TOYAH'S BLOG - SEPTEMBER 2009
Hello there!
Thank you to everyone who has kindly sent condolences over the past weeks.
So many people have contacted me with their personal stories of how they coped with grief and it has been an enormous help.
THANK YOU to Robert who has been an astounding and exceptional support and who kept my family together when grief made us all fall apart.
I'm back on my feet now, I still have those uncontrollable dips but my optimism is back and I have fabulous memories of a father I loved so much. My mother has been remarkable, she is eighty this year and she has emerged a giant out of this experience, both Robert and I are staggered by her strength and dignity.
The last laugh was with my father, when after a beautiful ceremony, he was being carried out for burial and the organist piped up with EVERY GIRL LOVES A SAILOR, played at marathon speed. I spotted our lady vicar, dancing behind his coffin and the congregation laughing through their tears and there just above my mothers head, fluttering unawares of the event, an enormous butterfly, large and grey, following her out to the grave side. We have one regret which we can still address (because the plaque on the coffin gave correct information) and that is dad's other last joke…….we want his headstone to say 'born 1920…..passed 2009 he was 100 years old.' My father would have loved this and we are going to see if we can get away with it, but any self-respecting stonemason might say 'no!'
Luckily, and for my sanity, I have a lot on from now until Febuary 2011.
Yep! The next 18 months are quite busy!
THE HUMANS first single is out on the 21st September…….THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN' and our first UK tour dates are being planned right now, from Febuary 2010 until Mid March 2010 then we return to Seattle to finish the second album and are planning to tour again early June and most of August into September with Robert as our guest star.
The video for BOOTS was shot on my return from Seattle with Robert, Wongy, John Wain and myself. Bill Rieflin wasn't able to be in the shoot and is gladly absent from it because he HATES being filmed, but we have managed to get his image into the promo photos! Boy it was like trying to capture a Unicorn, he is as elusive as the fairy folk! When I was in Seattle with Bill, three weeks ago, the subject of being filmed for the video had him going into a cold sweat, he isn't into being captured on film at all.
The tour dates will be announced later, in the mean time I start Vampires in a few days and today I am structuring all the costumes………yes I mean structuring………..having intended to simplify my costume changes I seem to have managed to do completely the opposite. There's two sets of armour, 8 actual costume changes, three pairs of shoes over 10” high and three sets of thigh boots and a silver thong and a gold thong! Perhaps after this I will ask if I can go into Calender Girls next! It would be easier to just be starkers.
Three To Tango (once called Power Of Three) has started its press showings, which is quietly terrifying, but people must be confident because they are showing the film at the private viewing cinema in Soho House, London, the centre of the film industry! My agent asked me to go along but I cant handle seeing myself on top of everything else that has happened in the last month, really!........... viewing yourself in a film and facing the mortality of those you love as well as your own mortality on screen are all too much to ask.
My agents just called me from the viewing theatre……………….he was in with 20 distribution companies!
“You know its tough getting distribution, don't you?
And many films get made that never get a distribution deal?
So I'm only being realistic. It's a tough year for everyone” He said.
I remember when I told him I'd been offered the film in the first place, 18 months ago, his reaction was just as unsympathetic, “you don't need to do a low budget movie, I'm not going to let you do it”, this went on for months with me eventually admitting to him I was going to do it with or with out his support anyway…….
Then he added…..
“You are really good in it. I felt immensely proud of you watching your performance. It is a lovely film and your great in it!”
Fingers crossed!
Simon Darlow and I have written one of the best tracks EVER, IN THE WHOLE SODDING WORLD for the end sequence “21st Century Supersister”, it's a MotherF------, blinding, stonker of a song, even if I say so myself! The film director loves it so much I will be filmed singing it split screen with the titles in the next few weeks.
Vampires Rock starts on the 11th September, I am really, really looking forward to it. The guys in the band are great friends and have been brilliant to me through the last month. There's a few songs to learn, some I've never ever sung in my life! But they are good and interesting choices. I have a unusual opening song, which I would have never dreamed of singing in my life! Live and Let Die?????!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will do my best Axl Rose impersonation!
It's 4am, I haven't slept for a month, so getting out and being on the road will be good for me.
I hope you enjoy the single!
BE PROUD, BE LOUD, BE HEARD. MUCH LOVE TOYAH
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