Short Biography
It's nothing you'll see on Shameless, but - whisper it - Salford has an artsy underside that is shaping up to be a Northern variant on Warhol's early Factory. Based in a former disused Mill and shrouded by council high-rises, its first breakout stars have emerged. Welcome, if you will, The Ting Tings - the Sonny and Cher of Salford Precinct for the Noughties.
The Ting Tings are Jules de Martino and Katie White. They met when she was just out of being a Wigan school-girl and bonded over a shared ambition to rock the foundations of pop music.
Together, Jules and Katie have configured a sound that represents the pure heart of British pop. Driven by personality, unsto...
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Short Biography
It's nothing you'll see on Shameless, but - whisper it - Salford has an artsy underside that is shaping up to be a Northern variant on Warhol's early Factory. Based in a former disused Mill and shrouded by council high-rises, its first breakout stars have emerged. Welcome, if you will, The Ting Tings - the Sonny and Cher of Salford Precinct for the Noughties.
The Ting Tings are Jules de Martino and Katie White. They met when she was just out of being a Wigan school-girl and bonded over a shared ambition to rock the foundations of pop music.
Together, Jules and Katie have configured a sound that represents the pure heart of British pop. Driven by personality, unstoppable momentum, friendship and the love of great pop music - however stylised it arrives - The Ting Tings learnt to forget the attention to detail that they had slaved over in their previous band Dear Eskiimo and drove their new beast on raw adrenaline. It is littered through their debut album We Started Nothing; snappy choruses trade off against angular guitar work, whipsmart drumming and a succession of loops that they create live with the use of delay pedals. Half redolent of a thrusting girlband schooled at CBGBs and half informed by a post modern desire to break the codes of manufactured pop, their sound is immediately identifiable and purposefully perky.
Interesting things to know:
- May 2008 was a GOOD month. The That's Not My Name single and the We Started Nothing album were both number 1 records in the UK.
- The b-side to the That's Not My Name vinyl was a brand new track made up from fans names submitted via a special phone line set up. The track was entitled That's Not My Name: Your Mix.
- Whilst on tour recently the band scattered the US album sleeves on the floor of each stage, set the gear up on top and then performed over them that night. Katie and Jules then customised them, stuck on some gaffa tape, signed them and sold them the following night on the merch stand at the next gig.
In-depth Biography
Named after a Chinese friend whose name sounds like the Mandarin pronunciation of "bandstand," the Ting Tings -- a scrappy, dance-oriented indie pop duo consisting of singer/guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino -- formed in the Salford district of Manchester, England, in 2006. Prior to forming the group, the pair worked together in 2001 when White was in the all-female punk-pop group TKO and De Martino wrote some songs for them. Later, the pair reunited and with another friend formed the trio Eskimo Kiss, which signed to Mercury Records but disbanded due in part to changing personnel at the label. De Martino and White regrouped, working on their own music and others' at Salford's music commune, the Islington Mill. Quickly signed to the local indie label Switchflicker Records, the Ting Tings released their debut single, "That's Not My Name," in the spring of 2007. Following the limited-edition, tour-only single "Fruit Machine," the Ting Tings signed to major label Columbia Records later that year. The flip side of the Switchflicker single, "Great DJ," was released as the duo's debut Columbia single in March 2008, followed by the reissue of "That's Not My Name" with a new exclusive B-side remix. "That's Not My Name" rose to the top of the U.K. charts in May 2008, the same month that the duo's debut album, We Started Nothing, appeared. The Ting Tings spent the rest of 2008 and a large part of 2009 touring in support of the album, which eventually sold over two million copies worldwide, won the 2009 Ivor Novello Award for Best Album, and earned the group a Best New Artist Grammy nomination that December. Early in 2010, De Martino and White moved to Berlin to work on songs for their second album. Inspired by the city's atmosphere and the cold weather, the pair went in a darker, more electronic direction with their new songs. In August 2010, the Ting Tings offered a taste of their new material, premiering the single "Hands" -- which was mixed by Calvin Harris -- on BBC Radio 1. "Hands" was officially released that October, and the album was expected in 2011. ~ Stewart Mason & Heather Phares, Rovi
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