Post-punk princess Toyah Willcox and King Crimson founder Robert Fripp have once again pleased humanity with the latest in their ongoing series of Sunday Lunch performances.
This week, the winsome duo took on Jimi Hendrix's 1967 classic Purple Haze, wrestling it into submission before proceeding to stand above its twitching corpse, arms held aloft in shared triumph.
In a surprise twist to proceedings, Toyah accompanies her partner on a nice seafoam green Fender Telecaster, picking out notes to emphasise points in the melody, and celebrates one of rock's most infamous misheard lyrics – Hendrix's "Kiss the sky / Kiss this guy" conundrum – by choosing that moment to plant a gentle kiss on Fripp's forehead. Awww, bless.
In recent weeks, the delightful pair have given us a frisky version of Metallica's Enter Sandman, an athletic romp through Guns N' Roses' Welcome To The Jungle, and a thrilling take on Billy Idol's Rebel Yell.
Last week, Toyah told the Guardian how she started filming the clips as a way to keep Fripp occupied.
“Here I am in this house with this 74-year-old husband who I really don’t want to live without,” she said. “He was withdrawing, so I thought: ‘I’m going to teach him to dance.’ And it became a challenge.”
They posted a video, and it went viral, but Fripp was initially unhappy at the unexpected exposure. "He felt he was being mocked," says Toyah. "But the response was so overwhelmingly positive, and now, six months down the line, he can see that it was quite an important thing to do, in that it became a shared experience with an audience that needed to be reminded of the beauty of human laughter."
