#Lorna Phillips | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

souurcitrus · 2 months

Text

List of events that occurred from 1980 to 1988 in Earth-18104. The story behind these events is not completely complete, some are well summarized. Most of these events happening here are taken by other medias, like the movies and the comics, but doesn't follow Marvel Canon or the time-line established so faithfully, and include stories of my OCs.

The (N) at the end of names serves to indicate character births. I will include more events as I write more about the characters.

List of Events of Earth-18104 (Resume)

1980 -

• Alongside his friend Mendel Stromm, Norman Osborn (25) founded his company Osborn Chemical, also known as Oscorp.

• He also married his college sweetheart Emily Lyman and they had a son, Harold "Harry" Osborn. (N)

• Unfortunately, his wife became ill and died, which caused Norman to bury himself in his work and rarely have time for young Harry.

• June 5 - Peter Parker is born, son of CIA agents Richard and Mary Parker. (N)

• Alicia Reiss's mother, Marcia Deaton, died from radioactive isotopes involved in the explosion that killed her husband years earlier. While Alicia (14) grew up to become a noted sculptor, Phillip Masters (51), her adoptive father, was heartbroken over Marcia's death.

• Adrian Toomes (33) and his wife Cheryl had their second daughter, Valeria Toomes. (N)

• Ben Grimm (18) received a football scholarship to the State University of New York, where he studied alongside his childhood friend, Reed Richards (17), who rented the Baxter Building, at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, and decided to rent the entire top floor to transform it into a laboratory/house, which he shared with Ben.

• In college, the two met a foreign student, a scientific genius named Victor von Doom (18), who quickly formed a rivalry with Reed.

• (The Dane's plane crash)

• When Lorna Dane was five years old, her stepfather Arnold discovered that she was not his biological daughter and decided to confront his wife. He took Suzanna and Lorna to fly in his plane and a fight broke out between the couple.

• Lorna was upset about the flight and began crying, triggering the manifestation of her immense magnetic abilities, which caused her to emit a magnetic pulse that destroyed the plane and killed her parents, as well as giving her hair its iconic green color.

• Lorna was the only one who survived and was found by her real father, Magneto, who was attracted to the location by his magnetic pulse.

• Believing that she was not ready for his abilities or the life he could offer her, he had Mastermind use his illusionary powers to rewrite Lorna's memories of that day, leaving her to believe that her parents died in a car accident. plane when she was a child, so she was raised by Arnold's sister and her husband.

• Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (12) lived a happy childhood, traveling with their family and adoptive parents throughout Central and Western Europe.

• As they grew, their mutant powers emerged and with the protection of their family, they had complete freedom to explore their abilities. Wanda had a strong connection with magic, while Pietro manifested super speed, which he used to his advantage on many occasions.

1981 -

• By the age of eighteen, Reed Richards had earned four degrees in fields such as engineering, mathematics, and physics.

• Meanwhile, Ben Grimm (19) quits college and joins the United States Air Force and becomes a highly skilled fighter pilot. At some point he started dating Dr. Linda McGill.

• Franklin Storm gambled away the family fortune, ending up in a penitentiary for murder after accidentally killing his loan shark. His children went to live with their aunt Marygay Dinkins, who ran a boarding house.

• Sue (16) told Johnny (8) that her father had died, and he would not discover the truth until years later.

• While her sister went to college, Johnny, who was very attached to Sue and saw her as a substitute mother, suffered greatly when she left. In his early teens, he was attracted to automobiles and became a mechanic at a young age.

• Stephen Strange (37) studied magic with the Ancient One for seven years and returned to the United States where he became a mystical consultant and protector of New York's Sanctum Sanctorum, alongside Wong, the librarian of Kamar-Taj.

• During his last years at university, Henry Pym (18) met Maria Trovaya, a Hungarian immigrant studying in the United States with whom he begins a relationship.

• Unknow to him, Maria was daughter of Dr. Janos Trovaya, a Hungarian geneticist and entomologist, secretly involved with the HYDRA and the Red Room.

• Since then, Strange has fought demonic entities, his reputation has grown, and he has even become an occasional consultant to local and federal authorities.

1982 -

• Clint Barton (16) adapted his archery skills to become a star of the carnival, a master archer named "Hawkeye," also known as "The Greatest Shot in the World."

• One day, he found Jacques Duquesne (29) and his brother Barney Barton (21) embezzling money from the circus where they lived. Before he could stop them, Jacques beat him and left him behind, escaping with Barney from the city.

• After this, Clint's relationship with his brother deteriorated.

• Greer Nelson (21) met William Nelson when he joined the Chicago police. They quickly became close and began a relationship. Will, wanting to be the hero in their relationship, tried to convince Greer to leave the police force and be a housewife, but Greer refused, wanting to maintain her independence and sense of adventure.

• Gabriel Summers, later known as Vulcan, is born. (N)

• Years after Xavier divorced, Gabrielle Haller a teacher, was living in Paris with her son, David (3). She met and married Daniel Shomron who helped her care for her son.

1983 -

• Matt Murdock (18) got a scholarship to State University. On his first day he met Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, who was also studying law.

• Foggy and Matt immediately formed a strong friendship and Nelson often joked about his blindness, while Murdock teased Nelson about many of his poor life choices.

• (EVENT Captain Marvel - Incomplete)

• Carol Danvers (28) and Maria Rambeau (30) were chosen as test pilots for Project PEGASUS, a joint scientific project between the Air Force, SHIELD and NASA, under the command of military scientist Doctor Walter Lawson, who was secretly the Kree soldier Mar-Vell in disguise.

• Danvers and Rambeau, receiving the pilot callsigns "Avenger" and "Spectrum" respectively, would continue to fly under Lawson's supervision together.

• Lawson (or Mar-Vell) became a mentor to Carol, for whom he developed a special concern, while Carol was inspired by Lawson's passion for his work and his desire to use his skills to end wars.

• One morning, while on a reconnaissance flight, Danvers and Rambeu noticed an unknown ship approaching. Danvers did her best to avoid the attacks, but was hit. As she lost control, Carol's Kree powers activated for the first time and the cabin filled with light.

• Carol survived the fall and was found by Walter Lawson. A few days later, she woke up to find that she was in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.

1984 -

• Henry Pym (21) started working on a formula for shrinking objects, but was having difficulty finding funding. He also noticed how distant his girlfriend Maria Trovaya was becoming and began to suspect that she was hiding something.

• Bobby Drake's (7) mutant powers emerged very early.

• One day he woke up feeling strangely cold, his hands were pale, his lips were purple and his body couldn't stop shaking. Despite this he didn't feel sick or weak, the cold didn't bother him in the slightest.

• At the hospital, doctors were unable to diagnose what was wrong. Bobby's core temperature dropped to fatal levels and yet he was apparently completely healthy.

• Doctors told the Drakes that their son probably wouldn't survive the night unless there was some kind of miracle.

• The next morning, Bobby was feeling better, his body had returned to normal temperature, although his skin was still pale. His mother prayed gratefully, believing that a miracle had indeed occurred, but Bobby and his father thought otherwise.

1985 -

• (X-Men - Marvel Girl)

• Jean Grey (10) was playing with her friend, Annie Richardson, when she was hit by a car. The stress awakened Jean's telepathic powers that linked her empathically to Annie, allowing her to feel her life slipping away.

• The traumatic experience left Gray in a withdrawn and deeply depressed state. Not being able to control her newly awakened telepathic abilities forced her to isolate herself from other people to maintain her sanity.

• Months later, a psychiatrist recommended that her parents consult Professor Charles Xavier (48), who revealed to Jean, but not to her parents, her mutant status.

• To protect her, Xavier decided to block her intense telepathic abilities by erecting psychic shields until she developed the necessary maturity to deal with them.

• He also helped her unlock her telekinetic abilities, teaching her how to levitate and manipulate objects.

• Howard and Maria Stark die in a car accident.

• Their son, Tony Stark (21) inherits his father's business, Stark Industries.

• In a short time, it transformed from just a munitions company into a multinational corporation with a range of interests that encompass virtually every type of contemporary scientific industry and leading the cutting edge of electronics.

• Tony also bought the company that built the car his parents were driving when they lost their lives and fixed the flaws in the brake system.

• (EVENT - The Incredible Hulk)

• Bruce Banner (23) earned his doctorate in nuclear physics at Caltech and wanted to pursue philanthropic hallmarks of science, but was unable to receive any funding for his projects.

• Lacking options, he began working at a United States Department of Defense nuclear research facility in New Mexico.

• There Banner met General Thaddeus Ross, and his daughter Betty, with whom he ended up falling in love. Banner designed and supervised the construction of the "Gamma Bomb" or "G-bomb", a nuclear weapon that has a high emission of gamma radiation.

• He was present at the site for the first bomb detonation, however, upon seeing that a civilian, Rick Jones, had breached security and entered the restricted testing area, Banner entered. His assistant, secretly a double agent, detonated the bomb and intense waves of radiation reached the surface.

• Banner was irradiated with highly charged radioactive particles, which altered his body, causing him to frequently transform into the immensely powerful humanoid monster known as "The Hulk".

• Eventually, Henry Pym (22) became the hardest-working biochemist in the world, but the lack of innovation in his experiments eventually became too much for him.

• While working on a development program paid for by the Roxxon Oil Company, Pym was distracted by an ant farm and when his employer picked up on the case, Pym finally lost his temper.

• Grumbling about not being able to use his imagination, Pym angrily threw the ant farm across the room and quit his job.

• That same night he met with Maria Trovaya, who took him to the beach to relax. Lying in the sand, Pym expressed his desire to spend the rest of his life with her, just enjoying her presence.

• Maria joked about Pym being a "very hard-working ant" and said she doubted he would know how to relax if it weren't for her.

• Back at his apartment, Henry was inspired by Maria's words and his father's motto and decided to use his scientific prowess to try and fight crime while continuing to create his size-changing formula.

• Using ants as an example, he began studying entomology and began experimenting to find a way to reduce objects to "ant size" as well as restore them to normal.

1986 -

• After graduating from high school, Helen Cho entered college, where she graduated and became a geneticist and began working at U-GIN, a highly advanced bioengineering company based in South Korea known for her work in elaboration of regenerative tissues.

• Biologist Barbara Morse (22) was chosen by SHIELD to become an agent, being trained by several agents as well, receiving the codename Angente 19. Additionally, Barbara's propensity for insulting her opponents in battle earned her the codename of "Mockingbird".

• CIA agents Richard and Mary Parker are killed by the Red Skull and accused of treason during a mission. Young Peter Parker (6) was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Ben and May (42) Parker.

• (The Ghost Rider)

• When Johnny Blaze (22) found out that his father, Barton, was dying of cancer, he was embarrassed for planning to skip the Quentin Carnival, refusing to attend the shows with his father.

• One night, a strange man approached Johnny and offered him to sell his soul in exchange for Barton's health. Skeptical, Johnny accepted, and the next morning Barton was cured of cancer and gave Johnny his favorite motorcycle and let him go away with his beloved Roxanne.

• Despite the agreement, Barton would die almost instantly afterwards while attempting to set a new world record with a 22-car jump. About to leave Carnival, Johnny heard of his father's death and was devastated and went after the man he made the deal with and discovered that he was a demon, Mephisto.

• That same night, Johnny transformed into Ghost Rider and almost lost his soul to Mephisto, were it not for Roxanne's timely intervention proclaiming her love for him and temporarily driving Mephisto away through her purity of feelings.

• Realizing he could never free himself from his curse, he abandoned the Carnival where he grew up, taking Roxanne with him. The two would continue traveling the West seeking to escape Mephisto and remain safe.

• As he grew up, Kevin Brashear (16) fell in love with his father's work, Blue Marvel, and became his partner in Adam's countless adventures over the years.

• Stark Industries designs the Helicarrier designs for SHIELD.

• After months of work Henry Pym finally discovered what he called Pym Particles, which at the time he distilled into a chemical formula that, when exposed to the skin, caused objects to shrink in size, and a specially made antidote could restore them to normal.

• After successfully shrinking a chair, Pym presented his discovery to the Scientific Research and Development Committee.

• By displaying the shrunken chair, Pym's ideas were ridiculed, and when he accidentally mentioned a possible military application for his formula, the humanitarian committee rejected his grant.

• Leaving the committee, he met with Dr. Vernon Van Dyne, who wanted to obtain funding for his own invention, a gamma ray beam that he believes would allow him to contact worlds other than Earth's solar system.

• Normally accompanying her father to scientific meetings, Janet Van Dyne (20) met up with Pym.

• Expressing her attraction to the young man, she invited him to dinner when they first met and he quickly declined, saying he already had someone he was interested in.

1987 -

When her son was still a child, Gabrielle Haller realized that David (7) was autistic and took him to see a psychologist who confirmed his diagnosis. After that, she took David to the premiere of Return of the Jedi, making David a fan of the saga.

• (EVENT Iron Man - Incomplete)

• (February)

• While in the Middle East for a field test of a prototype weapon, Tony Stark (23) was kidnapped by the terrorist faction known as the Ten Rings and was seriously injured.

• Faced with imminent death and desperate to survive, Tony found the inspiration he needed to create the miniaturized arc reactor to power an electromagnet that held shrapnel from his heart.

• However, the arc reactor had another purpose - it would power Tony's escape plan and revolutionize modern weaponry.

• After coming of age, Angelo Unuscione (18) moved to North America and legally changed his name to Gunther Bain. He used his ability to create a virtually impenetrable force field to launch a career as a flamboyant and invincible costumed fighter known by the stage name Unus the Untouchable.

• Upon completion, Natalia Romanoff (25) was injected with the "Soviet Spider-Soldier Serum." Survival was not guaranteed, but she proved capable of handling it.

• Transformed into Black Widow, Natalia joined the service as an assassin, seductress, spy and saboteur. She often worked alone, but also carried out missions with other Black Widows and the Winter Soldier, with whom she began a secret relationship.

• (X-Men - Iceman)

• May 5 - Bobby Drake's powers manifested again during his 10th birthday. He accidentally froze his pool while his parents were cooking burgers; when they returned to the yard, they found their son skating on the frozen water.

• William and Madeline immediately knew that their son was something different than they thought, something more like the superhumans appearing on TV lately. Concerned for his safety, they told Bobby to be careful with his powers because others would fear them.

• Bobby, on the other hand, found the idea of being a "superhero" very exciting. After this accident he began to train his powers in secret and little by little he learned how to cover his body with snow.

• (June)

• Tony Stark returns to the United States.

• After Iron Man's debut, Clint Barton (21) decided to become a vigilante, using his archery skills to fight crime.

• Just a few months after his debut as "Hawkeye" Clint Barton was handpicked by SHIELD director Colonel Nick Fury for his skills, becoming one of SHIELD's most skilled agents, where he served alongside Agent Mockingbird, Barbara Morse (23).

1988 -

• (February)

• Warren Worthington III (12) was enrolled at St. Joe's Catholic School. There he continued to excel in sports, breaking the high jump record.

• Henry McCoy (14) attended Bard College. Despite being a promising and intelligent student, his mutation made him a target for bullies; even teachers often ignored him.

• One day, when he was being harassed by some of his classmates, Henry was pushed into traffic. He was saved from a fatal accident thanks to his agility. Upon witnessing this, the coach of the local football team became determined to make Henry play for the Bobcats, the school team.

• Henry became an instant star on the field, winning game after game and becoming a rising star.

• (EVENT - Ant Man)

• After many more tests, Henry Pym (25) decided to foolishly test the Pym Particles on himself, shrinking in size, despite protests from his girlfriend Maria Trovaya.

• He ended up being chased by a mouse and ran out of the house, where he stumbled upon an anthill. Fortunately he was found by Maria, who took him back into the house and helped him find the growth formula to restore himself to normal.

• To celebrate his victory in his project, Maria took him out to dinner.

• At the restaurant, the two were interrupted by Janet van Dyne, who was surprised to discover that Pym actually had someone in his life.

• Annoyed by Janet's presence, Henry tried to dismiss her, but changed his mind when he saw that she was accompanied by Janet's father.

• While Maria was upset about the interruption of her meeting, Pym invited the van Dynes to join them and explained his research, and although Vernon was unimpressed, Janet became even more enamored with Pym, which drew Maria's fury, who left the restaurant without speaking to Pym.

• Confused by the turn of events, Pym tried to talk to Maria, but she ignored him and went home. Embarrassed by her behavior, Janet tried to apologize as well but Pym left angrily.

• For the next few weeks, he did not hear from Maria and continued to study and learn how ants communicated.

• (May)

• Henry Pym then began designing a special communications helmet that allowed him to communicate with ants, as well as a suit woven from Unstable Molecules that protected him from insect bites.

• Testing these new inventions, Pym found himself in danger when he frantically tried to find the proper frequency to make the ants obey his commands.

• An ant failed to fall under his control, and when it attacked, Henry was shocked to discover that although he had shrunk in size, he still retained his average strength that he had at normal height and was easily able to fight the ant.

• Trying to get closer to Henry, Janet offered to finance his research, which made her closer to the scientist, much to Maria Trovaya's anger. Henry, on the other hand, felt a genuine friendship with the young woman and amused her with all his latest ant discoveries.

• Henry first became Ant-Man for the purpose of fighting crime, when he took a government position trying to develop a way to make people immune to radioactivity. The notes on this formula were the target of a group of spies who tied up Henry's colleagues.

• Unwilling to divulge any information, Pym was locked in an office until he was ready to speak. This allowed Henry to use his formula to decrease from size and, like Ant-Man, rescue his colleagues. Using his control helmet, he commanded an army of ants to help untie his fellow scientists and then attacked the spies.

• The spies panicked from all the insect bites and were soon incapacitated and tied up by scientists who had no idea how they broke free or what happened to their captors. Ant-Man silently escaped and returned to his normal size.

• After this, as Ant-Man, Pym established a connection with law enforcement in New York City and developed technology that allowed him to learn about ongoing crimes and police activities through a network of ants.

• (August 6, Saturday)

• (Summers' Incident)

• The Summers family was returning home from a family vacation in Christopher's old private plane.

• Scott (12), Alex (10) and Gabriel (6) were sleeping when the plane caught fire and began to fall. His mother woke them up and tied them to the same parachute, then pushed them out.

• Scott had trouble opening the parachute and they were already very close to the ground. He managed to protect his brothers from the fall, but ended up suffering a major impact, hitting his head on the ground and breaking his legs.

• Upon seeing Scott's injury and Gabriel's dispair, Alex ran to find help. After telling police about the incident and Scott receiving medical help, Alex and Gabriel taken in by different foster families, separated from their older brother.

• The head injury damaged the part of Scott's brain that would allow him to control his optic blasts. When he woke up in the hospital, he felt extreme sensitivity to light and intense pain in his eyes.

• (August 11, Wednesday)

• A few days later Scott still didn't know where his brother was and couldn't call his grandparents to let them know his situation.

• Enraged, he accidentally launched an optical blast that destroyed several floors and the hospital's roof. Soon afterwards he fell into a coma.

• Alex Summers was placed in the care of Andrew and Joanna Blanding, being raised alongside their daughter Haley. Alex was pressured to act as a replacement for Todd, the couple's son who had died years ago, which he tried to do as best he could.

• For a long time, he was frustrated because no one had information about his parents or siblings, and he could not communicate with his grandparents, often failing to remember where they lived.

• After a few years living with the Blandings, Alex grew up and gradually forgot about his old life, becoming unaware of the existence of his powers.

• Charles Xavier (50) and Moira MacTaggert heard about Scott Summers and visited him in hospital, hoping he would wake up one day so they could take him to Graymalkin Manor.

• (August 20, Saturday)

• While on leave from the United States Marine Corps, Frank Castle (32) met a woman named Maria, with whom he instantly fell in love.

• (September 1, Thursday)

• (EVENT Ant-Man and Wasp)

• By this time, Henry Pym was developing a way to graft a wasp's wings and antenna onto a human body, which would protrude from their bodies once shrunk by Pym Particles

• When Dr. Vernon Van Dyne perfected a gamma-ray beam device, there was an accident in his laboratory. A fire broke out, causing an explosion that collapsed the entire building beneath Vernon.

• Although the authorities warned Janet that it was an accident, she was not completely convinced and called Henry Pym for help. As Ant-Man, Pym investigated the murder and was surprised by Van Dyne's bravery in wanting to avenge his father when they discovered that Vernon had in fact been murdered.

• Pym and Maria became closer to Janet during her time of mourning, as they continued to deal with crime on the streets.

• As a crime-fighting duo, Ant-Man and the Wasp have fought many villains. The Wasp, with her smart and cheerful attitude, proved crucially beneficial to Ant-Man's career, as she displayed masterful competence as a superhero.

• Deciding to reveal his secret identity to Van Dyne, Henry developed a suit with synthetic wings and antennae and began experimenting directly on Janet, exposing her to Pym particles and teaching her how to use the Wasp suit.

• Additionally, in between her adventures, she constantly expressed her desire to become romantically involved with Pym, but continued to be rejected because he was still in love with Maria.

• With a growing reputation as a charismatic celebrity, the Wasp also frequently entertained fans, hospital patients, and even Henry Pym and Maria Trovaya, telling them various fantasy stories

• (November)

• Three months after they met, Maria informed Frank Castle that she was pregnant, offering him the chance to leave as she was willing to raise the child alone, only for Castle to propose to her, resulting in their marriage. Months later their first daughter, Lisa, was born.

3 notes · View notes

toyahinterviews · 5 months

Text

TOYAH TALKS THE CHANGELING IN 2023

From the DVD of The Changeling Reissue 2023 TOYAH: 1981 ended on such a high. It was the ultimate point in our lives at that particular time. It was extraordinary but we were really exhausted. We were exhausted by the sheer amount of people who needed to talk to us, be with us. We needed to do things. I remember in the lead up to Drury Lane the little things like signing 10,000 Christmas cards, and only having a week to do it in and also doing eight to 14 interviews a day and concerts. Dealing with an incredibly cold winter. I know just before Drury Lane we played Milan, and we were outside. We were in a tent but it was still outside and this was December '81. I can remember the band could not physically feel their hands. Every band will tell you that when success comes a great deal of pressure comes with it. And you do want to please everyone and not let anyone down and don't let yourself down. So by the time we did the last number at Drury Lane (below), and we all retired upstairs for a drink at the bar it was a massive release. Well, yeah, I suppose that's a Freudian slip - it was a massive release. But it was also a relief that we were going to have a breather.

The year before, exactly 12 months before, we made “Four From Toyah” with “It’s A Mystery”, “Revelations” and “War Boys” so we didn't have Christmas off. We knew that we were going to have until the New Year off and then we had to start the next album. We were in a state of elated exhaustion. But also retrospectively looking back we didn't have the luxury of time that we had to write “Anthem” in. The pressure was really, really on. The pressure was on Joel. We were being pushed into new technology with digital recording. We had to explore all of that. We did know very early in the year that we wanted Steve Lillywhite on the project, because all through touring around Europe, through Germany, all we ever played was Steve Lillywhite’s production music from Peter Gabriel, right through to everything else he was producing at that time. We knew we wanted to work with him but we hadn't got one song written. So finishing the year with Drury Lane was the happiest time of my life but also we were staring into the abyss because we weren't quite sure what was going to come and what was happening. But one thing we really did know is we wanted to up the age of our audience. There was no pressure on us whatsoever. We kind of had creative respect, but there was a lot of dynamics going on that made the creative flow very, very difficult. We were having management problems. I can't remember exactly what those problems were - whether it was creative pressure, or just distraction. But it was a big problem for me and Joel. Halfway through recording “The Changeling” we changed management. We had to. Joel ended up hating the manager. I felt harassed by the management. You've got to remember back then a woman was almost an object. You were pushed around. You were manhandled. I remember going alone into a management meeting and I was told to pack a suitcase. I was never leaving that office and I was never going back home to my boyfriend.

So there were very extreme situations going on. I don't feel that anyone was interfering with the creative process because Joel and I really made a very solid decision that we wanted to be a bit more of an adult band than the audience we won over with “Anthem”. There's also the positivity in that we were going to take that age group with us as they grew older. So we were consciously avoiding pop. That was a decision we both made. At this time Phil Spalding, the bass player, was very much part of the band. (Keyboardist) Adrian Lee left the band just as we started recording to start his solo work and he met his wife Lorna Wright. Simon Phillips came on board, which was an absolute blessing. Simon had the airy, creative openness that we were craving so badly, that we’d experienced with “Sheep Farming In Barnet”, with “Blue Meaning” and with “Anthem”. He just brought the joy of youth back into the room. So I'd say that the pressures we were under when we were doing “The Changeling” were dynamics. There was a huge problem with dynamics around both me and Joel. Joel prewrote most of the music on a four track recorder and he didn't involve me. I can't remember whether this was because I was making a programme called “Dear Heart” for the BBC. I just wasn't available because of the endless interviews. What I will say we never had that time in a studio, in a rehearsal room with a band, to play the music in. We never had that time. That is a problem with success. So that could have isolated Joel in his creativity, which meant, again, similar to “Anthem” I laid the top lines and the lyric lines over the top of what Joel had written. So by the time we got into the studio, Joel and Steve Lillywhite (below with Toyah) already had quite a pronounced relationship. I felt really isolated from that relationship. I think Steve Lillywhite wasn't a female producer. That said I think the production he did was absolutely amazing. But it's taken me a good 30 years to address this album and revisit this album - just because I was in a really bad place.

There were other things going on. My brother was one of the very few Harrier fighter pilots ever to have successfully be trained. The Falkland war broke out and the whole of my family were having sleepless nights that he was going to be called up. That affected me very, very badly. So there's all these dynamics going on, that weren't friendly dynamics, within 1982. So, I wasn't going to war, I wasn't sending a son to war, but the energy caused by Thatcher and the Falklands War was destroying lives. Joel and I really wanted to write something quite deep and wanted to avoid pop and in retrospect, I think that year really needed the lightness of pop. But what we did do, I think, is a really substantial body of work at that time. In the writing process of “The Changeling” I didn't gel immediately with what Joel was writing. Joel wanted to make the songs much more complex. He comes from a background of loving jazz, and being very accomplished in that field. I came from a background of learning on my feet through punk and musical development was a lot harder for me. I'm a top line writer. I'm a lyricist. I hear melodies in my head but it doesn't mean I hear the complexities of key relationships and all of that. Joel was presenting me with songs that really demanded a lot more from me as a writer. Because of that you've got the blessing of growing and broadening in the process, but it's also a painful process. So with things like “Castaways” he went back to what is almost a similar structure to “IEYA”, where the verses alternate being longer than the one before. With “Castaways” every verse was longer than the one before. So when I was writing that lyric I had to have a continuity of story to justify that verse being two bars longer. So that's much more demanding. When I sat down to write “Anthem” I was being slimmed down by the industry. I was actively on diet pills to be below a certain weight for Top Of The Pops every week. I would take my diet pill and write the lyric. I'd be in absolute 7th heaven because the whole of that thing that the amphetamine was carrying me along. By the time we got to “The Changeling” I had to move from my heart as a writer into my head. I'm always creative through movement, because movement unlocks my creativity purely on a very basic level. It makes my synapses work as a dyslexic. I was having to use a kind of academic part of my brain that has always been underdeveloped because of dyslexia, and it made it a lot harder for me.

But looking back when you look at the imagery and the depth of the lyrics and the journey Joel took musically, I actually think this is one of the most substantial albums of my career because of that difficulty and that stretching. I suppose people do it. They'll run the extra kilometre when they're training. They'll lift that extra weight when they're training. For me I had to go beyond my comfort zone in a big way. The history of 1982 affected the writing very, very deeply. Looking back, you can just see it all. The need for escapism, with things like “Castaways”. The examining of druid culture in “The Druids”. “The Angel & Me”, the examining of my own sanity under this pressure. It was a very deep, dark year of, I think, my generation, who always expected a Cold War, suddenly seeing a real physical war. None of us wanted it and none of us relished or enjoyed these people fighting over this island. It was just ridiculous. It affected everything. I don't voice myself through politics, I voice myself through emotions. That's what came out in my writing - deeply emotional things. With “Creepy Room” I think what it was about was the absolute anger I was feeling of the industry and almost the opinion of other artists of being unsupportive at a time that wasn't very politically correct. And me just going “I'm different to you. So fucking what?!”. “Creepy Room” is about allowing the demonic forces in and just being badly behaved as a form of protection. The decisions at this time were mainly by Joel and myself. We were still the driving force within the whole of the project and how the band went forward. We've always loved Steve Lillywhite’s work because of the journey of the musicianship and the journey of the vocals. When you listen to Peter Gabriel's first two solo albums - which are politically brilliant, but they've also sonically never been bettered. We felt that Steve Lillywhite would be the right person to put us in front of the original punks we played for in “Sheep Farming” and with the sophistication of “Blue Meaning”. We wanted to bring that audience back into auditorium as it were. We felt that Lillywhite was the only person that could have done this. What we didn't realise is really how instrumental Peter Gabriel was in his own albums. I know Peter now. My husband, Robert Fripp worked with Peter. Peter is someone that will wipe an entire track. He’ll wipe entire album if it isn't sonically right. He will allow himself to take five years to write an album. We had three weeks to write an album and another three weeks to record it. That put us all under pressure.

Another pressure that added to this is we went digital, which is a far harsher, unforgiving sound than anything we were ever used to. It was harsher for the vocalist. I suppose it's like someone hearing their voice for the first time. They never like what they hear. Suddenly, with digital you have this hard edge sound, which I found very uninspiring. I found it brutal. It was brutalist in everything that we put to the digital machine. There was also another problem that every time I was near it, it would break. I have this strange thing about me. I break watches, I break phones, apps will just go crazy when I'm near them. These machines - I got banned from being in that corner of the studio. So I would have to walk into the studio, circumnavigate around the master desk and just stay as far away from the recording material as I could. The people who built the track system said that I have some magnetic relationship. This used to happen near the 24 track as well, that if I went too close it would blank the tape. So I just had to stay away, which was really alienating. People were firstly seeing me as someone who has stay at the far side of the room, and secondly is the artist. So it's very bizarre to be banished from your own creative processes. Another technical thing that I found quite difficult in the very beginning was we were recording at the Roundhouse studios. There's one huge main studio, then a narrow corridor, down about six steps and then you're in this big live room. So in the beginning, I had to stay in the live room to not break the recording system. So I was having to communicate through the class and eventually they'd let me into the room when we had enough tracks down. So all of that kind of alienation really ate at me as a creative process and having not had the live rehearsal room process to play the tracks in. I was genuinely struggling on this album as a singer. What the technology affected for me was I couldn't experiment the way we did on the other previous albums. The previous albums had so much joyous experimentation. “Let's try this backing vocal. Let’s try this sound.” We just didn't dare do it. We were eating up so much time with breakdowns in the studio. Going back to “Anthem” what (the producer) Nick Tauber would do was give us, in the headphones, the fully produced track. So you've got this rich, beautiful event coming into your ears. What we had with “The Changeling” was harsh, brittle, almost painful to listen to. It was the raw sound.

So if I wanted to try something with the backing vocal ... it just fell flat. It never lifted. There was very little experience on “The Changeling” album when I listened to something. That lifting, that emotional lifting of the spirit just held you up. In fact, as an experience of performing that album, I've only ever felt that lifting in this millennium when we've actually performed it live. You feel that the arrangement of “Castaways” and the build actually lifts you as a performer. “Angel & Me” lifts you as a performer. “The Packt” - I mean my God (what it's like) to perform that live! I've only experienced that emotional lift in the live performance. Never in the studio. It was very strange. In 1981 the band dynamic was beautiful. Everyone in that band was family. Adrian Lee, Phil Spalding, Nigel Glockler (drums), Joel. We were just so happy. Nigel Glockler got approached by Saxon and Joel and I feel that the management were not supportive. The management were gearing me up to become a front solo singer and we were no longer a band. Adrian Lee I think had to make a really difficult decision to move forward as an independent artist, an individual artist, who could also produce. I think the management weren't supportive to him and he just broke free. Also, Joel writing everything pre the album musically on a four track and not really inviting the others in to contribute to the music. It was like “this is what I want, this is what it is”. It meant the others felt even more like a backing band. What saved our morale, I think, was the arrival of Simon Phillips, who arrived with a great big open heart. He was a beautiful replacement for Nigel Glockler because Simon had this vast array of equipment, vast array of creative ideas. He lifted life into the demo tracks and we could see how they were going to work live. I've never ever been 100% comfortable in the studio anyway. I feel music when I'm performing live, but Simon Phillips made those tracks work. Having guest players on the album was really uplifting and exciting because they brought in outside influences. There was a feeling within the mixing room, which didn't feel like Abbey Road. It didn't feel like Marquee Studios. It didn't feel like the Battle Studios. It felt like a dead room and that is what studios are. They're dead rooms. I need ambience. I need natural reverberation. So when guests players came in, like Andy Clark and The Haircut 100 boys on brass, they brought in outside life. This is the album also that reconnected me to Simon Darlow, who I started as a songwriter with and have been writing songs with ever since and will continue in that partnership. The outside people brought in very necessary outside positivity at that time.

I was able to undergo vocal training during that album because I wanted to expand my abilities as a performer. I studied opera at school so opera wasn't new to me, but the training of the voice was so it didn't get destroyed while touring, because it's very common for singers to just give over 100% per night and not have anything for the next night. So it was really important to train. I think what it would have done is anchored me down to the beat and I always used to sing across rhythms and sing across beats. I mean for goodness sake if you look at “Victims Of The Riddle” and you look at “Sheep Farming In Barnet” I'm not keeping basic timing. I'm just moving with how I am emotionally moved. With “The Changeling” and also working with Adrian Lee, because Adrian Lee started to anchor me down on “Anthem” and with “Thunder In The Mountains” - I was starting to place myself as a singer within the structured bars and the vocal training really helped me do that. It helped me have confidence in my singing. But I have to say while singing on “The Changeling” what I was working to in the cans was impossible for me. It just was impossible. I can't remember who the engineer was but up until that point I was working with engineers who understood what a singer needed. I wasn't getting it through the cans so I ended up singing as best I could from memory from rehearsing in the morning. It’s as simple as that and that can happen. It happened to me on “Desire” as well. I never got what I needed in the cans to amount to what the finished track would sound like. So it's working to kind of basic sound structures. A really great singer, who knows the song really well, could sing just to the drumbeat. But I was singing to new material I'd never performed live so I needed more information. It was just challenging. Going back to “Anthem” that was an album that inspired quite a few European writers. There was a book that came out, a French writer and it's called “The Fury”. He dedicated it to me and to the lyrics of “Jungles Of Jupiter.” So there was always a lot of interest in what I was writing with filmic people. Films constantly are going into development that never get made. So I wouldn't say I was writing for a horror film or writing ever for stage production. I was writing what the music inspired in me and made me feel.

So let's look at “The Packt”, which is the most perfect song for a horror film. It's a very dramatic piece of music that I was presented with. Very structured that completely made me see in my head good against evil. The battle of oneself within oneself, voices in the head and the battle of being a woman in this industry. So within “The Packt” there's this story going on of the devil killing femininity. The evening it was written I was in a health farm. I locked myself away to do the lyric writing so that I could just be away from my home environment, which was not good at that time. There was a massive storm going on. It was about nine at night and doors were blowing open. At one point the windows actually blew open. The storm was that bad. It was a spooky room. That kind of lent to the information and the colour and the imagery within “Angel & Me” and “The Packt”. I have no idea why only one single came out because the album sold really really well. It was about this time that Joel and I felt that we were receiving disinformation. It could also be about this time that (the record label) Safari was moving into First Night Records which was all about Western musicals. I think we just weren't a priority anymore. It's very, very strange, that time, because we had to find new management and then eventually, I think two years later, we left Safari and I went with CBS Portrait. It was just a difficult year. It was a difficult year for everyone. When you look at the album single wise, I'm not sure what could have been another single off that album. “Brave New World” was actually a very brave choice because it's a very adult song when you look at the history of my singles. It's a very grown up song. It’s beautiful. My goodness when we play it live today the audience go crazy. “Castaways” could possibly have been a single. “Run Wild, Run Free” could have been a single. It would have been very brave to release “Angel & Me”. I just don't think the team who promoted the album and the record label understood the album. It went on to inspire many, many new bands. Joel’s sounds on that album - you can hear the influence in U2. You can hear the influence in other bands that followed it. It's a very inspirational album. I think it was at a time and people didn't know what to do with it.

Creating the imagery for the single artwork was really great fun. I loved it. I was in a good, creative, ongoing relationship with (hairdresser) Robert Lobetta, who created the hair. We wanted to move away from the pink hair pictures and the crop hair pictures. We wanted to go in a far more extreme image environment. We brought in Carolyn Cowan, who was a watercolour artist but also a makeup artist. She came up with this idea from having heard the track and me telling her it's about breaking away and starting again and it’s all about new beginnings and trusting the future so the future can come and find you. She had this idea of my face being the sky and putting clouds on and painting birds on. She did that as an actual watercolorist. She did it in real time. It took 12 hours. We didn't shoot until late in the afternoon. So Robert Lobetta created the hair, Carolyn Cowan created the face and we shot it, I think, literally in an hour. I wanted some extra shots. I wanted something that kind of broke the mould of just having head and shoulders. So I said “can we go outside and just improvise with the camera and just mess all this up? So that it's not so precious and not so pristine.” So we found an alleyway and we found all this rubbish that hadn't been collected. We threw it in a pile and I just dived into this pile of rubbish as if I'd been thrown away and discarded. The whole physical idea of this was I was a doll and the doll had been discarded. The child had grown up and didn't want this doll anymore and threw it away. That's how we got the back cover. The day was just fabulous. It was so wonderful to kind of recreate and go through all of that process. We were a really good team. But by the time the single came out, “Brave New World”, we knew the concept of the album and obviously “The Changeling”. Not fitting in, not being accepted, being an outsider, which is very much the entire theme of the whole album. Standing outside of the opinion of others and living by their received opinion. It's part of the punk ideal of standing outside, but it's also - I found as a woman, and as a woman who didn't look like a supermodel - I was constantly on the end of received opinion and mockery. So “The Changeling” is like saying “well ... you think I don't have value, but the changeling has greater knowledge than you.” So it was me just being really defiant. When it came to creating the idea of the video I wanted to really play on the concept of this. We had to shoot on Hastings beach about seven in the morning so my makeup went on at midnight, because we did what's called a 24 hour shoot. We put the makeup on in the studio in Wandsworth, then we drove to Hastings. The idea was that I had to walk backwards into the sea so that film could be reversed so it looked as though I was coming out of the sea completely dry to give my character otherworldliness.

We then had to drive really fast to get to the studio in Wandsworth to shoot that really short sequence of me walking across two islands, across water and I'm surrounded by white rabbits because we only had Battersea Power Station for one hour. So the crew had to be a double crew that went ahead. So we have one crew in the studio and the second crew was setting up at Battersea Power Station. I wanted to be seen riding on this very large white horse even though I had no riding lessons. I think I've only ever been on a horse once before and I just had to brave it. I couldn't say “I need a bit of time on this horse”. So the horse hadn't been fed and they put the horse box with the hay in about 500 yards away and it just bolted so the camera had to keep up with me. By the end of that sequence I'm actually shouting into camera “how do I stop this!?” Get me off his fucking horse! I'm out of control! I don't know what to do!” And then we went back to the studio and finished off the cityscape shots. So it's a long day but it is a fantastic video. (The photographer) Bob Carlos Clarke was a huge inspiration to me. His work was dark, it was experimental. It had depth of field like no other depth of field. He also would hand tint and I just really liked that he could probably take me into a different space. He was complex to work with. He always felt very pressured by life and let's face it, he ended his own life. So he was complex to work with but utterly brilliant. I said to him I wanted to be the outcast within the cover. I've been outcast, I've been banished from the society thus the castle in the background. I just want to be the rebel outside of everybody else's lives. So he came up with the concept of sitting on the rock. We also arranged together having the horns made and I think (make-up artist) Pru Walters might have come in for the body painting on this. I don't think it was Carolyn. We just set about making it happen. It was one of the worst days of my life because he did something to me that I think in today's society you wouldn't do to anyone. When I arrived he took me into a room with his book collection and said "have a look at this". It was a book on everyone who'd been beheaded by the guillotine and it was a before and after book.

In that moment I died. I'm an empath. I tune into people. I experience what they experience. And in that moment I died. It took me years to come back from that moment. We then went and shot the cover and I was in a very bad place. No one could understand. There's there was no one I could tell. There was no one in my life I could talk to and I was haunted by this for a very long time. So as usual I get up, brush myself off and I'm a survivor and I get on with my life. But I would easily say that was the worst day of my life and we had to move on from there. It just took a long time to get back from where that imagery put me. The title for me came from the discovery of folklore and within folklore what a changeling is. A changing was a child that was swapped in the cradle. The fairy folk would go into a home and take a baby and swap it for one of their kind. A changeling. That just really related to everything I felt about life. I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She very famously within our family, when I was born - and I was conceived and born in the same bed at home - she said to the midwife “this is not my child”. And she would tell people “this is not my child.” It wasn't until I actually became successful in 1980 that she accepted me as a human being. So “The Changeling” came from how I was brought up. I had a mother who had me exorcised when I was 14. She had me put in religious education when I was 14. She thought, because I was never christened, that I was possessed and she was just absolutely convinced that there was something very wrong with me. That's where the title comes from (laughs) I had no strength of conviction of what was coming out. I think it was a very masculine environment. I had no one I could talk to. There was no empaths on that album. I certainly didn't talk to Simon Phillips even though he was a great friend. I put all the onus on myself that I was in a bad place. I had conviction in what I was writing as a lyricist. But my confidence was eroded by lack of positive feedback. When Simon Darlow came into the studio, it was just a ray of sunshine. Because he came in knowing me and knowing how I work as a writer and how I work as a singer and that was really gorgeous. But what I will say is yes, I was in a dark place. I don't have happy memories of that album but it is a bloody astonishing album and I think Steve Lillywhite did an incredible job.

But you have to remember things were happening to me. During this time the isolation was tremendous. I was told to come in at 5.30 one day to put a vocal on and Joel (above with Toyah) and Steve Lillywhite didn't arrive until about seven. They’d been out to dinner with their girlfriends and hadn't told me. I was just sitting, waiting in an empty studio. It was emotionally a very, very difficult time. There were dynamics going on that I couldn't articulate or understand. But I'm a fighter and not a loser. So it just made me a stronger person. I do look at “The Changeling” very, very differently. It's still a very painful album to visit. It's like when I wrote The Humans’ “Sugar Rush”. My father had just passed away and all the grief is in this very brilliant album. But it takes me right back there. With “The Changeling“ performing it and listening to it takes me right back there. The bridge that has bridged me to this body of work are my fans and what it means to my fans. You cannot ignore the fans opinions because they live something from your life experience and they give it a new interpretation. So I just know that this album is incredibly important to my loyal fans who have stayed with me for 45 years and that is why I respect this. The extraordinary thing about touring this album in 1982 was the effect it was having on live audiences. So even though it was a difficult album to make and I was living terrified of losing my brother to the Falkland war … the live shows were iridescently brilliant. We had Simon Phillips on drums. The pedigree that brought to this band was amazing, but to actually have the dynamics of a song like “Angel & Me” and the audience loving that song. Performing “Castaways”, which lifted the whole energy within the auditorium. Performing “The Packt”, which the audience love the sheer storytelling and drama of. The touring was much happier as an experience that year than the making of the album. Performing the songs live I have utter respect and so much respect for Steve Lillywhite. Nothing has changed my emotional journey while performing them. I'm profoundly uncomfortable with that album. But you've got writers who would have chopped their fingers off writing a book and yet it's their best seller. I totally understand that within creativity ... creativity doesn't have to be easy as long as the end process has an audience and the end result has an audience. I have utter respect for everything about this time in my life.

#toyah #toyah willcox #toyahwillcox #the changeling

0 notes