Live Review: The Pipettes at The Rickshaw Stop, 06/13/07

Live Review: The Pipettes at The Rickshaw Stop, 06/13/07

Getting on a first name basis with the throwback trio: Aidin Vaziri | Somewhere out there, some lunatic record company executive has decided that the best way to counteract dwindling record sales, spiraling piracy and the death of popular culture on the whole is something called is The Pipettes - a trio of girls from Brighton, England specializing in matching polka-dot ensembles, wonky choreography and tunes last heard before Phil Spector started waving guns at people.

Bad for his career, great for providing some cheap entertainment on a boring old week night!

To preview their stateside major label debut, Becki, Rose and Gwenno (first names only, naturally) played a special Popscene event at the Rickshaw Stop on Tuesday showcasing a good dose of attitude, hand jive and harmonies ranging from "ouch!' to "that sounds a bit like Bananarama right there."

The group does have a pair of stellar hits on its hands in "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" and "Pull Shapes," plus something like 17 other tunes that are essentially variations of those two, which is good depending on your tolerance for monster-movie themes and screechy, sugary throwbacks to the Ronettes and Marvellettes.

While their general attitude is heart-warming ("To turn back the clock to a time before the Beatles ruined everything") and we liked the fact that they made the guys in the band play with their backs to the audience, the hourlong show could have been cut down by, oh, about 45-minutes without losing all that much.

And not that we're picking favorites but how great would it be if the brunette one launched a solo career tomorrow?