HELLO THERE!
I hope you are all well and ready for summer.
The last month has been WONDERFULLY full on.
The Songs And Stories Tour is up and running. It’s a huge success. Last year I saw a lot of artists do this kind of show in many different styles.
I went to see John Lydon, which was powerful, very emotional and totally improvised.
Stuart Copeland, even though he had a curator on stage, talked solo for the entire show about his unbelievably remarkable life…..he was mind-blowing. Martin Fry was very classy and glamorous. Nick Kershaw was a tour de force. Seeing Nick informed me how I needed to form my evening.
Nick used live music as part of his narration plus very clever stories that linked it all and I came away knowing what I needed to do….build a show around image/ colour/ music and stories that have impact.
There are many stories I can tell that have never been told. But I want people to come to this show and be inspired, to feel I have shared a kindred spirit with them.
Act One has impact, it’s hard-hitting but it’s also humanising and recognises we all have a story to tell.
Act Two is celebratory, a culmination of determination and tenacity leading to today.
We have received standing ovations for every show.
On stage with me are two wonderful musicians Mike Goodman who has been in the Toyah band for two years and Pete Rinaldi who quite frankly is a saint! Pete is the tour manager, the driver, the set builder, the M.D.
I am hugely grateful to both Mike and Pete for being supportive, and they are a joy to share the stage with. We make each other laugh and in Act Two the audience have made us laugh; the Q&A is outrageous!
Photo courtesy Sharon Ann Dickson
Before the interval I ask the audience for questions and to make them as irreverent and outlandish as possible. There has been every subject and taboo covered from sex with famous names, to nookie with new boyfriends who had pictures of me on the bedroom ceilings!
METEORITE the book, is on sale in the interval and is selling incredibly well. Each day we have had new deliveries from the Promoter because each evening it sells out. Meteorite is a storytelling visual biography, beautifully designed and a “keep forever book”.
It is connecting with the audience powerfully and is exclusively on sale at the venues.
A raven has appeared in our garden this Easter. It’s nesting season and the birds have turned their activities up to 110. Collecting twigs, shouting at each other, finding their safe spaces. The raven is obsessed with its reflection on one of our garden mirrors. I am obsessed with its deep throated language, the raven is enormous, with a bulging neck plumage and sounds like a child shouting “boom” into a bucket.
Every day I let him see me, each day I edge closer, in the hope I can get him to trust me, so he spends more time around us when we are in the garden.
In 2017 I was on a horror movie where a raven was used in a transformation scene, it was magnificent to be close to and see it understanding what it’s trainer needed it to do. It had to fly at me and then swoop over my head and out of a door. We did about three takes and the raven got it right every time.
So far our newcomer hasn’t been named. Historically I have needed to call animals names that relate to Robert, it is a deliberate trick to make sure Robert is interested in the creatures, thus the bunnies Fripp and Eno…… Robert’s favourite bunny…..is Fripp.
My thoughts on names for the raven are: Starless / He’s ‘ma Bitch / Schizoid / Frippy / ……. Starless is my fav.
When I first went to America in 1985 there was a mandatory speed limit because of an oil crisis. Motorways were 55mph. It will happen here if this war drags on.
As a seasoned speeder I can reassure you if you travel at 70mph you use almost a third more petrol than if you travel at 55mph. On this tour I’ve been driving at 60mph. Long journeys. I am travelling the length and breadth of the UK, I get to the venues exactly the same time as if I drive at 70mph and I am using two thirds less petrol.
If I drive at my usual 90mph I use a whole tank on a 260mile journey and arrive a few minutes earlier. 55mph isn’t going to affect us all that much and it will save you all a ton of money. Living on a busy High Street that has become a drive through to link growing towns we have noticed a decline in traffic and less racers. Children are safer because of it.
There’s a notoriously deceptive bend going up a hill as you leave our town, in the 25yrs we have lived here six teenagers have been killed on this bend by hitting the same tree, one boy miraculously survived in one crash where his car left the road and turned upside down and sunk to the bottom of the river. If a speed limit saves future lives I am all for it. The speed limit on the hill is 40mph…… very few keep to it. But awareness of relative speed may change bad habits….. it’s changed mine.
The next nine weeks are full on for me. The tour takes me right up to Aberdeen. It is an honour to be able to still do this. To have an audience is fantastic.
Getting to see the UK is amazing, this is a beautiful place. I am looking forward to walking along reservoirs, going to national parks, being in forests and seeing industrial towns.
I am missing the bunnies so much, I’ve even contemplated them being on stage with me and I can envisage the mayhem they can cause in a few seconds of stage life. They are cable eaters, they could take the entire electrics down at every venue, but if the audience could see what I see every day at home, they would be in for a treat. These beautiful fluffballs slumping on their backs to relax, snoring, their dream activity when their adorable feet twitch and their muzzles chew, their attitude is a show all of its own.
While on the road I have been continuing work on the new album.
I am surprised at what is being created, my co-producer-arranger is excited. It’s a dark, mature, vivid pop album. We are now five songs in, by which I mean five are complete, all singles. We have another five written that I need to put main vocals on. I have to see how a five show per week schedule effects my vocal rang. If I feel confident I can continue to record, otherwise we resume as of the 17th of June.
It has been an intensely creative 12 months that has surprised the hell out of me.
Long may it continue.
I am hoping to resume TOYAH’S WONDERFUL WORLD OF WEIRD in a couple of weeks. The stories are in my head; I just need to be in one place long enough to film. In the meet and greets many fans have said how much they love these stories, I love writing them, and there is a book to be had here.
I hope you can get to see the show. It’s uplifting, insightful and very funny in places.
See you out there.
BIG LOVE,
BE PROUD, BE LOUD, BE HEARD
TOYAH
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