Toyah & Robert’s Easter weekend: Toyah At Home; Season 2, Episode 13, the latest Agony Aunts; and Sunday Lunch, An Easter twist on this Maiden classic – Number Of The Beast. Be afraid – Very Afraid!!!
Minder: ITV4: Friday 16th April: 4.50pm
All Mod Cons. Arthur decides to sell Terry’s flat without his permission. Meanwhile, Terry gets a job minding at a local club and ends up getting into more trouble than he had planned for when he realises the club’s manager is on the fiddle. Starring: George Cole, Dennis Waterman, Toyah Willcox, Simon Cadell, James Ottaway, and Tony Osaba. (Series 2, Episode 8, 1980). Also showing on ITV4 HD. (Photos © ITV)
Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp’s 10 best lockdown covers – ranked!
Look, we’ve all been doing what we can to get by in the past 12 months, haven’t we?
When quarantine hit, many artists responded by covering songs that tried to reflect the solemnity of the situation. Gal Gadot put together an all-star tone-deaf Band Aid take on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, which was about as welcome as a Winston Mumford’s Book Of The Month club.
So you have to admire pop star and actor Toyah Willcox, who channelled the Blitz (Kid) spirit, raided the dressing up box and persuaded her husband, King Crimson prog-rock totem Robert Fripp, into performing increasingly outlandish 90-second versions of classic hits such as Alice Cooper’s ‘Poison’ and Guns ‘N Roses‘ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, accessorising with nurse outfits or dinosaur costumes for their weekly Sunday Lockdown Lunch series.
• Continue reading at the NME.
Britain’s Favourite 80s Songs: Channel 5: Friday 9th April: 10pm
Britain’s Favourite 80s Songs: Channel 5: Sunday 11th April: 10.55pm
1985. Series 1, episode 6. A look at the biggest-selling singles of 1985, the best pop videos, the artists who appeared in them, and the stories behind the songs. A-ha’s Take On Me, and I Know Him So Well, by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson are two of the classic tracks under discussion. Contributors include Toyah Willcox, Paul Gambaccini, Cheryl Baker and Carol Decker. Jenny Powell narrates.
Toyah to headline village’s first-ever music festival
Punk princess Toyah Willcox is the Saturday night headliner at the first-ever music festival to be held in the village of Aston.
Astonbury will take place from Friday 20 to Sunday August 22.
There will be two stages, a full bar with real ale and cider, and food. Parking is free, and there will be free children’s activities with camping available near by.
Organisers, who are looking for volunteers, will be donating to Cancer Research, Aston and Cote Community Trust and MIND.
• Continue reading at the Oxford Mail.
There’s a repeat airing of the Toyah Special of Video Killed The Radio Star on Sky Arts later this month. This great half hour programme originally premiered in August 2018.
Video Killed The Radio Star: Sky Arts: Tuesday 13th April: 4.30pm
Toyah Willcox. (Series 7, Episode 6) An insight into the making of videos by Toyah Willcox, whose hits included It’s A Mystery, Thunder in the Mountains and I Want To Be Free.
Weekend Press: NME: Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox share cover of ZZ Top’s ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’; Louder: Toyah and Robert Fripp add beards, scissors and mystery guitarist on maniacal ZZ Top cover; Guitar.Com: Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox take on ZZ Top’s Gimme All Your Lovin’; Metal Sucks: King Crimson’s Robert Fripp & Toyah Willcox Cover ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’”; Consequence Of Sound: Robert Fripp and Toyah Slice Their Way Through ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’”. (Image © Toyah Willcox)
Toyah & Robert’s weekend of wonder: Toyah At Home; Season 2, Episode 12, the latest Agony Aunts; and Sunday Lunch, Toyah, Robert and a mysterious stranger ask for ” All Your Lovin”.
There’s another chance to catch Toyah’s memorable 2016 guest appearance on ITV’s The Chase celebrity special early next month.
The Chase: Celebrity Special: ITV4:
Wednesday 7th April: 6.55pm
Series 6, Episode 2. Bradley Walsh hosts the quiz show as four celebrities take on the Chaser. Singer Toyah Willcox, ex-footballer John Barnes, writer Germaine Greer and heavyweight boxer Audley Harrison pit their wits against one of the country’s finest quiz brains in the hope of winning thousands of pounds for their chosen charities.
Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox on Their Viral Quarantine Videos: ‘We’re in This With You’
King Crimson’s guitarist and his pop-star wife on what inspired them to cover everything from “Enter Sandman” to “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and what everyone got wrong about their ‘Swan Lake’ tutu dance
“My wife is a force of nature and my wife leads the way,” Robert Fripp says of his partner and quarantine-video collaborator Toyah Willcox.
On April 5th, 2020, music fans stuck in their homes and cruising the web for diversions were greeted with one of the most unusual sights in a season filled with them: King Crimson auteur Robert Fripp and his wife, singer and actress Toyah Willcox, both elegantly dressed and dancing to Bill Haley and the Comets’ early rock anthem “Rock Around the Clock.”
Filmed on Willcox’s iPhone in the kitchen of the couple’s home near Birmingham, England, the head-scratching clip launched one of the year’s least likely and most talked-about viral series. Every Sunday since, “Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch” (sometimes called a “Lockdown Lunch”) has presented a new clip of the couple having quick, good-natured fun at home. The ever-upbeat Willcox sings and vamps (while wearing a variety of costumes, from workout suit to cheerleader costume) while a deadpan Fripp accompanies her on electric guitar.
• Continue reading at Rolling Stone. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
Britain’s Favourite 80s Songs: Channel 5: Friday 2nd April: 10pm
Britain’s Favourite 80s Songs: Channel 5: Sunday 4th April: 11pm
1984. Series 1, Episode 5. A look at the biggest singles of 1984, the best pop videos, the artists who appeared in them, and the stories behind the songs. Cheryl Baker reveals how Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do with It started off as a Bucks Fizz song. Plus, a look at Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s controversial Relax, and the hits of Wham!. With contributions from Toyah Willcox, Paul Gambaccini, Carol Decker and Jenny Powell
Toyah – Sheep Farming In Barnet
Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
Any time is a good time to have Toyah’s often-overlooked early ’80s albums revisited, but in this case there seems to be no more expedient occasion to have this album back in the public eye, in its most impressive form yet. Toyah has come to prominence very much on social media during the Covid pandemic and associated lockdowns, appearing in a series of light-hearted and very amusing videos with her husband, Robert Fripp. Now, many of those in the ‘prog rock’ fraternity – who may have passed over Toyah’s output with little more than a cursory glance at the hit singles – have been fond of expressing their surprise at the union of the ultra-serious King Crimson frontman, with his almost ‘Prog Godfather’ reputation, and the woman often looked back on as a kind of ‘post-punk pixie’ with wild hair and a handful of hits. This album comes out just at the right time to remind people that, in truth, the relative musical outputs of both parties at the dawn of the 1980s really weren’t as far apart as you may think. This isn’t punk, and it certainly isn’t pop-punk. If you want to give it a name at all, art-punk is closer, as what is found among the 41 tracks here is a brilliantly adventurous mix of the post-punk approach of bands like Magazine or Wire, combined with an art-rock influence in the music itself, which is astonishingly mature considering these were 20 year olds at the time.
• Continue reading at Velvet Thunder.
Released 16 years ago, The Safari Records Singles Collection – Parts 1 and 2 were, and are, an amazing addition to Toyah’s mighty and comprehensive discography. Extended versions of both compilation albums are now available to stream. Listen to Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.
Toyah has announced that she will be putting on a lively and energetic concert with her full live electric band at The Factory Live, located at Unit 9A, Ivy Arch Road, Worthing, BN14 8BX on Thursday 29th July 2021.
Toyah and her chums will be performing her hit singles including ‘Good Morning Universe‘, ‘Thunder In The Mountains‘, ‘Brave New World‘, ‘I Want To Be Free‘ and ‘It’s A Mystery‘ alongside modern days classics ‘Sensational’ and ‘Dance In The Hurricane‘ from her 2019 charting album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen‘.
The band will be: Toyah Willcox (vocals), Chris Wong (guitar), Andy Doble (keyboards), Mike Nichols (bass) and John Humphrey (drums). Purchase your Toyah tickets here. Further information on Toyah here.
• Continue reading at Brighton and Hove News.
Watch Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox cover Motörhead classic
The latest episode of Sunday Lockdown Lunch is here
King Crimson’s Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox have shared another cover in their weekly lockdown series, this time tackling a Motörhead classic. The pair began the Sunday Lockdown Lunch covers series last year and have shared their own takes on tracks by the likes of Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Alice Cooper, Foo Fighters and more.
For this week’s video, Willcox dressed in a maid’s outfit and dealt cards into the gust of a fan. Fripp, meanwhile, sat to her side playing the guitar as she sang.
• Continue reading at the NME. See also Classic Rock/Louder, Kerrang and Metal Sucks.
Toyah plays the role of Haroldia The Herald in Martin Kiszko’s fifteen-part audio/radio drama King Frank & The Knights Of The Ecoquest for Fun Kids Radio. See Martin’s tweet about this (including a photo of him and Toyah) here, and Toyah’s by clicking below.
A new Toyah track with Simon Darlow and Bobby Willcox features on the album release Miniatures 2020. The track Future Dreaming is what Simon Darlow describes as a “theatre production in 3 parts that had to fit in a minute … from star birth to the peace of the infinite.”
Former Mott The Hoople keyboardist Morgan Fisher released an obscure underground album in 1980 called “Miniatures”. It was effectively a collection of 52 “miniature masterpieces”, i.e. tracks of one minute length or less by a myriad of music legends and cult figures. Although at the time, the album flew pretty much below the radar it has over the years had a lasting and continually growing influence.
• Continue reading at toyahwillcox.com.
Super rare footage from Toyah’s early acting CV was uploaded to You Tube at the end of 2020. A Couple Of Cranks is a 1978 drama from BBC Midlands in which Toyah had a small role. Filmed around the same time as The Corn Is Green with Katharine Hepburn. Click below to watch. Fast forward to around 7.30 for Toyah. See larger versions of the screen caps here. (Thanks to Andy)
Toyah and Robert brightened up Sunday afternoon with a cover of Motorhead’s amazing The Ace Of Spades. No doubt Lemmy was there in spirit! Click below to watch. (Image © Toyah Willcox)
A couple of incredibly rare early 80s European Toyah magazine covers were posted at Facebook recently. Tip, a German magazine, featured Toyah on their cover in January 1980 and December 1981. (Thanks to whoever unearthed these rarities!)
