Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

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)

Yes, this is a word in your ear… Just uploaded to You Tube. Excellent quality footage of Toyah performing ‘We Are’, on German music programme RockPop, in 1981. Amazing! (Why didn’t British music shows emblazon huge photos of Toyah as backdrops?)

Exciting news! A newly edited, previously unseen, video for ‘Sensational’, from ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, is coming your way soon! Tune into Toyah’s official online channels first thing Monday morning. Here are some screen caps from the excellent 2007 video.

Check out Dreamscape’s 2009 feature on Toyah’s most recent studio album, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen. Charting the build up to the album’s release, official updates, reviews, fan opinions, photo sessions and much more. It’s sensational! ;)

There’s also Dreamscape’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ News Archive. Three years of news, info and updates all related to the album…

• How You Feel: Learning To Love British Film: Jubilee: Derek Jarman doesn’t usually pull too many miseryguts Brit flick clichés, and in his punk outing Jubilee – actually one of the only films about punk made in the brief time punk wasn’t dead – he should be even more innovative and outrageous than usual.

• Arran Art: An (Odd) Day in the Dark: The Tempest will be screened at Arran’s free mini-film festival next month (Saturday 2nd February). 3.15-4.45pm – The Tempest: Derek Jarman’s 1979 idiosyncratic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest with Toyah Willcox as Miranda. Forget any notions of worthiness – this film challenges the idea of ‘faithful’ literary adaptation and celebrates the visual magic of cinema as thoroughly as the magical arts of Prospero.

• T-Shirts: Fancy a Toyah-related t-shirt? ‘WeAdmire.net’ have Jubilee and Quadrophenia apparel for sale.

• Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable: The edition of Roundtable from ‘BBC 6Music’ in which Toyah was a guest is available to listen to/download via ‘Castroller’. This originally aired in November 2012.

• Folkestone People: Hormonal Housewives come to Leas Cliff Hall: Eighties pop star Toyah Willcox is to appear in sketch show Hormonal Housewives, showing at Leas Cliff Hall later this year.

• Morning Star: Culture: Heathcote Williams – The Queen of Diamonds: Toyah’s co-star in The Tempest.

• A full transcript of Bev Meets… Toyah Willcox, which aired a couple of times over Christmas on ‘BBC WM’, is now available at the really great ‘Toyah Willcox Interview Archive’.

• Love Me: One of my favourite Toyah songs. From the magnificent ‘The Blue Meaning’. I never thought I’d hear someone covering it but littletroll has done just that. Listen at Soundcloud.

Dreamscape’s photo feature from Summer 2012, Toyah: Thru A Photographer’s Eye. Taking a look at a selection of, excellent, live Toyah (and The Humans) photos from the unique perspective of photographer Paul Crutchley. View all of our PAC Photography news, and our full list of Features. (A huge thanks to Paul | Photos © PAC Photography)

A few screen caps of Toyah from last night’s Channel 4 News. Please click on them to view larger versions. Read all of Dreamscape’s news related to this appearance here.

There’s now just one week left to collect all the songs from Twenty Four From Toyah: Live Archive Selections 1993-2102.

The page at Soundcloud, where all the tracks can still be listened to, will expire on the 24th January. Get your cover/artwork for the album, plus a digital booklet with photos and info here. The complete Twenty Four From Toyah can be downloaded at Media Fire in two zip files.

Twenty-Four From Toyah – Side 1 | Twenty-Four From Toyah – Side 2 (These are officially provided links).

• Toyah’s appearance on last night’s Channel 4 News saw an increase in visitors to Dreamscape, certainly our busiest day for a while. Unfortunately a high-profile appearance also brings out the keypad warriors of Twitter, questioning whether Toyah was “punk”. There’s something slightly hilarious about people associated with punk nitpicking about who was more punk! Wasn’t that the sort of petty, elitist, judgemental way of thinking punk was fighting against?

• You Tube: Fart For Your Rights: Toyah tweeted on Monday: “Take note, my hubby’s response to no royalty payments“.

• You Tube: It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free – Acoustic covers of two Toyah classics by Danny McEvoy.

• This is Sussex: Go on and have a bit of a laugh this year: The Hormonal Housewives are back, and this time they mean business.

• WS County Times: Comedy classics at the Hawth: The Hormonal Housewives are back, plus this time Toyah Willcox takes on a leading role.

BBC Breakfast Time went on air 30 years ago this morning. The original programme logo and memorable theme tune still remind me of getting ready for school.

Toyah has guested on the programme numerous times over the years: In 1983, talking about ‘Love Is The Law’ and The Ebony Tower; in 1985, around ‘Minx’ time, talking about a tour that didn’t happen (see below); in 1987, talking about ‘Desire’ and Cabaret; in 2007, talking about panto in Reading and in 2008, talking about Vampires Rock.

BBC Breakfast is celebrating 30 years of broadcasting with a trip down memory lane

Considered a “huge risk” when it launched on 17 January 1983, Breakfast Time was the UK’s first regular national breakfast show. Famous for its magazine-style approach, it combined news and lighter features. The 30th anniversary show will feature appearances from some of the original team.

Introduced two weeks before rival broadcaster ITV’s TV-am with David Frost, Breakfast Time hoped to lure audiences away from radio with a combination of news, travel information and lifestyle segments. Although breakfast TV had been the staple diet in the US for three decades, the British public was wary of the innovation in 1983.

• Continue reading at BBC News. View Toyah’s 1985 Breakfast Time appearance below.

Toyah’s full interview, recorded last week at The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, from this evening’s Channel 4 News. “I accidentally saw the Sex Pistols at a gig in Birmingham and it changed my life forever.” So Toyah Willcox told me this week, nearly four decades after punk exploded onto the British music scene, writes Channel 4 News Reporter Katie Razzall.

At that stage, in the late 1970s, she was a teenager from Birmingham who’d been told she must behave demurely and in a “feminine” way. At the gig, there were “people out there who were misbehaving“. As she puts it: “Suddenly I was in a room of spitting, shouting, angry people. I thought, right, I belong. I’ve found my voice.”

The Channel 4 News feature on PUNK magazine’s forthcoming 40th anniversary, including interview footage with Toyah, aired earlier this evening on ‘Channel 4’. Click below to watch.

In the 1970s, Punk Magazine documented a scene which began in New York with bands like the Ramones, and then spread to Britain to produce the revolutionary sound of the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

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 interview Toyah recorded last week for Channel 4 News will air on the programme tomorrow evening. Toyah will be discussing punk and how it changed the role of women in a feature on the new book ‘PUNK: The Best Of Punk Magazine’. A short clip of Toyah’s interview was shown at the end of tonight’s news.

Channel 4 News: Channel 4: Wednesday 16th January: 7pm
News, sport and weather from Channel 4.

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…

• A great rare shot of Toyah, from the ‘Good Morning Universe’ European Tour, 1981, from photo website Magnolia Box. (Thanks to Lärwi)

• Alban Arena: Toyah Willcox Back At The Alban Arena!: A short article on Hormonal Housewives.

• From My Mental Library: A book review blog post that mentions that Toyah is namechecked in Jack Sheffield’s 2011 book ‘Please Sir’: A new year at Ragley-On-The-Forest school… It’s 1981, the time of Adam and the Ants, Rubik’s Cube, the Sony Walkman and the Falklands War, as head teacher Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley-on-the-Forest School for another rollercoaster year. “Rubik’s cube was selling like there was no tomorrow, girls modelled their looks on Toyah Willcox, a few daring young men began to wear black eyeliner, and the Falklands War was on the horizon.” More info on the book at Amazon.

• Digital Spy: Someone at the DS forum has started a ridiculous (if this does happen I’ll apologise for that ;)) rumour that Toyah is joining the EE cast… as an Australian! Barmy!!

Over the last couple of days we’ve been running a “Favourite Songs” from the ’Love Is The Law’ and ‘Desire’ albums poll at Dreamscape’s Facebook Group. A bit of fun and hardly definitive but an interesting current gauge of what some fans think of the songs on these great albums. Some chose two songs and others opted for related songs not on the albums, I’ve included these in the totals.

LOVE IS THE LAW: Broken Diamonds – 8, I Explode – 10, Rebel Of Love – 2, Rebel Run – 1, Martian Cowboy – 6 , Dreamscape – 5, Time Is Ours – 8, Love Is The Law – 4, Remember – 2, The Vow – 2, (To The Mountains High – 1, Haunted – 1, Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard) – 1)

DESIRE: Echo Beach – 1, Moonlight Dancing – 5, Revive The World – 4, The View – 4, Moon Migration – 2, Love’s Unkind – 2, Dear Diary – 0, Deadly As A Woman – 3, Goodbye Baby – 1. When A Woman Cries – 5, Desire – 3, (Re-Entry Into Dance – 5, Sun-Up – 2, Plenty – 1)

Toyah is mentioned as being a guest, in the line-up for the new series of RTÉ Two’s Wagon’s Den, in an article by the RTÉ Press Centre.

Katherine Lynch’s hit comedy showbiz news show Wagon’s Den returns to RTE Two on Thursday January 10th with its usual thunderous cacophony of female wit and opinion on all the celebrity news issues of the week.
 
Amongst those appearing alongside Katherine Lynch’s anchor Sheila Chic character are wingman Brian Dowling plus model Sarah Morrisey, ‘Gossip Girl’ Siobhan O’Connor, Anthea Turner, ‘Doctor’ Gillian McKeith, Toyah Willcox and Model-turned-Super Injunction Poster Girl Natasha Giggs.

• Continue reading at the RTÉ Press Centre.

The official trailer for The Power Of Three, the film Toyah made a couple of years ago, is available to watch at You Tube. Toyah plays one of the lead characters in the film, which will be released on DVD at some point soon. View larger versions of the screen caps here.

There’s so much happens in Toyahland each year it’s virtually impossible to whittle down the releases, events, appearances etc. to just ten, but somehow we manage it anyway.

Here are Dreamscape’s 10 most interesting Toyah happenings of 2012 (as I say every year, I’m sure yours will be different).

1. The Changeling Resurrection and The Changeling Resurrection II: Two UK tours, 17 dates in total, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Toyah’s incredible 1982 album ‘The Changeling’.

2. King’s Heath Walk of Fame: Toyah became the first inductee in July, received her star/plaque from ELP’s Bev Bevan and played a homecoming gig, her first ever, in King’s Heath, at the Hare & Hounds.

3. I Believe In Father Christmas: Marking the 30th anniversary of the song Toyah recorded for Pop Goes Christmas, and released as a single, Toyah’s 26th in the UK, in December.

4. Twenty Four From Toyah: Toyah’s Christmas gift to fans, a digital album of 24 rare live recordings from various gigs and tours spanning 1993 to 2012.

5. Toyah Live 2012: Let’s Rock The Moor, Decades Festival, Mylor Sessions, Birmingham Pride, Blackpool Pride, Manchester Pride, Newcastle Pride, Audley End, Here & Now Glasgow, Lytham Proms.

6. Toyah on Vintage TV: A variety of appearances on the music channel for Toyah in 2012: My Vintage, Pat Sharp’s Top Ten, The Janice Long Review Show and Toyah’s Christmas At The Zoo.

7. Sleeping Beauty: Almost 100 performances at The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury alongside Gareth Gates, with numerous positive reviews. Definitely one of Toyah’s biggest, and longest running, pantomimes!

8. Toyah in Doctor Who (almost!): Toyah contributes to Behind The Sofa, a charity book of DW related memories. Toyah guests on four BBC America DW documentary specials. More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS is announced for DVD release.

9. Cover Star: More magazine covers for Toyah in 2012: Lifestyle and National Trust.

10. Sensational: The opening song on Toyah’s 2008 album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ is the soundtrack to a new Weight Watchers televsion as campaign in commercials starring Patsy Kensit.

(Main photo & photo 1 © PAC Photography, photo 4 © Ray Sears)