Craig Astley, Manager of The Official Toyah Willcox website, was featured in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, in an article on the People’s History Of Pop.
Craig Astley: 37, Communications Officer
Photo of himself, aged four, with Toyah Willcox, backstage at Newcastle City Hall, December 1983
“I latched on to music at a really young age. It was on TV shows like Swap Shop. I was drawn to how energetic and colourful Toyah was. My mother took me to the concert but I was so small I had to have cotton wool in my ears as it would have been too loud. It was near christmas and I’d taken a card to the gig. Our seats were close to the sound engineer and my mum asked him to give my card to Toyah. He said, ‘Why don’t you give it to her yourself?’ and let us backstage. I can remember that moment, burned in my memory. Years later I started running Toyah’s website. Now I look after her artwork and tour merchandise and manager her archive. She’s now a friend I see through the eyes of a fan.”
• Read more on the People’s History Of Pop. (Photo © Official Toyah – See a larger version of the article at Toyah’s Official Twitter page).
As has been posted about a fair bit recently… Toyah’s three quite different and, more than quite, brilliant albums: Desire – originally released in 1987, Prostitute – originally released in 1988, and Ophelia’s Shadow – originally released in 1991, were made available digitally, for the first time, earlier this month. There’s been a lot of related promotion…
Desire: Read Toyah’s Letter, first published in Tellurian One (Spring 1987); View info on Tenterhooks, Echo Beach (Acoustic) and Desirable; Visit the album page at toyahwillcox.com; Read a full transcript of Chris Limb’s 1987 interview with Toyah; Listen to the album at Spotify; Buy at Amazon or iTunes; Browse Dreamscape’s Desire news…
Prostitute: Read Toyah’s Letter (Summer 1988); Visit the album page at toyahwillcox.com; Read a reflection by Craig Astley; Listen to the album at Spotify; Buy at Amazon or iTunes; Browse Dreamscape’s Prostitute news…
Ophelia’s Shadow: Read Toyah’s Letter (Summer 1990); Visit the album page at toyahwillcox.com; Listen to the album at Spotify; Buy at Amazon or iTunes; Browse Dreamscape’s Ophelia’s Shadow news…
Explore Toyah’s Instagram for rarities related to all three albums (Thanks to Breaking Through).
Desire, Toyah’s second solo album, originally released in 1987 was issued digitally at the beginning of October.
As well as a new digital booklet to accompany the release a plethora of Desire-related extras have been made available by toyahwillcox.com to complement the album.
TENTERHOOKS | AN AUDIO SLEEVENOTE To accompany the recent digital release of Toyah’s 1987 album Desire comes an exclusive audio sleevenote. (Concept: Craig Astley | Execution: Chris Limb | Based on an original Toyah interview conducted and recorded by Chris Limb in London, 1987).
ECHO BEACH [ACOUSTIC] A previously unreleased and unavailable acoustic take on Echo Beach. Recorded live in 2014.
DESIRABLE EP compiling Echo Beach & Moonlight Dancing B-Sides in new sonically refreshed transfers. Tracklist: 1. Echo Beach (Surf Mix); 2. Plenty; 3. Sun Up; 4. Re-Entry Into Dance.
• Click on each of the covers below to download/stream the Desire goodies. (Thanks to Breaking Through)
There’s a great new project from the BBC who are crowdsourcing the People’s History of Pop. They asked Craig Astley, who manages The Official Toyah Willcox website, if they could use the well known photo of him, aged five first meeting Toyah, as their main website banner. The site launched last Friday. The crowdsourced memories will form the backbone of a new four-part series for future broadcast on BBC Four.
• Visit People’s History of Pop/HistoryPin. (Thanks to Craig)
The latest post at Fragments is a Simon Darlow special, with lots of rare info and photos (the screencap below is a “blink and you’ll miss her” appearance by Toyah from Simon’s late 80s solo single ‘Hot’). Read the full feature by clicking below.
Toyah is also celebrating Simon Darlow’s birthday. She posted a fantastic 1983 shot of them together at Instagram today.
A new post at Fragments with some, frankly, tantalisingly exciting details on future music (re)releases from Toyah. At an early stage for now.
The Big Question Mark (Or The Art Of Being Wrong)
I was wrong.
I often am about a whole host of things. This is a really, really happy wrong though in what has been a pretty amazing month for one reason or another.
The reason I am so gleeful that I was wrong relates to the sleevenote I penned for the reissue of Mayhem back in October 2005.
• Continue reading at Fragments: Toyah Tales From Now & Then.
The second instalment of Craig Astley’s Toyah/Love Is The Law-related blog series is now available to read.
Picking Up The Pieces…
So i failed to do the tenth-month run up thing….. Let’s see what happens over the next month or so during the tour. :-)
Last night was the first night of the Love Is The Law & More Tour. And it took place, quite coincidentally, in my hometown of Newcastle. This is 30 years since the Rebel Run Tour visited Newcastle City Hall.
• Continue reading at Fragments: Toyah Tales From Now & Then.
Fragments, a new blog series by Craig Astley, is sure to be an interesting read for Toyah fans over the coming months, as we head towards the 30th anniversary of the ‘Love Is The Law’ album and ‘Rebel Run’ UK Tour. Craig met Toyah for the first time during the tour back in 1983 (before he was even 5!!)
I Was A Child Toyah Fan…….
2013 marks something of a milestone for me. It is thirty years since an exciting thing happened to me as a child. A child who was a pop music lover and devoted fan of Toyah.
• Continue reading at Fragments: Toyah Tales From Now & Then.
