june 03, 2008 marked the release of the ting tings debut album, we started nothing.  but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  in around 2003, jules de martino (drums, guitar, vocals) met katie white (vocals, guitar, bass drum) while she was a student at leeds university.  soon after, they relocated to manchester and formed their first band, dear eskimo.  they were soon signed to mercury records, but because of ideological differences between the band and the management, they soon found themselves without a record label.

because of their catastrophic experience with the suits, the band went back to more comfortable roots, forgetting everything they "learned" about the music industry and returned to a "do it yourself" style of music making.  just as everything in life, their sharply indie, yet garage-grounded-pop styling are a product of their previous experiences.

so in december 2004 the duo formed the ting tings.   in mandarin their name translates to "an old bandstand", or "to listen".  in japanese (a country in which they have found considerable success), they discovered that their name translates to "a cute, small penis".  i'm not making that up.

anyway, the electro-pop band began playing  gigs for private parties.  tickets to their shows became quite sought after among record producers and a&r reps.  next thing they knew, they were booked to play among others, jimmy kimmel, conan, multiple mtv award shows, craig ferguson, and jools holland.  finally, apple created an i-pod commercial featuring their song "shut up and let me go".  that commercial turned out to be their game-changer.  in january 2008, they were named among the top three of the bbc 6 sound of 2008.

click here for a gig from d.c.'s 9:30 club on july 22, 2008.  click here for a december 07, 2007 in-studio set/performance recorded by kcrw's morning becomes eclectic.   click here for video of a live set recorded by roxwel.  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check back here to see if the ting tings have gigs scheduled near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.