It’s hard not to have some sort of pre-conceived notion of what to expect from a band with a name as goofy as Margot & The Nuclear So-And-So’s, but the reality of the band is almost certainly not what you might think. The Indianapolis-based outfit isn’t some rollicking whiskey joint house band (which was what my imagination supposed), but a rather elegant ensemble crafting lushly orchestrated slices of heart-in-teeth, rootsy but occasionally rocking indie-mope reminiscent of Matt Pond PA and Nada Surf.

Their debut album, The Dust Of Retreat, originally came out in 2005 but is being re-released by Artemis on March 28 with some remixing, remastering and re-recording. Though it occasionally skirts a little too close to the emo-folk end of things, the record is a wholly engaging listen both musically and lyrically and the band is remarkably tight and focused, especially for an eight-piece. The band are playing a slew of showcases at SxSW but their main one is at Nuno’s on March 16 at 8PM. They will also be in town on April 3 with South for a show at Lee’s Palace. Lots of MP3s from Musical Family Tree, including these two tracks from Dust Of retreat. And there’s also a MySpace page, natch.

MP3: Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s – “Skeleton Key”
MP3: Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s – “Barfight Revolution, Power Violence”

Harp advises you to forget everything you thought you knew about Calexico before picking up Garden Ruin when it’s released on April 11. Kevchino.com also has an interview with Joey Burns and Stereogum has some MP3s – one of their contribution to the John Fahey tribute album and one from the new record. The Garden Ruin track sounds amazing.

Mogwai’s Mr Beast hit stores Tuesday, and even after just a couple days I’m finding it a huge improvement over Happy Songs For Happy People. They’ve discovered the sinister sonic possibilities of the piano and seem to have found a perfect meeting place between noise and melody in which to reside – it’s great. They skipped Toronto over for their present March tour but will do us the honour of coming back to play the Phoenix on May 16. Even four years on from the last time I saw them, my ears still tremble at the thought of being exposed to Mogwai-scale volume, but I think I’m ready to give it another go. And Prefix has the video for “Friend Of The Night”.

Neko Case has finally made public her long-overdue new website, just in time for the release of Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, currently kicking ass at Metacritic and in my CD player. While the songs themselves are still sinking in, the sounds are rapturous. Her voice, the production, the arrangements, the performances… whew.

Someone ripped off Film School’s van – and all their gear in it – in Philadelphia. Pitchfork has the astonishing true crime story, while the list of missing gear is up on their MySpace page. A few shows have been cancelled but their SxSW appearances are still on.

Elbow’s April 18 show in Toronto now has a venue – they will be performing at the Opera House. And Elefant are at the Mod Club with Sound Team on May 12.

Jon Auer of Posies fame will finally release his debut solo record Songs From The Year Of Our Demise on May 2. This thing has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for something on the order of years, so the fact that it’s actually finally seeing the light of day is remarkable.

Being There takes a look back at comic books that have made the jump from the funny pages to the big screen, just in time for the new trailer for X-Men 3, aka The Last Stand, to hit the interweb.

And also, check out the confirmed cast for the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’ Stardust. Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro and Claire Danes? Wow, that’s some respectable star power. I will have to re-read the book to remind myself of who they might be playing.

Stereophile fears the iPod. Via Largehearted Boy.

np – Mogwai / Mr Beast

With his “Does anyone still care” mini-tour from last Fall proving to be quite the success, Rob Dickinson was in town last night just five months after his triumphant show at the Horseshoe last October. The positive response he got must have been encouraging, because this time around he jettisoned the second guitarist and keyboardist and did things truly solo, just him and an acoustic guitar.

It’s a testament to this city’s persistent adoration for Dickinson and Catherine Wheel that he was able to nearly fill Lee’s Palace on a Tuedsay night and so soon after coming through town the first time. Unlike last time, where he drew only from Fresh Wine For The Horses up until the end of the set, he opened last night with “Heal”, and split the set evenly between CW and solo material. The crowd, for their part, was willing to meet Rob halfway and was almost as appreciative of the new material as the classics. Also contributing to the atmosphere was Rob’s rather jovial mood – in chatting with the audience, the vibe was not unlike an episode of VH1 Storytellers. He prefaced “Little Muscle” with some comments about the Colin Farrell sex tapes and “Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck” was dedicated to American Idol. Overall the atmosphere was great and once again, Rob was terrific. And it’s worth noting the number of hints and asides he made about his old band – it would not shock me one bit to see a full-fledged Catherine Wheel reunion sooner rather than later. Almost certainly before a second Dickinson solo disc comes to be.

Photos here and as a footnote, The Cleveland Free Times has an interview with Rob.

Pitchfork had a chat with Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson just before the start of their current North American tour while Being There revisits the band’s early works.

Some release info – Sigur Ros will release a new EP for Saeglopur in April and The Futureheads’ News And Tributes will be out May 23. They give NME a sneak preview. Finally the new one from Australia’s Sleepy Jackson, still untitled, has a May 30 release date. Looking forward to this one – Lovers was a great record.

Some show info – Most of this year’s edition of The Over The Top Fest has been announced, and once again it’s going to be a super-solid long weekend of music in Toronto come early May. Initially the most exciting show to me is the Shameless-sponsored showcase with Asobi Seksu, PAS/CAL and Ohbijou at Sneaky Dee’s on May 6, but there’s lots more worth seeing on the sched, and there’s still a few more shows forthcoming. Also, Elephant 6-ers The Minders are in town August 5 at a venue to be determined, and My Morning Jacket will be opening up for Pearl Jam’s upcoming North American tour, including the first two dates of the whole shebang at the Air Canada Centre on May 9 and 10.

I don’t really know how this will affect me in real practical terms, but in principle, I wholeheartedly approve.

24: So how intense does an episode have to be to warrant a double-shot midway through the season? Mmm, fairly intense. Ep 1: So how exactly does skid-boy get in touch with the terrorists to sell the keycard? Did he put an ad on Craigslist? Best moment from the hospital: Chemical weapons guy – “It could detonate if you move it”. Curtis’ look – “I just told you that five minutes ago, you dillweed”. And that was the worst hospital evacuation job I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously. “Put everyone in the parking lot! And park the CTU vehicles way at the back, behind all the people!” Ugh. Ep 2: Look! Kim! Arriving at CTU just in time to be taken hostage! AWESOME. And she brought a boyfriend! Quick, everyone lay odds on what limb he’s going to lose. Anyone notice the name that keycard boy put on it? Mark Marcus. Yeah, that’s inconspicuous. Best line of the night was Audrey on Kim: “I think she’s a little confused”. Hell, I’ve been saying that for five seasons now. Poor hot CTU chick – dead and all Edgar’s fault. But I guess it seems a little crass to blame him for that now… But yeah. That was pretty good. And when I read this story the other day (http://www.theeagle.com/stories/030706/nation_20060307017.php), I couldn’t help thinking about CTU’s crack (smoking) security staff.

np – Neko Case / Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

Though usually despicable, sometimes crowd chatter at a gig can be a useful thing. For example, at last night’s Toronto debut at Lee’s Palace by New Yorkers Dirty On Purpose, after the band would finish playing a song and the modestly-sized crowd applauded, there would be this huge, awkward silence in the room while they tuned up. Before too long, someone in the band would step up with some banter, but not before it was made very clear that – hey, it’s quiet in here.

But not so quiet when they were playing. The band wields a near-perfect balance between noise and pop, most of the former courtesy of resident guitar-abuser George Wilson. I could see why the band’s setup gave him the bulk of the onstage real estate – he whipped around like a dervish up there while spewing fuzz from his Jazzmaster. His Sonic Youth tribute act was in perfect balance with the buoyant melody and harmonies of the vocals, the band colouring outside the lines just enough. It took a few songs to get the mix right, with the softness of the singing so easily drowned out by the wall of sound, but once that was sorted out, it sounded sublime. A real improvement from when I first saw them at SxSW last year, under a tent on a patio. It sounded pretty much like “KKKKKKHHHHHHHHKHHHHHHH”. But somehow still in a good way.

The set list consisted of almost all new material from their forthcoming Hallelujah Sirens album – only one song from Sleep Late For a Better Tomorrow made the cut, but they did pull out an old track, “Monument” (which will also resurface on the album), for an unplanned encore after being called back by the small but completely won-over audience, and the blistering instrumental was an excellent way to cap off the show. There’s no doubt that they’ll be back in town sooner or later, and when they are you’ll be wishing you could say you were one of the two-dozen or so who saw them last night. And here are some piccies from last night. Update: The band is keeping a tour diary!

Big new release day today! Let’s see what people are saying.

I pre-ordered Centro-Matic’s latest Fort Recovery a little while ago, but only got it late last week, just a few days before its proper release date today. On the first few listens, it seems a little less rocking than Love You Just The Same but it does feature some of Will Johnson’s prettiest melodies ever. I think time will prove this one to be another small classic. D/FW’s WFAA (Bugmenot) and their hometown Denton Record-Chronicle
(Bugmenot) both have features on the band, who will be in town at the Horseshoe on April 5.

Mogwai’s Stuart Brathwaite tells Metromix about stuff he hates, and Barry Burns tells The Cavalier Daily he’s proud of the band’s noise AND volume and The Columbia Spectator about domesticity. Mr Beast is out on Tuesday and while on their American tour, they’ve set up a website that will let you follow the band around the country as they leave a trail of bleeding eardrums and savaged musician egos in their wake. Interesting thing about that map – Vaughan appears, Toronto does not.

Even though Macleans just ran a piece on Neko Case last week, they’ve got another this week. The Washington Post asks the Virginian about her DC-area roots and a reminder that she’ll be on Letterman on Thursday night.

And what kind of a world do we live in where you have to go to AOL to hear streams both Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (via BrooklynVegan) and Mogwai’s Mr Beast?

Isobel Campbell, who has recovered from the bout of flu that forced her to cancel Saturday’s Toronto shows, talks to InsideBayArea.com and PopMatters about Ballad Of The Broken Seas. I haven’t forgotten my contest from this weekend – I will be drawing names sometime today.

Once again, 24 commentary will be delayed this week. I was out last night and mis-programmed my VCR – I left the tuner on the wrong channel, so anyone who wants to talk Degrassi: The Next Generation, bring it on. In the meantime, I give you this – PopMatters frets about the frequent use of torture as a means to a just end on the show and Wayfaring.com presents Jacktracker – a Google Maps mod that follows Jack Bauer’s adventuers in and around LA.

RIP, Kirby Puckett.

np – Saturday Looks Good To Me / Sound On Sound

According to the band’s website, all three Canadian dates on Serena Maneesh’s North American tour have been cancelled. They were due to be at Lee’s Palace on March 30, but it doesn’t appear that that’s happening anymore? A case of our crack(-smoking) immigration folks persecuting the Norwegians again? This affects me very little since a) I wasn’t going to be able to make it anyway and b) they’re everywhere at SxSW (I count four shows at least), so I’ll have no excuse not to catch them there. But for Canadians with a jones for Scandanavian psych-glam-shoegaze, here’s hoping they get whatever the problem is sorted out sooner or later.

But in better news, they’ve been picked up by the new label in the Beggars family, Playlouderecordings, and their self-titled sophomore album will get a release in North American on May 23. Originally released last year in Europe the record has gotten some rave reviews and ranked a respectable 29 on Pitchfork’s best of 2005 list. Whether this works for or against them is entirely up to you. What I’ve heard of them so far is definitely catching my ear. Give them a listen on MySpace and in addition to the MP3 below, Buddyhead has one on offer as well.

MP3: Serena Maneesh – “Un-Deux”

Another album scheduled to come out May 23 on a Beggars-affilitated label, this time 4AD, is the new full-length from Mojave 3. Originally supposed to be out tomorrow, Puzzles Of You was delayed by a couple months for various reasons but they are hoping to meet the new release date and maybe even have a video and single precede it.

Dirty On Purpose – whom you’ll all be coming out to see at Lee’s Palace tonight, right? – have added a couple of tracks from their forthcoming album Hallelujah Sirens to their MySpace page. “Light Pollution” is classic DoP but “No Radio” pleasantly suprises – horns!

Howling Bells’ self-titled debut album will be out on May 1 in the UK. No domestic release is in the cards as far as I can tell, so be prepared to pay import prices and for it to be worth it.

XpressMag says hi to Jens Lekman. Jens has confirmed his appearance at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, so hopefully that means some touring while he’s on the continent… and he’ll pop north of the border to visit his friends in The Hidden Cameras… and they’ll play some shows…

Nellie McKay and Eartha Kitt, together at last, courtesy of Harp.

Jenny Lewis interviews, new and old – Sign On San Diego has the new, Incendiary has the old, dating back to last Fall. Oh, and did you see the new contest I’ve got running? Free tickets! Enter enter enter.

Neil Gaiman discusses the now-commonplace trend of comics being turned into films for The Guardian. It’s true – there was a time when anything comic-related becoming a film, be it small-screen or big, was a rare event, which is how I ended up watching Trial Of The Incredible Hulk as a TV movie some 17 years ago (featuring Gimli as the Kingpin!). Now I have the luxury of being able to separate the good adaptations (Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men) from bad (Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher – both of them) and the world is a better place for it. But I admit that I still get tempted to see the dreck… old habits die hard. And ike Gaiman, I am cautiously optimistic about V For Vendetta, which opens March 17.

And whilst talking about movies… Crash? Best picture? Seriously?

np – Centro-Matic / Fort Recovery

Thunderegg / Open Book – The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004 (independent) This is easily the most ambitious and overwhelming submission I’ve gotten in ever. It’s a 108-page booklet and data CD-ROM (not an audio disc) containing eight of Thunderegg’s albums plus bonus tracks – all told, over 530 minutes of music. It’s like a pocket-sized box set. The liner notes are filled to the brim with lyrics for every song and charming little illustrations and a helpful table of contents for the whole package. Since there’s no real practical way to listen to 232 tracks (besides actually listening to them all), I went with a random sampling approach and was really surprised how consistent and good everything I heard was – some tracks are short instrumental pieces and nothing is really epic length, but there were no throwaways or blatant filler. The Egg is absurdly prolific but not at the expense of quality control. There’s a definite lo-fi, 4-track cassette aesthetic going on and that, plus the songwriting style, elicits some rather obvious Guided By Voices and Neutral Milk comparisons, but there’s far worse points of comparison. Will Georgantas, he who essentiall is Thunderegg, has true melodic gift and a wry, humourous (but not jokey) lyrical touch. I don’t know how long it’ll take me, but I intend of someday getting through everything here on the CD. We should all leave a legacy on this world so impressive. Want MP3s? The Egg is generous. Go here, close your eyes and click at random. That’s pretty much what I did. But if you want, I suggest starting here: MP3: Thunderegg – “What About (The Children)” MP3: Thunderegg – “The American Standard Is Slipping” Thunderegg @ MySpace And I swear my decision to write this record up this week had nothing to do with Stereogum doing the same a few days ago. Really.

Breakup Breakdown / She Went Black (Cordless) And at the other end of the spectrum was a package from Cordless Recordings, who despite ostebsibly being an e-label (and a subsidiary of Warner Bros), opted to send out this release in both CD and 7″ formats. I’d said some time ago that the easiest way to get me to listen to something was to send it on vinyl, and good to my word, I quickly popped this record (which was not only coloured, but the THICKEST piece of vinyl I’ve ever laid hands on) onto the turntable and give it a spin. Breakup Breakdown hail from New York City, and even if it didn’t say so in the bio, that’d have been my first guess. They trade in the sort of glam-garage party rock that people who don’t live in New York assume New Yorkers are making. Stompy, sleazy and slightly formulaic, but taken in small doses it doesn’t wear out its welcome. MP3: Breakup Breakdown – “She Went Black” Breakup Breakdown @ MySpace And I swear my decision to write this record up this week had nothing to do with Coolfer doing the same a few days ago. Really.

Men Women & Children / Men Women & Children (Nettwerk) And if you think New York City party music isn’t about the garage-glam but about the disco revival, then Men Women & Children is the band for you. They have all the requisite components of a band in service to the mirror ball, but with one extra crucial ingredient a lot of the others seem to have missed out on – the violins! I don’t know if they’re real or synthesized, but they’re there, they work and they’re guaranteed to make your platforms that much higher and your afro that much fuller. Their (terribly) self-titled album is out March 21 and they were just in town for Canadian Music Week – Chart was on the scene and wasn’t overwhelmed. They’ll be back on March 27 for a show at The Phoenix with Motion City Soundtrack. Men Women & Children @ MySpace

np – I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness / Fear Is On Our Side