I am thrilled to announce DESIRE is being released on limited edition clear red vinyl for Record Release Day on the 21st April.
It looks sooooooooooo cool.
Everything seems to be coming around in full circle. When I was recording Desire at Abbey Road Studios I landed the lead in Gillian Lynn’s Cabaret in the west end.
I found myself shooting videos in the day time and playing Sally Bowles in the evening.
For one of the tracks we needed a bluesy guitar line and rather cheekily we asked Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones if he would come and play and HE DID!
He just arrived carrying a little amp and happily played along…….he was a legend!
There will be another TOYAH exclusive for my 60th birthday on the 18th May. … and who knows what else in 2018!
Presently I am in the last week of JUBILEE. What an amazing journey this production has taken.
Apart from being a stunning play it has linked me up to so many people from the original film who have all come to see the play at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Sitting as I do throughout the play in the royal box I have a chance to look at the audience in detail and on some nights I am thinking “I know that person” ……OMG they were in the original film!
At the beginning of rehearsals the entire company was taken down with the flu. I have never seen anything like it. The flu passed from person to person in a matter of days and it was bad.
Some of the actors could only just pick themselves off the floor because they needed to sleep all the time. It was really worrying not knowing how they would be by the time the show opened but luckily they all got back on their feet after two weeks.
During this spell I wore protective gloves, washed my hands every time any one touched me, covered my nose and mouth, NEVER touched my face and kept about 5 feet from everyone. By some miracle I didn’t get the bug but my hands where raw from antibacterial soap!
Our stay at the Lyric has seen the play attract the right audience. Because the reviews have been great, truthful and descriptive….obviously written by people who actually stayed to see the show, rather than dial the review in from the bar, we are now getting an audience who has felt marginalised and oppressed by circumstance and they add a dimension any good performance desires and that is their own social comment. They get the message and are responding with applause.
This entire production has been an education for me. One I am immensely grateful for. It has opened my eyes up to political imbalance and stalemate in how our wonderful country is run. I am grateful to the cast, all brilliant young activists who keep their finger on the pulse who share conversation rather than build barriers.
The one thing I will take away from this is their inclusion of everyone and their ability to express where change is needed, and it is constantly needed. Nothing can remain fixed.
Now I find myself twitching with the need to write. I cannot wait for some space to put pen to paper.
My daily home life is one of isolation. (hubby is practicing guitar 6 hours a day) This suits me in many ways as I am always introspective creatively, but having started each day on Jubilee with the cast in deep conversation about feelings covering everything, the process has led me to discover my relationship between colour and sound. And to discovering both are vital to me once linked together like ingredients of a loved recipe, probably more so than anything else I know.
I paint the whole time and my ideas are driven by primary colour.
This has been a bubbling theme in my life for a while because I often have conversations with the designer Helen David about the emotions of colour. Helen and I have both discovered we have given colour an emotional language.
Click images to enlarge
For myself finding out colour has a language has lead to my discovering music and colour have an emotional link. For example Purple has an authority and is like bass end “B’ on the keyboard and yellow is flirty and like “G” above middle C.
Last night I spent an hour after the show talking to the head commissioner of Channel 5 about this and how I want to take it further, using colour (a visual stimulus) to drive music (an audio stimulus) when it comes to creative writing and to see what kind of songs it leads to.
This is nothing new, my pal Brian Eno has worked with colour for decades, with sound installations but I am talking about colour driving the language of the lyric as well as the musicality.
Lets see what happens. My intention is to finish the Prostitute/Ophelia’s Shadow trilogy.
2018 is going to be fab….well it is so far.
Lots of great band shows, lots of acoustic shows plus I am making a healthy amount of TV progs too.
HELLO THERE!
