Began and ended Friday night at Stubb's, which started off with The Ting Tings, the terrific rhythm happy British duo of Katie White and Jules DeMartino whose debut album is due in May, and ended with N.E.R.D., the Pharrell Williams-fronted hip-hop rock band whose well into-the-wee-hours closing set featured two drummers and lots of power chords, and drove the barbecue joint digital camera wielding crowd into a frenzy. Williams gave voice to the crowd exhortation for the Facebook generation: "Put the cameras down, and make some noise!"
(In between, ran into WXPN music maven Bruce Warren at Dan Bejar's Destroyer - who followed a winsome and winning set by Matt Ward and his movie star collaborator, Zoey Deschanel, as She & Him at the Parish. Warren put the Ting Tings and N.E.R.D. as two of his top three at SXSW so far, with the third being The Heavy, the Brit R & B band who are the beneficiaries of a growing buzz.
And speaking of Philly music people purposefully moving up and down Sixth Street, World Cafe Live booker Karl Mullen was the guy I kept bumping into wherever I went at SWSW. His top five: Duffy, Los Campesinos, Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong, Carbon/Silicon, and Daniel Lanois, who he caled "sublime.")
But the point of this post is Santogold, the nom de electro-pop of Philadelphia born and bred and now Brooklyn based Santi White, who's pictured above. With Philadelphia DJ-producer Diplo mixing live beats and a pair of sunglasses-wearing dancers on either side, White more than justified the hype gathering since last fall for her Santogold debut, which is now due in May on Downtown records. White's a crafty songwriter whose tunes have a schoolyard skip-a-rope catchiness, and a skilled reggae toaster and singer, and she commanded the stage at Stubb's with confident swagger, moving to Diplo's percolating, never predictable grooves. I don't know that I saw anybody enjoy themselves as much on stage all week, and I pretty much felt the same way.
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