Ting Tings pop into town for festival

When Katie White and Jules De Martino - collectively, the Ting Tings - did the South by Southwest Musical Festival in Austin, Texas, in March, the British indie pop duo who play here Saturday were keeping up a torrid schedule in support of their perky debut album,

We Started Nothing,

released this month.

"We were doing three gigs a days under that heat," remembers De Martino, 34, talking on the phone last week from Los Angeles, where the band was getting set to perform a punked-up version of Altered Images' 1981 hit "Happy Birthday" on the too-cool-for-preschool Nickelodeon kids show Yo Gabba Gabba! They are here this weekend at the Popped! Festival in University City.

In Austin, the grueling schedule was wearing on White - "She was knackered," her bandmate says - and the duo, who hail from the artists' enclave of Islington Mill, just outside of Manchester in central England, were considering canceling an afternoon show sponsored by the hipster music magazine Fader.

The show went on, even though White, who's 25, was so exhausted that she fainted after the band's set ended. Good thing the group got through the gig. Turned out, Apple computer reps were in the house and were quite taken with "Shut Up and Let Me Go," a minimalist dance tune that mixes up equal measures of Blondie and Chic. Voila! Quicker than you can say "iPod ad," the Ting Tings have gone from obscurity to ubiquity.

"It's been great, because we've immediately got an American fan base," says De Martino, who met White five years ago when he was working as a session drummer and she was singing in an ill-fated girl group. They were both members of a band called Dear Eskiimo before pairing off in the Ting Tings.

"All of the risk-taking that both Katie and I wanted got washed out when there were too many band members," says the multi-instrumentalist and art-school grad, who builds the band's lean, snappy tunes up from hot-wired drum loops triggered with foot pedals on stage. At a SXSW show at Stubb's, he and White traded guitars and drum sticks, and pounded out kinetic, candy-coated new wave updates like "That's Not My Name" with gleeful determination.

"Katie just learned to play guitar last year," De Martino says. "So her playing is really naive, which make the ideas she comes up with really fresh. I might be a bit more complicated. But she simplifies it quite well. When we started playing, we weren't even thinking of it as a band, we were just creating music at art installations. For us it's not just about the music, it's the artwork on the vinyl album sleeves, and everything else that goes with it. It's about more than creating a song that everybody's trying to exploit."

Tonight Trocadero, 1003 Arch St. 8 p.m. Slick Rick, DJ Steven Bloodbath, White T's & White Belts.

Saturday Drexel University, 33d and Market Streets. 1 p.m. the Ting Tings; 1:50 Hoots & Hellmouth; 2:40 Mr. Lif; 3:30 Dan Deacon; 4:10 Gogol Bordello; 5:40 Crystal Castles; 6:45 Mates of State; 8 Vampire Weekend.

Sunday Upstairs at World Cafe Live. 4 p.m. Cheers Elephant; 5 the Vandelles; 6 the Swimmers; 7 Takka Takka; 8 Sam Champion; 9 Project Jenny/Project Jan.

Downstairs at World Cafe Live. 5:15 Gildon Works; 6:15 PWRFL Power; 7:15 Tickley Feather; 8:15 O'Death; 9:45 the Capitol Years; 10:15 Daniel Johnston.

Show information:

Slick Rick, DJ Steven Bloodbath, and White T's & White Belts, play at the Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., at 8 p.m. Friday. Tickets: $15. Phone: 215-922-5483.

Vampire Weekend, Mates of State, Gogol Bordello, Hoots & Hellmouth, Dan Deacon, Crystal Castles, Mr. Lif, and the Ting Tings at 1 p.m. 33d and Market Streets, gates open at noon. Tickets: $32.50 at the Trocadero, or on site day of show.

Daniel Johnston & guests at the World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. at 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $32. Phone: 215-222-1400.

Tickets also available at A.K.A. Music, 27 N. Second St., or at www.poppedphiladelphia.org.

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The inaugural Popped! Festival in 2007 was a mostly local, weeklong affair held at clubs across Philadelphia last spring.

This year, Popped! is more concentrated, and more ambitious. It will go on over three days and nights this weekend at three all-ages venues. Its centerpiece is an eight-hour, eight-band show on the Drexel University campus, that begins at 1 p.m. with the Ting Tings.

The revamped Popped! also means to go "green." On its Web site, poppedphiladelphia.org, the fest brands itself as being an indie rock Live Earth, coming out "For a Sound Environment" and urging music lovers to tool on over the 33d and Market Streets on Saturday on their bicycles, if possible.

Any one who does pedal to the outdoor portion of Popped! on Saturday will be presented with a formidable lineup. Ivy League Afro-pop-flavored rockers Vampire Weekend are the headliners, and Ezra Koenig and crew seem to have survived nicely the inevitable backlash that followed being the bloggiest band of 2007.

Second from the top on the bill are Mates of State, the wife-and-husband duo of keyboardist Kori Gardner and drummer Jason Hammel, whose askew romantic pop inches closer to the mainstream on the new Re-Arrange Us. Also on tap are alt-rapper Mr. Lif, audience participation specialist Dan Deacon, chilly electronic duo Crystal Castle, hillbilly rockers Hoots & Hellmouth, and Gogol Bordello, the raucous gypsy punk band led by Eugene Hutz, who stars in the Madonna-directed movie Filth and Wisdom.

The Saturday show comes sandwiched between Friday and Sunday shows on either side of town. The kickoff party, scheduled for tonight at the Trocadero, is headlined by eye-patched, old-school rapper Slick Rick, performing with a live band, plus the DJ team of White T's & White Belts.

And on Sunday, Popped! will take over both floors of the World Cafe Live with a dozen bands. Highlights will come from Cheers Elephant (upstairs at 4), Tickley Feather (downstairs at 7:15), and Daniel Johnston, the famously bipolar songwriter and subject of the film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, who will close the fest downstairs at WCL with Philadelphia's Capitol Years offering musical - and moral - support.