Welcome to Birmingham’s first girl band Tiara Bitch
It’s with a certain amount of trepidation and a great deal of pride that I introduce you to Birmingham’s first girl group.
My foxy four-piece have been holed up in a guest house in Halesowen for six months now, being tutored and immersed in everything a young lady should know about the pop music business.
They’ve learnt how not to tuck their skirts into their knickers when coming out of the curry house bog; we have got the first single in the can and the album’s coming on nicely. It’s an appetising mixture of covers and new material, written by myself, Uggy Macduff and Les Battersby (That’s French Les, pronounced “lay”, not grotty Les out of Coronation Street).
The first single, available to download from mYtUnes now, is a perky version of Slade’s Far, Far Away with a house beat and samples of Basil Brush saying “Boom Boom!”
The album’s called You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here... It’s been produced by an old mate of mine who records impressions of actors and comedians for the booming offensive ringtone market.
The whole project has been funded through grants from Greggs the bakers, the Royal British Legion, Birmingham Mental Health NHS Trust, Crimestoppers and my mum.
So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you... Tiara Bitch.
Meet Tammy Turgoose. She’s the blonde one, although the curtains don’t match the carpet.
Pam’s been in and out of youth institutions since the age of 11 and has the tattoos to prove it. Her favourite film is Meet The Spartans and she stands five-feet eight in her shackled feet.
Her mYfAce page already has 8,000 friends, mostly boys in hoodies but also the occasional vicar.
In her spare time she keeps her collection of chisels clean and shiny, although the rigours of pop stardom has meant that she doesn’t get much opportunity to use them.
Her ambition, if she has one, is to be known worldwide as simply Tammy. “I’d like to be a brand like Jordan, Posh or Gazza,” she says.
Poor Tammy doesn’t know that all the boys who know her already have a one-word name for her.
Then there’s Jude Clench, the clever one.
She’s the only Tiara Bitch to stay on at sixth form where she did a GCSE in Latin. “I thought there’d be more Salsa dancing involved,” she confesses, “but the tutor was well fit.”
Jude’s favourite band is Sack Sabbath, a Sabs tribute act which performs regularly at the Robin 2 in Bilston and her long-term ambition is to run an open prison: “Somewhere nice and quiet, out in the country, with birds and trees and s**t.”
Jude’s proud of her video of her appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show where she denied having slept with her best friend’s dad’s undertaker.
She claimed they did everything but sleep.
Number three in our saucy line-up is Alice Slack, the only mother in the group. Someone spiked her drink with fertility hormones and she had quads nine months later.
Alice admits to having problems with her pelvic floor muscles and hopes to use pop stardom to highlight this problem amongst her teen audience.
She originally sang in a feminist folk duo with Jude called Clench and Slack and their whole routine was a post-natal self-help course, but the pair found it hard to get bookings on the trad circuit.
Alice likes nothing better than playing practical jokes on other members of T.B and her vocal impression of a wounded puppy has brought rehearsals to a stand-still on many an occasion.
Finally, there’s Uggy MacDuff, the real talent in the four-piece. Uggy has the voice of an angel but the face of a gargoyle.
We’ve tried to get rid of Uggy on several occasions but the other three girls always rally round saying: “Sack Uggy and we go too.”
Ms MacDuff can be seen wearing a tragedy mask in the band’s first video. She’s the one slightly out of focus, swathed in mist at the back, behind the gravestone, with seaweed draped all over her strange-shaped body.
Her favourite food is Shake And Vac which she mixes with milk and brandy.
Uggy got her musical chops at the Sorbonne where she was close to the beloved bells at Notre Dame. She’s written the b-side to the first single, a great stompalong anthem called I’m Your Wench.
Her ambitions for the band are simple: “I’d like to be able to pay for a plastic surgeon to put my nose on the right way up. I almost drown when ever it rains.”
So that’s the Tiara Bitches, 16th Century girls for a 20th Century world.
The mySPaCe page is under construction and negotiations with local schools are throwing up gigs all over Birmingham. Keep an eye on you kid’s newsletter for new dates.
This is just the first step on a long road to riches for us all.
I’ll keep you in touch with any new developments.
Tara-abit from Tiara Bitch x
