Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

In his fortnightly column, Shineback/Tinyfsh man Simon Godfrey reflects on his new life in the States.

September wasn’t just any old month boys and girls. It was the month King Crimson came to town.

Being located right next to the sound desk, I dutifully leaned over to a woman sat behind it and said ‘That guy is bootlegging the show I think.’ pointing in the direction of the bloke in front of me. It was only then that I realized the lady in question was Robert Fripp’s wife, Toyah Willcox. I’m not entirely sure what I expected Toyah to do with this information but the 14 year old boy in me who had fancied her madly back in the 1980s, probably hoped she would fell the guy with a well aimed flying kick and then thank me with a snog.

Well a boy can dream can’t he?

The reality was a little different. Toyah looked at me with a look of utter confusion on her face. In my haste to explain what I had seen over the thunderous sound of the band, I had taken to using hand gestures in an attempt to clarify what I had witnessed. To my horror, I realized that what had been an attempt to mimic the duel microphones using my index fingers either side of my head, actually looked like I was pretending to be a cow.

• Continue reading at Prog.

My Vintage with The Fripps airs again next month on Vintage TV. A great hour of chat and classic music choices from Robert and Toyah. Here’s the full Fripp Playlist from My Vintage:

Salisbury Hill – Peter Gabriel, Rapture – Blondie, Heroes – David Bowie, Fashion – David Bowie, Imagine – John Lennon, Bridge Over Troubled Waters – Simon & Garfunkel, Angels – Robbie Williams, I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston.

My Vintage: Vintage TV: Monday 13th October: 10.30pm
Toyah and Robert. New! Husband and wife team, punk princess Toyah and guitarist and record producer Robert Fripp, invite My Vintage viewers into their home for their top record picks.

My Vintage with The Fripps airs again at the end of the month on Vintage TV. A great hour of chat and classic music choices from Robert and Toyah. Here’s the full Fripp Playlist from My Vintage:

Salisbury Hill – Peter Gabriel, Rapture – Blondie, Heroes – David Bowie, Fashion – David Bowie, Imagine – John Lennon, Bridge Over Troubled Waters – Simon & Garfunkel, Angels – Robbie Williams, I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston.

My Vintage: Vintage TV: Sunday 29th June: 5pm
My Vintage: Vintage TV: Thursday 3rd July: 10.30pm
Toyah and Robert. New! Husband and wife team, punk princess Toyah and guitarist and record producer Robert Fripp, invite My Vintage viewers into their home for their top record picks.

The edition of All Star Mr & Mrs which featured Toyah and Robert is airing on TV3 (Ireland) in mid-June.

All Star Mr & Mrs: TV3: Sunday 15th June: 8pm
All Star Mr & Mrs: TV3: Saturday 21st June: 5pm
Toyah Willcox, Gabby Logan and Jake Wood. TV presenter Gabby Logan and former Scottish rugby international Kenny Logan, singer Toyah Willcox and her husband, guitarist Robert Fripp, and EastEnders star Jake Wood (Max Branning) and his wife Alison find out how much they really know about each other. The couple who give the most correct answers to a series of questions about each other get the chance to win £30,000 for their chosen charity. Hosted by Phillip Schofield.

• Browse all of Dreamscape’s All Star Mr & Mrs news here.

“The poster for the double-bill appearance in Seattle….  in the car, photo by Robert :-)“, Toyah tweeted this morning. Not long now until the US dates begin. View another photo at Facebook. Click below to visit The Humans Official Website. (Photo © Robert Fripp)

Discipline Global Mobile is exclusively telling tale #6…. Click below to hear Sleep Tight.

My Vintage with The Fripps airs again tonight on Vintage TV. A great hour of chat and classic music choices from Robert and Toyah. Toyah also pops up as a presenter on Vintage this evening, hosting The Vintage TV Sessions, a show which she has also recorded performances for. That show is set to air sometime in March. Here’s the full Fripp Playlist from My Vintage:

Salisbury Hill – Peter Gabriel, Rapture – Blondie, Heroes – David Bowie, Fashion – David Bowie, Imagine – John Lennon, Bridge Over Troubled Waters – Simon & Garfunkel, Angels – Robbie Williams, I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston.

The Vintage TV Sessions: Vintage TV: Thursday 20th February: 8.00pm
The Vintage TV Sessions: Vintage TV: Sunday 23rd February: 10.00pm
New! We are proud to present our third Vintage TV Sessions, live from the Bedford pub in Balham, with Alvin Stardust, Leddra Chapman, Newton Faulkner, Gabrielle and The Jar Family. Hosted by Toyah Willcox.

My Vintage: Vintage TV: Thursday 20th February: 10.00pm
Toyah and Robert. New! Husband and wife team, punk princess Toyah Willcox and guitarist and record producer Robert Fripp, invite My Vintage viewers into their home for their top record picks.

• My Vintage: Toyah and Robert’s My Vintage aired yesterday evening on ‘Vintage TV’. Featuring great recollections and stories from both and a selection of their favourite songs and artists. The programme is repeated on Thursday at 10pm and is also now available to watch at the station’s website. (Photos © Vintage TV)

• Vintage TV Sessions: We’ve taken five acts and one iconic venue to bring you a wonderful way of seeing established artists and up-and-coming talent in our Vintage TV Sessions. These monthly gems are filmed at the brilliant old Bedford pub in Balham in an intimate setting with a live audience and then broadcast to you. Hosted by Toyah Willcox – Continue reading…

• Acoustic Toyah: As previously mentioned here, and Toyah also talked about it in her latest blog, Vintage TV Sessions will air two new Toyah performances soon – acoustic versions of ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ and ‘I Want To Be Free’.

• Fast Forward To Rewind: If you’re a fan of the festival to all things 80s, you won’t want to miss this unveiling of the performers at Rewind 2014 in our special playlist – View here…

• Vintage Toyah: Browse all of Dreamscape’s Toyah @ Vintage TV related news from the last couple of years here… You can also watch a selection of Toyah’s Vintage TV appearances by searching through their Library.

• Queer Pagan Punk: BFI Derek Jarman retrospective: As mentioned yesterday, Toyah guested at this event last night. She tweeted: “fabulous night at @BFI Southbank Jarman retrospective. Loved it. The audience really liked The Tempest“.

• My Vintage: It’s a great upcoming weekend for Toyah fans, not only is she guesting on Sounds Of The 80s (see below) but Sunday sees the premiere of the My Vintage, Toyah and Robert special, which I know a lot of people are looking forward to seeing.

• Sounds Of The 80s: BBC Radio 2: Toyah guests on this show on Saturday night. Toyah tweeted on Tuesday: “I’m Sara cox’s special guest on this sat’s sounds of the 80s @BBCRadio2 10pm“. Listen live at the Radio 2 website or catch up at BBC iPlayer post-broadcast.

• Live 2014: Toyah played her first live date of the year on Sunday. A PA at the Ultimate 80s show in Skegness, with a host of other 80s bands. She tweeted: “In skeggy. Just met Annabelle from Bow Wow Wow 4 1st time! Musical Youth think im a Toyah Impersonator. BOYS! Lol“.

• Busy Toyah!: This “newsy bits” update wouldn’t have been possible without Twitter. Our penultimate post is this tweet from Toyah on how busy she is: “Crazy 2 weeks. Feel like I’m on a bob sleigh run with no shoes on! Acoustic rehearsal\press\tv\scripts\talks….Aaaahhhhhhhhhh“.

• Photos: View larger versions of each of the photos above at Twitter, Instagram and The Official Toyah Website, respectively. (Photos 1&3 © Toyah Willcox Ltd, 2 © Vintage TV)

She’s our Vintage TV presenter and princess of punk and he’s played with Bowie and Blondie and is one of the world’s greatest guitarists. Now Toyah Willcox and her musician, composer and record producer husband Robert Fripp, of prog rockers King Crimson, invite us into their Worcestershire home for a joint My Vintage (16th Feb, 5pm), giving a fascinating and intimate insight into the records they are both passionate about and telling the tales behind their top tracks. What a couple! What a coup for My Vintage!

• Visit the Vintage TV website. Toyah and Robert are also currently pictured on their Home page. (Photo © Vintage TV)

Vintage TV have uploaded the new advert for the forthcoming Toyah Willcox & Robert Fripp special of My Vintage which premieres this Sunday at 5pm. The advert has been airing on the music channel over the last week. View it at You Tube by clicking on the screen caps below,

My Vintage: Vintage TV: Sunday 16th February: 5.00pm
My Vintage: Vintage TV: Thursday 20th February: 10.00pm
Toyah and Robert. New! Husband and wife team, punk princess Toyah Willcox and guitarist and record producer Robert Fripp, invite My Vintage viewers into their home for their top record picks. (NB: This is being advertised as “Part 1”, so it looks like there will be a further programme…)

• Dark Night Of The Soul With Julie: Toyah and Fripp’s ‘The Discourager of Hesitancy/The Encourager of Precipitation’ from The Lady Or The Tiger was included in Julie’s playlist last night on WFMU – View the full list here…

• The Fripps at Christmas: Great festive photos of Toyah. Robert and Willyfred in the Christmas Day entry at Robert Fripp’s Diary – View here…

• My World Of Music: Toyah – It’s A Mystery: This track formed part of an E.P called Four From Toyah. Released early in 1981 it was Toyah’s breakthrough hit single after several years of building up a large fan base. It wasn’t like anything she had released before – Continue reading…

• Three Sides Of The Coin: Toyah’s new film had its first screening last night. View our recent news on the film here.

• Lytham St Annes Express: Lowther all set for a new look: Lowther Pavilion is set for a new look when the curtain goes up again at the Lytham theatre after its three-week winter break… Toyah Willcox and Ruby Wax are among a wide variety of attractions to follow – Continue reading…

• Metro: 60 Seconds – Paul Young: Paul mentions Toyah in this new article: It’s the same with Toyah Willcox’s hip – she could have damaged that – Continue reading…

Dreamscape posted news about this before Christmas, and now PROG magazine have put the article, and recipe, online.

In this month’s mag, we printed Robert and Toyah’s recipe for Christmas cake. If you missed it, here’s the winter fuel for a Crimson King…

• Continue reading at PROG magazine.

Not strictly Toyah news but she is mentioned in the article, as is fellow Human Bill Rieflin.

King Crimson unveil new-line up and 2014 tour plans

Robert Fripp has unveiled a new incarnation of King Crimson.

Speaking to Uncut, Fripp said: “King Crimson is returning to active service. We are on-call to be ready for a live performance on September 1, 2014. Seven members. Four English, three American. Three drummers. It’s a different configuration of King Crimson than before. Some are familiar names, maybe more than others.”

This line-up – the 8th in the band’s history – will be Fripp, Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mel Collins and Jakko Jakszyk.

• Continue reading at Uncut.

• It’s A Mystery: Following on from the fantastic ‘Mystery’ (Soft Mix by The Sonic Healer) comes another two, unofficial, remixes of ‘It’s A Mystery’, both just made available online this week. These don’t stray too far from the original, simply just extending the classic song. Listen at Magnum’s 1980s Extended Edits & Remixes.

• Uncut: Robert Fripp steals the show in David Bowie documentary: I don’t know if you saw it, but BBC2’s David Bowie documentary, Five Years, screened at the weekend, was very entertaining.

• Louder Than War: Top 10 Punk Rock Films: Jubilee: Derek Jarman’s 1978 film is as utterly ridiculous and campily bizarre as one of the several strands of early punk itself, Jubilee is a fascinating and ageing curio of the times and the reflection of one of the UK’s most imaginative film directors.

• Jubilee Art: While on the subject of Jubilee, some digital art by Neveryan at deviantart.com.

• Tanzi Libre: The original production, Trafford Tanzi, premiered at Contact Theatre in Manchester in 1980 before playing at the Edinburgh Festival and touring. It played at West End’s Mermaid Theatre starring Toyah Willcox in the title role and then later, on Broadway, as Tuebrook Tanzi: The Venus Fly Trap, starring Debbie Harry with Andy Kaufman as the Referee.

• Night Fever: Meanwhile in the 90s, Toyah and Sam Kane perform ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ in this, long forgotten, Channel 5 show presented by Suggs.

• Daily Mail: David Bowie’s biggest fans reveal all: Five unique people, five remarkable encounters with Ziggy Stardust are revealed for the first time in a new TV film: Robert Fripp 1977. (Click below to view a larger scan – Thanks to Lärwi)

• Dangerous Minds: Cute Couple Alert: Robert Fripp & Toyah Willcox on ‘All Star Mr & Mrs’: They’d only just met a second time in 1985, but within a week, Robert Fripp asked singer/actress Toyah Willcox to marry him. They did so on Robert’s 40th birthday in 1986, when the pint-sized “force of nature,” to hear him describe his wife, was 28. That they are still very happily wed decades later…

• BBC Radio Bristol: Read a full transcript of Toyah’s recent interview on Laura Rawlings’ show at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.

• Song Of The Day (Facebook): Happy birthday to singer Toyah Willcox (The Humans, Toyah, Sunday All Over the World), born today in 1958, in Kings Heath, Birmingham, England.

• Leamington Courier: Toyah returns to tackle the mayhem of housewife life on Leamington stage: After a successful year of causing mayhem and mania at theatres across the UK, the Hormonal Housewives are back and stopping in Leamington this weekend.

• Lancashire Evening Post: Blame it on the hormones: Popstar turned TV presenter and actress Toyah Willcox is coming to Lancaster with smash hit girlie show, Hormonal Housewives. Plus a round up of the region’s theatre shows, performances and events.

• Learn to Paint with Dermot Cavanagh, Teaching Toyah Willcox at Glen Carr Lake, Sligo: Just re-uploaded to ‘You Tube’, this originally aired on BBC2 in September 2001 as Awash With Colour. It features incredible scenery.

Wishing Toyah and Robert a Happy Anniversary, their 27th!, and Happy Birthday too to Mr Fripp. Here is that great photo, one of the first of Toyah and Robert together, taken the year they married, 1986, and also released their first collaboration; ‘The Lady Or The Tiger’.

Wednesday night’s All Star Mr & Mrs on ITV achieved an overnight audience of 4.02m viewers, an 18.6% share of the total TV audience. 107k (0.4%) tuned in on ITV +1.

This is an increase on last week’s first show of the series and will no doubt be higher when the final figures are released next week. (BARB ratings data by Attentional)

• As everyone knows Toyah and Robert guested on tonight’s All Star Mr & Mrs on ITV. It’s now available to watch online (for UK residents only) at ITV Player for the next 28 days. It’s also available at UTV Player.

• The programme will also be repeated on ITV this coming Saturday at 12.30pm.

• STV Player are using a great photo of Toyah in their index of episodes of the series. View here.

• All Star Mr & Mrs Facebook: Backstage with singer Toyah Willcox & husband, guitarist Robert Fripp! – Congrats to Toyah & Robert, they won £5,000 for St. Richard’s Hospice, Worcester.

• Overnight viewing figures for tonight’s edition will be announced tomorrow. Last week’s programme was watched by almost four million people, though that will probably be over 5m when the final figures are released.

• Those Twitter folks were agog, tweeting: “Toyah Willcox & hubby are just so adorable!!“, “Awwww.. How sweet are Toyah Wilcox and her hubby Robert Fripp” and someone who doesn’t know that Toyah is only 54!!,  “I want to be like Robert and Toyah when I’m old“… etc.

• The power of a prime time TV appearance. In the couple of hours after All Star Mr & Mrs aired tonight Dreamscape has had FIVE times as many visitors as it usually does.

• The last fortnight has been quite entertaining. Every time I’ve searched for Toyah news online there have been Fripp/King Crimson fans aghast at this programme lol!

… Long-Distance Relationships

4. Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp

She once famously said: “I see my husband 12 weeks a year.” After marrying in 1986, the 80s punk pop star and the guitarist decided to live separately. At one point they even went 11 months without clapping eyes on each other. Toyah said of their set-up: “We’re never bored of each other, just always thrilled at the thought of meeting up again and leaping into each other’s arms.” Awww, and they say romance is dead!