I first heard a Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s song when I saw the Long Beach-based singer and songwriter Will Morrison of the Vacuum Bell perform a beautiful rendition of “Broadripple is Burning.” Though the song is absolutely gorgeous, it has desperate lyrics like “I’ll be hanging from a rope/I will haunt you like a ghost.” Frankly, because Morrison is a friend of mine, I was concerned for his mental health until I discovered he did not write the song. Because the song’s melody was so seductively haunting, I felt compelled to look further into the band who did write it.
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s are an indie rock band originally from Indianapolis who are currently touring in support of their fifth studio album release Rot Gut, Domestic. They consistently write passionate, haunting and catchy pop melodies with lyrics about lost love, depression, and drug and alcohol-use that could make you want to stage an intervention. For example, their song “Quiet as a Mouse” has lyrics like “When I woke my back was broke from lyin’ on the floor… wake up the sun is rising without you,” which sound like a story of hitting rock bottom set to pop music. Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s feel like an emotional guilty-pleasure band similar to the singer/songwriter rock styles of Bright Eyes or Damien Rice. Somehow they make personal pain seductively pop-y and depression danceable.
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s played to an enthusiastic (and dancing) audience at the Constellation Room at Santa Ana’s Observatory on Thursday May 24. Their 18-song set showcased their best songs across several albums, including Not Animal, The Dust of Retreat, and their newest Rot Gut, Domestic. Their set ranged from powerful numbers with the full band like “Books About Trains,” “Skeleton Key,” and “Shannon” and intimate moments of just singer and guitarist Richard Edwards and keyboardist Cameron McGill singing vocal harmonies together. Violinist, guitarist and lap steel player Erik Kang added haunting melodies to songs including “A Children’s Crusade on Acid” and “Skeleton Key.” Drummer Gary Vermillion and bassist Tyler Watkins created a tasteful rhythm section behind the band.
When Edwards and McGill performed the bleak, yet popular “Broadripple is Burning,” the audience passionately sang along, with the drunken members of the audience especially loudly reveling in the line “I’m wasted/you can taste it.” One of my favorite moments of the show was when Edwards and McGill played “A Journalist Falls in Love with Deathrow Inmate #16.” The song, off of their newest album, is worthy of being a Johnny Cash original. With lyrics like “I know I’ve killed a few/But none of those women were you,” this song shows off the band’s country-influenced songwriting chops. It also deviates from the band’s typical self-focused subject-matter, which I’d personally love to see more of from this band.
Overall, the band played a passionate, strong set. At the end of the night, the determined audience applauded the band back on stage for a three-song encore of “Talking in Code” from The Dust of Retreat, and “The Devil” and “Christ” from Rot Gut, Domestic. Singer Edwards and keyboardist McGill concluded the show with the bluesy and stripped-down song “Christ” with lyrics like “Jesus breaks your heart/every night when he doesn’t come.” (On a personal note, I can’t ignore the eroticism of that line, since I come from the academic art history world where I read papers about the sexuality of Christ in Renaissance art.) By this point in the show, the band seemed fairly drunk and the final heartbreaking song was performed a little like the classic drunk song “Show Me the Way To Go Home.” “Christ” ended with the line “You break my heart/every night when you fall apart.” Somehow, with this band whose lyrics so often flirt with hitting rock bottom, that line felt appropriate to end the night on.
Photography by Suzanne Walsh
