Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Introducing my giant Dreamscape Christmas card… To wish everyone a great run up to Christmas, I thought I’d feature one of Toyah’s inspirational, beautiful images from 1981, in huge Christmas card form as a way of starting things off.

In a 45+ year career of ground breaking, outstanding, pioneering visual creativity this is up there with the best of Toyah’s iconic images.

Christmas is a great season, but the run up is the really special time for many, so please enjoy the next two weeks. It always feels like there is something magical in the air while heading towards Christmas Eve and the 25th. So, here is to the next two weeks of wonderment, fun, surprises and joy… Merry Christmas Run Up!

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!)

Toyah introduces an amazing appearance from October 1981. We Are, from the album Anthem, performed on German music show Rockpop, a programme that ran from 1977 to 1982. Watch Toyah’s Intro, and then take a trip back to 1981 for We Are.

There’s a very special Flashback Friday tomorrow as Toyah introduces an archive performance of We Are performed on the German TV programme Rockpop in October 1981. Premieres 11am, Fri 6 November. Click below for Toyah’s tweet.

Toyah introducing a classic TV appearance: We Are on the German TV show Rockpop in October 1981. Premieres tomorrow at 11am.

1st April 1981: Bucks Fizz, Talking Heads, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Shakin’ Stev…
Who is more than a little miffed about his pet red-kneed tarantula, Doris, who’s gone off her daily diet of locusts and appears terribly ill? Which band are Phil Oakey Human League’s favourite group? Win a Ferguson Videostar 3V22 video cassette recorder in the Smash Hits/Visage video competition! It’s all here in this week’s Chart Trivia on 1st April 1981! Starring Bucks Fizz, Talking Heads, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Shakin’ Stevens, Ultravox and a cast of thousands!

Viewers in the Midlands can catch Toyah every Tuesday throughout March/April as she co/hosts BBC Birmingham’s Look Hear with #ChrisPhipps. Toyah is also filming an episode for Tales of the Unexpected – A story called Blue Marigolds, in which she will play a character called Myra. The Four From Toyah EP, containing It’s A Mystery, is down two places to no.6 and the album Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! is down eight places to no.30! All this and more trivia in this week’s Retro Chart Trivia show – listen below!

• Continue reading/Listen to the Retro Chart Trivia podcast at iTunes.

We haven’t had a Classic Toyah post for a while – Rectifying this with a very rare magazine advert from July 1981, from Finnish magazine ‘Soundi’. They also published an issue with Toyah’s Brave New World image on their cover in 1982, and another full-page advert for The Changeling. Click below to see the full size advert. (Thanks to Juha Merilainen for this amazing scan)

A rare photo of Toyah and Marianne Faithfull, taken at the launch party for Marianne’s album ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’ in September 1981. Click on the photo to view a larger version. (Thanks to Andi)

A fantastic retro, and quite lengthy, Toyah interview from Finnish magazine SOUNDI.

A huge thanks to Lärwi. of The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive, for the scans and translation.

Interview by Dougie Gordon, published in June 1981.

The door opens. A short, 145 cm tall figure stands in front of me. She’s wearing a blue and grey tunic which has gold embroidery on it. The fiery red hair looks a like a burning bush against the backdrop of the outfit. The figure moves forwards like a Samurai warrior poised for an attack but you can see a smile on her face which you can not resist. She’s Toyah Willcox, England’s Jeanne d’Arc of latter times.

Her moves are a part of her carefully calculated image. She’s has consciously made herself into a mystery which invites the audience to explore her world further. But you can’t fit all of the pieces together – it’s not easy to find the real person behind this made-up facade. Her aggression can turn into warmth in a second – and the other way round. Her mindset changes from a hearty laugh into the deepest despair. Her sentences are deep and meaningful half of the time, the other half you’re left wondering what on earth is she on about? Toyah is like dynamite made out of flesh, the slightest emotional spark will set her off.

She also has a soft sweeter side which the audience rarely gets to see. The aggression she hides behind when dealing with the mass media is of course there on purpose. The media in turn treats her with contempt and suspicion. For this reason she feels misunderstood and defends herself in a way even Lou Reed would be proud of.

• Continue reading at Dreamscape’s Press Archive. Read another rare Finnish interview with Toyah here.

Toyah was on the cover of, and interviewed in, ‘Hot Press’ twice in 1981. This is the first, from 17th April of that year.

Tara Winter Uncovers The Many Faces Behind The Make-Up

1) Toyah is a dilletante, dabbling in fashionable performance arts for sheer self-gratification.

2) Toyah is a violent sub-cult, fronted by a spitting vixen, getting her kicks from other people’s boots.

3) Toyah is an egomaniac, keeping the musicians in her group in neutral tones, in the dark, out of the picture.

4) Toyah is arrogant, difficult, unreliable, and wears all that make-up to hide acne.

Did you spot the deliberate mistake? Stay behind, anyone who realised that all of the above areuntrue, and I’ll teach you to dance the mashed potato.

When we met on a still-foggy Belfast morning, Toyah was already wide awake, sitting with utter composure amid the bleary salesmen and snaking hoovers that characterise preprandial hotels. We would talk for half an hour, please, and then there was a plane to catch. Tom, Toyah’s boyfriend/minder, set the alarm on his watch…

• Read the full classic Toyah interview by clicking on each of the above scans.

A selection of rare photos, none of which were subsequently used, from the ‘Anthem’ album photo sessions in early 1981. These great shots were taken by photographer Jay Myrdal. Click below to view larger versions. (Thanks to Andi | All photos © Jay Myrdal)

The results of the Slicing Up Eyeballs‘ 1981 Albums Poll was announced at the beginning of the month – ‘Anthem’ placed at number 65!! Click below to view the Top 100.

Gered Mankowitz took some iconic, and memorable, photos of Toyah at the height of her, and the band’s, pop career in the early 1980s. A brief clip of him talking about working with Kate Bush and Toyah has recently been uploaded to You Tube. (Thanks to Stephen Bennett Troake)

British Gered Mankowitz, one of the world’s most prominent photographers in the music and artistic world. Here he talks about what it was like to work with Kate Bush & Toyah Willcox. His iconic images of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eurythmics, Marianne Faithfull and Kate Bush have become historic pieces of history that graced hundreds of magazine & album covers.

A few rare-ish Toyah photos. Three lesser seen variations from well-known 1980 (‘The Face’) and 1981 photo sessions, plus great live shots from The Changeling Tour’ and the ‘Warrior Rock Mini Tour’ from July & December ’82. Click on each to view larger. (Thanks to Andi)