Toyah At Home #2: Newsy Bits

June 28th, 2020

Info from Saturday’s second Toyah At Home, which aired at Toyah’s official You Tube channel.

Good Morning Universe: was the song of the morning, with Toyah explaining how it got its title. Joel Bogen wrote the music and as soon as Toyah heard the joyous track she wanted to call it Good Morning Universe.

Good Morning Universe: Toyah performed a live version of the title song from Toyah’s third EP, and ninth single, released in November 1981. I’ve always loved this song, and all the others on the Four More From Toyah EP.

Shirley Manson: Toyah mentioned the Garbage lead singer’s recent comments about Toyah being one of her early influences.

Early Influences: Toyah talked about her own early influences, Dusty Springfield and Sandie Shaw in the 1960s, as well as Curved Air, Grace Slick, Roxy Music, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and David Bowie in the 70s.

Movies: To Be Someone will hopefully be showing later this year, with press and publicity happening soon. Toyah also mentioned Give Them Wings.

Take The Leap!: Jolyon Dixon, the guitarist from Friday Forever and Toyah’s Take The Leap! band asked Toyah if she would be interested in a Leap! anniversary tour.

Steve Strange: Toyah talked about the Visage frontman back in the days of her Mayhem warehouse and the Blitz Club and the last time she met him, at the V&A Club To Catwalk exhibition in 2013.

Favourite Venues/Tours: Toyah reminisced about playing (the legendary) Glasgow Apollo. Her favourite venue is Wembley Arena, and she loves playing in churches because of their great acoustics. Toyah loved all of The Humans tours, and also the recent Thunder In The Highlands tour.

Computer: Will this ever be played live? There are plans for some of the Safari album songs to be played live during Toyah At Home to coincide with the Cherry Red release of Toyah’s Safari back catalogue.

Ophelia’s Shadow: Some of the songs are too studio layered to perform live but Lords Of The Never Known and Brilliant Day will be (Toyah mentioned the late Keith Tippett).

Prostitute: Toyah talked about the possibility of the album being performed live as an art project with visuals. She also talked about performing the album during the FrippFripp tour in 1988, and about the legacy of the album and its meanings now as the world changes and evolves.

• Toyah also chatted about which song took the longest to write (Slow Descent by The Humans was mentioned), and the show ended with live footage of She’s Fast by The Humans from Trading Boundaries in East Sussex.