Urban Bitch were formed in 1980 from the ashes of the Androids who had called it a day in late 1979, due to a lack of gigs, recordings going unreleased and some band members just simply drifting away.
For a time Billy Mc turned musical whore “Yes, for a while I played for The Fresh Boogie Band, doing Thin Lizzy covers and chart stuff in various venues across the North. Ultimately very unrewarding musically, but it paid well!”
However, by the spring of 1980, Billy got a call from fellow ex Androids member Robin Holmes who asked him if he would come and play drums in his new band called Urban Bitch. The band was a "post-punk" outfit with a leaning towards the Velvets and with a heavy use of synths. Billy was in.
The band were Robin Holmes on bass, Billy on drums, Kerry Holmes on synth, Jim Megarry (another former Android) on vocals and Brian Gilmore on Guitar. The band were later joined by Joan Collis on backing vocals.
A few old Androids tunes resurrected such as “Within These Walls” and “Bastards” and a few select covers such as “Heroin” by the Velvet Underground, “Street Hassle” by Lou Reed and “School's Out” by Alice Cooper. They also did a rendition of the John Cale version of “Heartbreak Hotel”. There were a few original compositions in their set too, such as the ten minute epic “Anger Fights Friends” which lasted for about ten minutes and had three sections!
Urban Bitch played some gigs around Belfast at the Pound and the Harp bar but the band soon fizzled out, as Billy explains “By 1980 gigs were becoming hard to find and it was never the same as it had been with the Androids. By 1980 people had started to get married and settle down and it just petered out. The next wave of new bands were starting to come through in Belfast and although we were all only 20 or so, we began to feel a bit old”. It is believed that no recordings of the band exsist.
After the band split Billy and Jim both became heavily influenced by OMD and Gary Numan and dabbled further with synths and drum machines for a bit as "The Business". The only gig Billy can recall the band playing however was supporting Ruefrex on the north coast.
