With their song “Shut Up and Let Me Go” featured in the latest string of iPod commercials and their debut album We Started Nothing hitting #1 on the UK Charts, British pop duo the Ting Tings have clearly started something, and have ventured to NYC’s famed Bowery Ballroom to show the States what this something is.
Consisting of singer/guitarist/blonde bombshell Katie White, and drummer/bassist Jules De Martino, the group is named after a waitress colleague of White’s at a Chinese restaurant and apparently, is Mandarin for ‘bandstand.’ That’s all well and good, but this isn’t a band that’s in any way concerned with politics; they’re about having fun.
The Tings motored through 9 of their 10 songs on We Started Nothing, turning a 35-minute CD into a high-energy 45-minute set. As soon as the band burst into opening number “We Walk,” it was clear that walking was the last thing on these amped-up Brits’ minds - the Ting Tings wanted you to dance, and dance we did.
The pair manned opposite sides of the stage - De Martino perched behind a drum kit stage left, and White stage right - in order to give the latter plenty of room to dance, shaking her blonde hair and gyrating her hips like a woman possessed. In order to achieve a fuller sound, the two utilize a series of effects boxes, including a pair of Boss RC-50s, that they’ve soldered together and customized to grant their pedals more versatility, and afford them a degree of improvisational ability (as opposed to merely utilizing a backing track). These effects are most evident on their song “Fruit Machine” as a seated De Martino plays bass guitar and kicks the bass drum simultaneously, while watching his coconspirator White prance about the stage like a Spice Girl on meth, spouting flirtatious lyrics into her mic.
White’s girl group origins are evident in the band’s ‘80s electro-pop sound (she was in UK girl group TKO as a teenager), employing cheery vocals reminiscent of Blondie and catchy guitar lines resembling early Talking Heads, spliced with the loops and beats of recent electro standout LCD Soundsystem.
The infectious chorus to “Great DJ” brought the attractive young crowd airborne - ditto for their iPod tune “Shut Up and Let Me Go,” which saw singer White furiously pound a stand-up drum - while foot-stomping complaint “That’s Not My Name,” with its Devo-ish bassline, catty MCing, and perfectly in-tune backing vocals, left no one questioning the rationale of its reaching the top of the UK Singles Chart.
There was only one minor misstep throughout the set when the Tings played “Traffic Light,” their “attempt at a slow song.” It was a bit of a buzzkill, but only a tiny speed bump on an otherwise playful, carefree ride.
--Marlow Stern [July 3, 2008]
