"Sparkle and Tinsel, and sisters Twinkle and Tinky sound like a foul mouthed Elastica with a dose of The Slits." BP Fallon
The four fairies, Tinsel, Tinky, Twinkle and Sparkle, stomped all over London and beyond in stilettos and hot pants for seven years. This website is an archive of those years spent gracing the sofas of This Morning, the stages at Koko and the 100 Club, pages of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and even fluttering as far as Brooklyn NYC. You can find links to our music, YouTube films and footage as well as a collection of photographs from gigs and photo shoots. Beneath this image you will also find one of our favourite gig reviews of all time. We hope you enjoy!
Drowned in Sound gig review: The Joiners, Southampton supporting Fleeing New York
It could easily have been the flimsiest, most transparent gimmick ever. It's a shame, but how else would you react to it? Three blokes, with the mandatory nonchalance and the what-the-bloody-hell-is-that-nesting-on-your-head haircuts decide to start up the racket on stage, with the bassist's girlfriend and three of her dark haired, wiggly hipped mates soon following as the vocal group up front. Presumably, the warbling and gyrating that would ensue could act as a heavy dollop of icing on a stale cake of tired garage-rock, acting as a lairy distraction from the same old derivative riffs and mock posturing. But as the fevered Art Brut-along cry of "We! Are! VEGETARIANS!" is yelped from four be-winged sirens, I realise there's only one factor that makes such presumptions seem redundant, and a light year away from the truth: The Fairies Band are actually really good.
Tonight they share the bill with Fleeing New York, Mach Schau and Ed Hicks. This makes The Fairies not only the token out-of-towners, but also the most alien of conceptual 'gangs' here tonight - it's like they appear from a parallel universe where all stilettos are sold with graffiti pens, it's encouraged to talk dirty to strangers, and The Pipettes wear denim rather than polka dots. They're not the coyest of musical troupes either - as punctuated by how, before a song demanding you to "lick my clit", it's pointed out which member of the band 'has the painters in' - and this could easily frighten off any fey indie kids lured in by the sight of plastic mythical creature garb. However, despite playing with a demeanour that suggests all seven of them have just narrowly escaped drowning in a vat of Tennants Super, they can undoubtedly play blisteringly well, the pounding power-pop bulldozing its way onwards even when the guitarist slips up in his own sweat. What makes it all fall together into glorious harmonious place is that these girls have a mean set of lungs on them, making the whole outfit more qualified (and certainly a lot more fun) than a plethora of bands with higher profile and lesser image. 'Cos when the dance routines have ended and they all sing along with their own conviction, flanked by a musically and semantically applied potion of sex/drugs/rock/roll, it's the first time a group has induced pop rapture in too, too long.
Black Magic? Dunno. But magic all the same.
It could easily have been the flimsiest, most transparent gimmick ever. It's a shame, but how else would you react to it? Three blokes, with the mandatory nonchalance and the what-the-bloody-hell-is-that-nesting-on-your-head haircuts decide to start up the racket on stage, with the bassist's girlfriend and three of her dark haired, wiggly hipped mates soon following as the vocal group up front. Presumably, the warbling and gyrating that would ensue could act as a heavy dollop of icing on a stale cake of tired garage-rock, acting as a lairy distraction from the same old derivative riffs and mock posturing. But as the fevered Art Brut-along cry of "We! Are! VEGETARIANS!" is yelped from four be-winged sirens, I realise there's only one factor that makes such presumptions seem redundant, and a light year away from the truth: The Fairies Band are actually really good.
Tonight they share the bill with Fleeing New York, Mach Schau and Ed Hicks. This makes The Fairies not only the token out-of-towners, but also the most alien of conceptual 'gangs' here tonight - it's like they appear from a parallel universe where all stilettos are sold with graffiti pens, it's encouraged to talk dirty to strangers, and The Pipettes wear denim rather than polka dots. They're not the coyest of musical troupes either - as punctuated by how, before a song demanding you to "lick my clit", it's pointed out which member of the band 'has the painters in' - and this could easily frighten off any fey indie kids lured in by the sight of plastic mythical creature garb. However, despite playing with a demeanour that suggests all seven of them have just narrowly escaped drowning in a vat of Tennants Super, they can undoubtedly play blisteringly well, the pounding power-pop bulldozing its way onwards even when the guitarist slips up in his own sweat. What makes it all fall together into glorious harmonious place is that these girls have a mean set of lungs on them, making the whole outfit more qualified (and certainly a lot more fun) than a plethora of bands with higher profile and lesser image. 'Cos when the dance routines have ended and they all sing along with their own conviction, flanked by a musically and semantically applied potion of sex/drugs/rock/roll, it's the first time a group has induced pop rapture in too, too long.
Black Magic? Dunno. But magic all the same.
