Edward forced them to stay inside a tent to report on the antics outside.

Paxman On The Queen’s Children: Channel 5: Tuesday 5th February: 9pm
Episode 1. Two part documentary series. Jeremy Paxman explores the lives of Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward, the first generation of royals to grow up as celebrities. Attempts to embrace the modern world instead eroded reputations and spoiled the fairytale, not least in It’s a Royal Knockout.

It’s February! Toyah plays her first concert of the year tonight at The Arc, Stockton. It’s a busy weekend with a gig tomorrow night at the Doncaster Dome and another at Tithe Barn, Bishop’s Cleeve on Sunday.

Toyah Willcox is a vibrant performer and an inextinguishable flame. Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, she is one of Britain’s iconic household names – an award-winning rock legend as well as a much-loved stage/screen actress and music composer.

In a career spanning over 40 years Toyah has amassed thirteen top 40 singles, recorded twenty-four albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays, acted in twenty feature films and presented hundreds of television programmes.

The year 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of her music career as Toyah released her first ever single and album studio in 1979. This concert –with her full electric band– will be a celebratory retrospective including hit singles, album classics and fan favourites.

• Toyah’s gig at Doncaster Dome is included in Visit Doncaster’s Five Of The Best.  There’s also a small Toyah feature at Stockton Arts Centre‘ s website. See a new photo of Toyah and her band at Twitter.

A great new Official Toyah 40th Music Anniversary feature on social media, with entries so far for Sheep Farming in Barnet, The Blue Meaning, Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!, Anthem, The Changeling, and Warrior Rock – Toyah On Tour… with lots more still to come!

Toyah, Owen Paul, Brother Beyond, Hazell Dean, Tight Fit and Black Lace are playing Preston Guild Hall next month (Saturday 23rd February). More info on/Book tickets for 80’s Live here.

Step back into the 80’s with 80’s Live!

Featuring Toyah, Tight Fit, Brother Beyond, Hazell Dean, Owen Paul, and Black Lace’s Dene Michael! A night of 80’s pop hits!

Toyah (It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free), Tight Fit (The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Fantasy Island), Brother Beyond ( The Harder I Try, He Ain’t No Competition), Hazell Dean (Searching, Who’s Leaving Who), Owen Paul (My Favourite Waste Of Time, Pleased to Meet You), Dene Michael’s Black Lace (Agadoo, Superman) – all live on stage!

Box Office: tickets@prestonguildhall.co.uk | Enquiries: info@prestonguildhall.co.uk

He runs to the water’s edge, To feel the sea, To smell the air, To feel he’s free, He does not really need to see…

Toyah’s third single, and first new music of the Eighties, was the double A-Side, Bird in Flight/Tribal Look. The single was released in February 1980 on Safari Records. Bird in Flight is a brave, raw and ambitious classic from Toyah’s discography and has stood the test of time well, still sounding as good today as upon its release 39 years ago! Though Toyah has said she now finds the lyric “excruciatingly wrong”!

Bird in Flight/Tribal Look were both written by Willcox/Francis/Bogen/Bush/Bray.

• Matches Fashion: Raf Simons ‘Toyah’ graphic-print cotton T-shirt – It an be yours for £265! – Raf Simons’ pink T-shirt is inspired by Toyah Willcox’s character ‘Monkey’ in the film Quadrophenia. The cult item features a bold black graphic print across the front, a ribbed crew-neck loose-fit style. Tap into the label’s current punk aesthetic and style with an oversized leather jacket, maxi skirt and boots – See here…

• Quadrophenia: See Monkey, Jimmy et al on the big screen at the Classic Cinema Club’s screening of Quadrophenia at Ealing Town Hall on 15th February – More info…

• #ToyahLPCountdown: A great new Official Toyah 40th Music Anniversary feature on social media, with entries so far for Sheep Farming in Barnet, The Blue Meaning and Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!

• Lovely’s Vintage Toyah Wardrobe: All Toyah pieces are now half price! The charity sale on behalf of Ms Toyah Willcox ends soon, so shop now! – See here…

• Toyah Live 2019: Toyah’s gig at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday 22nd February has Sold Out!!

• Pop Matters: Jubilee (1978) Retro Review – Derek Jarman’s Jubilee is cagier than its simplistic ‘resist the system’ message suggests – As long as the music’s loud enough, we won’t hear the world falling apart. — Borgia Ginz (Jack Birkett), Jubilee – Continue reading…

• Exclusive Back to the 80’s Concert in Bali: Toyah is playing this concert, which takes place on the 10th day of the cruise to Bali, along with Marc Almond, Belinda Carlisle, T’Pau and Midge Ure. Tickets are already at Limited Availability – More info here…

Jubilee is showing at the Harvard Film Archive, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, tomorrow evening, in a double-feature with Fires Were Started.

Fires Were Started, Humphrey Jennings’ only feature film, is a docudrama centered around a real group of heroic firefighters as they extinguish the destructive blazes of war; Derek Jarman’s Jubilee follows a group of nihilistic punks who love nothing more than to set anything ablaze. In both films the spirit and mettle of the directors’ respective Britains are on display, and Jennings’ heart-heavy optimism is starkly opposed by Jarman’s bitterness. A mythic inferno opposes the British spirit, but may also be the only way to access it as it slips away, and both Fires Were Started and Jubilee explore this in contrasting but similar ensemble narratives.

The Harvard Film Archive (HFA) is a film archive and cinema located in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Continue reading/More info at Harvard Library.

Toyah talked, her unique and experimental album, Prostitute, while guesting on Bob Fischer’s BBC Radio Tees show recently.

“I always have to walk away from the job I’ve just done. That’s creatively, idea wise. I just have to walk away. I feel trapped. Which is why my career is so varied. And I think “Prostitute” came after doing “Minx” and “Minx” was a signing to Portrait CBS where I was being told to be everyone but me. I was being told to be like Pat Benatar…

I’ve got nothing against that but I am me – I’m not trying to be another person. I’m not an imitator. So I remember I just got married and the only question I was being asked was when was I going to start a family? Which was never the reason I got married and certainly never the reason I’m here on this planet.

So it was an album that really came out of anger. And it’s a very expressive piece – it’s the most critically acclaimed album I’ve ever done. Billboard gave it five stars and then claimed it was an antidote to Madonna…”

• Read the full transcript at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.

Toyah made her first live appearance on New Year’s Eve 1977, fronting Ninth Illusion in Swiss Cottage, London. There were only two gigs under this name.

Rechristened TOYAH, their first gig was at Finchley Christ College Disco in April 1978, followed by a string of dates through the rest of that year.

The debut TOYAH tour was The Resurrection ’79 Tour, starting on 27th March 1979, at London Dingwalls, playing 12 dates throughout the UK in March and April.

The Resurrection ’79 Tour played a number of legendary live venues: Factory, Manchester, Eric’s in Liverpool, Tiffany’s in Edinburgh and Music Machine, Camden. The line up was: Toyah (Vocals), Joel Bogen (Guitar), Mark Henry (Bass), Steve Bray (Drums), Pete Bush (Keyboards).

Toyah, 40th Anniversary Scottish Tour ‘Thunder in the Highlands’ Ironworks, Inverness.

Following “sparkling reviews and glowing audience feedback from her autumn tour” punk pop icon Toyah Willcox is set to take the Ironworks by storm as part of her 40th anniversary Scottish tour ‘Thunder in the Highlands’.

2019 marks 40 years in music for the Birmingham born beauty Toyah, as she invites fans old and new to join her in a retrospective celebratory performance of chart hits and fan favourites spanning 40 years of her career.

Toyah celebrated her 60th birthday last year with the release of her new digital EP ‘Four From Toyah: Birthday Edition’ featuring four new songs from the age defying artist including Telepathic Lover.

• Continue reading at Inverness Gigs.

Look! Hear! and Toyah’s 1979 Record Mirror cover – 40th music – anniversary updates this week at the Official Toyah Instagram and Twitter…

Toyah’s second single, the Sheep Farming In Barnet (EP/AP), was released in July 1979. The traditional EP contained four songs, Safari Records wanted to differentiate from that format and decided to release SIX songs on one single (a mini album really). This was the first, and last, AP release. Tracks were: A. Neon Womb, Indecision, Waiting; B. Our Movie, Danced, Last Goodbye.

The band members were Pete Bush: Keyboards, Mark Henry: Bass, Joel Bogen: Guitar, Steve Bray: Drums, Toyah Willcox: Verbals. As with the debut single, this was a huge hit on the UK indie chart, and also increased the band’s, already growing, popularity in other parts of Europe. The, now iconic, cover shot for the single was taken at the RAF Fylingdales radar station near Whitby in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, the “golf balls” were demolished in the mid 1980′s.

Toyah guested on Bob Fischer’s show on BBC Radio Tees on Friday evening. The show is available to listen to at BBC Sounds.

Back on BBC Tees from 7pm tonight! And in the first hour of the show I have a fascinating chat with the ace Toyah… about Derek Jarman, Celebrity Mastermind, Elizabeth I, her incredible experimental album ‘Prostitute’… and her upcoming show at Stockton Arts Centre!