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March 7th Source: MTV.co.uk Tickets have gone on sale for this year’s Spanking New Tour where you can see the hottest acts presented by MTV. CSS, Pigeon Detectives, The Fratellis and The Zutons will headline the dates with new artists playing in support. They include The Metros, Alphabeat, The Ting Tings and MGMT. We’re even offering free downloads from some of the acts.
The tour stops across the UK and Ireland through April and May this year and it will certainly feature the most raucous, rocking gigs of the year.
Source: Independent.ie Sitting perkily on a couch in a grainy Manchester art-space, Katie White is contemplating the "h" word: hype. "It's really weird -- it's like I can hear what everyone is secretly thinking about me," says the blonde half of the year's most buzzed-about duo, The Ting Tings. "People can be quite honest about what they think of you -- which you wouldn't get if you weren't in a band."
It's a slate-grey afternoon in the north of England and White is enjoying a 10-minute breather. It is her first and probably last respite of the day. She's just escaped the clutches of her make-up woman -- as soon as our interview is over, she and Ting Tings partner Jules De Martino are needed downstairs to record live footage for their website. This morning the pair, purveyors of a bouncy gut-bucket pop, were in London securing visas for their forthcoming trip to the South By South West festival in Texas. They've had to hot-foot it back to Manchester to play a showcase gig for journalists jetted in from across Europe. Perched on the settee's edge, caked in glittery eye-makeup, 25-year-old White is a young woman in the centre of an invisible, but very palpable, hurricane. "There's the hype thing, but you can't make people put you in their top 10 bands predictions," she says of The Ting Tings' sudden, inescapable rise. "People who do our press, they have loads of bands -- another week, another hyped-up band; I can't see them just pushing us." You can't blame White and De Martino if they seem a little fazed by their white knuckle ride from obscurity. Even by the hyperbole-splashed standards of UK music -- where the build 'em up, knock 'em down tradition has the status of holy writ -- theirs has been a breathtaking ascent. Formed a little over 18 months ago, The Ting Tings had played only three shows -- and had three songs in their set -- when they kicked off a major labels scrum for their signature. By the time they got around to their fourth gig -- performed in the same converted mill-house where we are talking today -- Def Jam big kahuna Rick Rubin was trying to score an invite. "Yeah, we had Rick Rubin on, emailing us," De Martino recalls, with an air of disbelief. "The fourth gig was absolutely stuffed. The heads of all the major record companies were flying in from abroad. One of our friends came around at the front of the stage and took a picture of the audience. "Since then, we've looked at that picture and you can see all the big company heads -- you can pick them out. We asked our management, 'Who's that guy?' -- and he said, 'That's the head of EMI, sitting on the wood floor'." There's nothing new about any of this, of course. Twelve months ago Mika, a gaudy piano-man with an eye-grabbing mullet and diverting falsetto, was being anointed the new Elton John. It turns out he was a cross between the Village People and James Blunt: exactly what the public craved, apparently -- he went on to shift over a million records. Add to that the glut of MySpace posterchildren such as Kate Nash and Lily Allen, and neo-soul singers Duffy and Adele, swooping in just as Amy Winehouse has tottered off to rehab. Like many of those artists, The Ting Tings have followed what is becoming a well-worn path to ubiquity. First came the cred-generating secret gigs, then the MySpace following, then the Rick Rubin emails. Setting them apart even from insta-starlets such as Duffy and Adele, however, is the speed with which they have shot up pop's greasy poll -- the duo made their debut on Later... With Jools Holland (an essential showcase for acts with an eye on the mainstream) two months before they'd even put out their first major label single. Then there are the constant White Stripe comparisons. Musically, The Ting Tings operate in a completely different vein, but aesthetically the analogy stands up: De Martino plays drums; White sings and bashes a guitar. Naturally, they're already sick of hearing about it: "The first time someone said that, we thought, of course," sighs De Martino. "We knew we were going to get it and over. Still, there's no denying that the 'White Stripes in reverse' angle makes for good soundbyte, especially at a time when faux-Winehouses and indie boys with sideways fringes are what passes for edgy." Add White's girl-next-door looks (she has a murky teenage past as a member of a short-lived girl group, TKO -- 'Total Knock Out') to the equation and their third place finish on the influential BBC Sound Of 2008 poll -- behind, yes, Duffy and Adele -- and their success, far from seeming like any sort of fluke, starts to feel like a foregone conclusion. Think about it: a cutesy Britpop riff on the White Stripes -- how could that NOT work? In fact, the only ones who seem truly taken aback by the scale of the media maelstrom are The Ting Tings themselves. Certainly, they don't come across as arch-manipulators, whose every move is assiduously plotted. Says White: "While we were doing Jools Holland, we were being interviewed by a journalist who goes, 'I want to interview you 'cos you came third in this poll' and I was like, 'Great, did I win anything?' We didn't have a clue what it was." However, it would be a mistake to think of the pair as naifs. Indeed, White and De Martino are pointedly distrustful of the music business -- a cynicism born of past experience. In a former life, they were members of a well-regarded indie band called Dear Eskimo. Having signed to a major, the future looked promising. But it wasn't long before things turned sour -- their management seemed to lose interest, the record label stopped returning their calls. "I'd had enough," says De Martino. "At the end, I was disillusioned by the whole thing. It was so boring, so tedious. All the people we were working with were so paperwork-ridden -- nobody was creative." From this experience, they emerged battle-scarred and wiser. One thing they've learned is that it's better to be glommed in hype than ignored. "All the bands that were on the BBC poll had to deal with a backlash -- purely because they were on the list," says White. "I think being made a fuss of can be a slight double-edged sword. But I think it can still be a positive thing, 'cos people learn about the music and as long as you do great shows, and the album's great, you'll be okay. That's what we want to do -- we want to spend the next year showing people what we do." n
The single Great DJ is out now. The Ting Tings play The Village, Dublin, April 14. Debut album We Stand For Nothing is released in May
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