Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

• Portrait Records: A history of the label Toyah was signed to for around 18 months in the mid-1980s has just been updated at Wikipedia: In 1985, British singer Toyah released her album Minx on the Portrait label.

• Vents Magazine: Dutch pop-rockband Chabliz, who play adventurous alternative rock, popnoir and gothicjazz, cite Toyah as one of their musical influences in a new interview at ‘Vents Magazine’.

• The Changeling Resurrection: Lots of video footage of Toyah’s gig at The Tunnels Bristol last April has been added to You Tube over the last couple of days.

• Channel 4 News: Is Punk Back From The Dead? is now available to watch at You Tube. As a new book is published featuring the origins of punk music in the lower east side of New York, Katie Razzall looks at how Punk magazine changed life in Britain.

• FM: The epsiode of FM in which Toyah makes a, very, brief appearance, but is mentioned a lot, has recently been uploaded in full at You Tube. Series One, Episode Two – System Addict: The group try to stick to some new resolutions: Dom gives up booze, Jane gives up cigarettes, and Lindsay gives up giving up on girls. Featuring a performance by The Wombats, and guest appearance by Toyah Willcox.

• Back To The 80s: The Ultimate Megamix Of The Year: A 43-minute mix which includes ‘I Want To Be Free’ (or “Upside Down”) and ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ and numerous other great tunes from 1981.

• Absolute 80s Radio: ‘It’s A Mystery’ has just been played this afternoon on AR. Apparently the ‘I Want To Be Free’ video is also being shown a lot on Vintage TV at the moment. (Thanks Michael)

• The Visitors: No, not ABBA’s 1981 album… The hits to Dreamscape last night and this morning have went through the roof. Always great news when the site is busy, though this time a large chuck of the visitors have arrived after searching for “wagon’s den geordie shore charlotte” or similar!!

A few screen caps of Toyah from last night’s Channel 4 News. Please click on them to view larger versions. Read all of Dreamscape’s news related to this appearance here.

Toyah’s full interview, recorded last week at The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, from this evening’s Channel 4 News. “I accidentally saw the Sex Pistols at a gig in Birmingham and it changed my life forever.” So Toyah Willcox told me this week, nearly four decades after punk exploded onto the British music scene, writes Channel 4 News Reporter Katie Razzall.

At that stage, in the late 1970s, she was a teenager from Birmingham who’d been told she must behave demurely and in a “feminine” way. At the gig, there were “people out there who were misbehaving“. As she puts it: “Suddenly I was in a room of spitting, shouting, angry people. I thought, right, I belong. I’ve found my voice.”

The Channel 4 News feature on PUNK magazine’s forthcoming 40th anniversary, including interview footage with Toyah, aired earlier this evening on ‘Channel 4’. Click below to watch.

In the 1970s, Punk Magazine documented a scene which began in New York with bands like the Ramones, and then spread to Britain to produce the revolutionary sound of the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

The interview Toyah recorded last week for Channel 4 News will air on the programme tomorrow evening. Toyah will be discussing punk and how it changed the role of women in a feature on the new book ‘PUNK: The Best Of Punk Magazine’. A short clip of Toyah’s interview was shown at the end of tonight’s news.

Channel 4 News: Channel 4: Wednesday 16th January: 7pm
News, sport and weather from Channel 4.

Keep an eye on Channel 4 News. Toyah tweeted yesterday that she was being interviewed this morning for the programme: “C4 news filming me in dressing room at 9am. How punk changed the role of women! ”

Channel 4 News airs in the UK at 7pm Monday to Saturday and 6.30pm on Sundays.