DEAL FOR TLC

If the young women in TLC looked pretty frisky at the Grammy Awards show last week, who could blame them? They’ve just won a battle with their record company that could bring them out of their financial problems and allow them to tour.

The trio, which filed for bankruptcy last summer--despite having the No. 1 single, “Waterfalls” and a hit album, “CrazySexyCool”--claimed that its original deal with Peppitone Records, a small label distributed by LaFace Records through Arista, paid a meager royalty rate.

“We’ve sold 10 million albums and we don’t have anything,” said member Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas during Grammy rehearsals at the Shrine Auditorium. “We don’t have houses, don’t have cars, we’ve got nothing. I had to ask LaFace to give me money just so I could move into an apartment in Atlanta.”

While in town for the Grammys, TLC had a heated showdown with Arista president Clive Davis and executive vice president Roy Lott in the company’s L.A. offices, demanding a new arrangement. They got it, and now the group is laying the groundwork for a tour that will put it back on the road for the first time since last summer, when many concert dates were canceled due to the illness of member Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. Following that tour, work will start on TLC’s third album.

“It’s about time,” Thomas said.