[phlipcam video] Musing on Margot and the Nuclear So and So's @ the Middle East

Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s look like a live action role play club in civilian garb backing up their cool drug dealer friend who never opens his eyes while singing and playing guitar. For a boozy, shady garage band, that’s a certainly a preferable visual presentation.

At the risk of harping on my probably reductive takeaway from an outfit that, according to Wikipedia, used to play “cinematic chamber-pop” (because occasional useage of auxiliaries like violin, piano, and woodblock makes them Dark Dark Dark?), the Indianapolis combo’s recital at the Middle East on Tuesday made me nostalgic for an era of rock ‘n roll that, technically, wasn't as cool as I remember it. By the time I became of-age to enjoy contemporary rock music, Kurt Cobain had been dead for a couple of years. Present-day punch lines like Candlebox, the Nixons, and the Gin Blossoms scored most of my cherished memories of the grunge craze.

In part due to Richard Edwards’ vocal similarities to Lost H’s Scott Lucas (who gracefully survived the death of grunge, and abdies with gusto), I declare that if Margot and the Nuclears took a time machine back to 1994 and released their latest, Rot Gut Domestic, they would’ve been a huge, huge deal. Sinister fuzz salvo “Shannon,” the hilariously morbid ballad “A Journalist Falls in Love with Deathrow Inmate #16,” and the unwound tribute to serotonin reuptake inhibition called “Prozac Rock” would’ve been all over MTV and mainstream radio. I would’ve been a huge fan, and I wouldn't feel this weird need to apologize to myself for music I really liked when I was a 12-year-old, because Margot and the Nuclears are way cooler than Candlebox and the Nixons.

Somebody get these dudes a time machine.