July 14—O’Leavers, Omaha
Words by Braden Rapp//Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
My nine year old fingers curl deftly around a pink paint splattered GPX Walkman. Its insides casing the shimmering tape of a newly purchased cassette copy of Ace of Base’s “The Sign.” The bittersweet orange of an illuminated Phar-Mor sign backlights the silhouette of my mother’s face as she turns and speaks, “Why don’t we put your new tape in the car stereo? You know….so we can all listen to it together.”

What kind of nine year old would I be to object? My hands pull apart that little pink GPX like some flimsy oyster, and with slight reluctance I pass the tape forward. My father reaches from the front seat and the Ace of Base hand-off is complete. He takes a minimal glom at the newly unpackaged cassette and shoves it into the player. We begin our trip home to the simple Swedish backbeat of “All That She Wants.” As if they had rehearsed this very scenario, my parents begin their onslaught of disapproval.

Father says: “ Scoff Scoff, first it’s a hot baby pink GPX personal tape player, now it’s the infectious femininity of some nancy Swedes! What’s next?! A dress!?” (It was probably more of just a curious glance backward….but we all know a father’s eyes can say so much!)

Mother says: “Now when she says, ‘All that she wants is another baby, hey-ey,’ does she mean….an actual baby, or another lover.”

I say: Something truly sheepish, and shrink into the warm interior of our family’s explorer.…and so on.

If I were to trace my musical taste backward, I am fairly certain this is the point at which I developed my wariness of unabashed pop sugar. By no means does said wariness have any weight on how much I love such sugar, because I do, and dearly so. I’m just unable to digest it as quickly as it begs me to – a fact which has given way to a necessary desire in me. There must be some nasty, gritty teeth discreetly underlying the confection; some semblance of substance that keeps me coming back. I’m sure I am not the only who functions this way.

It’s precisely this kind of caution before the pop alter that had me so conflicted when I first attempted to dive deep into Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s debut. Its melodies are pristine. Its hooks are infectious. Its instrumentation: chamberific! Combine those elements with the undeniably smooth vocal delivery, and you really do get a fantastic record, but its lack of discernable bite had me buggin’. My hope was that the opportunity to see the ol’ Nuclear So and So’s live would clarify my befuddlement regarding their recorded work.

Friday Evening:

I’d never been to O’Leavers before, but I was well aware of their constant influx of live music. I was expecting a quaint little smoke-filled dive. I walked into a quaint little smoke filled dive with walls scaled by hundreds of record sleeves. My eyes scanned the likes of Springsteen, Toto, and the Fame OST as I seated myself.

Mal Madrigal opened the night. Stylistically they play a fare that isn’t too far removed from what the Omaha music scene has become known for. A simplistic folk approach, rife with lyrical trappings that never stray far from something sinful. I heard direct mention of corpses, bloody rushes, husbands that are none the wiser to their wives ultra infidelities, and breathing problems. This night they played as a duo, which accentuated the brilliant musical accoutrements of multi-instrumentalist, Ben Brodin. His vibraphone runs, pump organ swells, and outright floor tom/cymbal crash assaults were perfect for pushing Steve Bartolomei’s (Mayday, Orenda Fink, No Blood Orphan, et al.) vivid imagery, and down home folk country chordin’ out of the realm of intelligent singer/songwriter territory, and into the glow of beautiful orchestration.

Slid between Mal Madrigal and Margot was Dan McCarthy (Mayday, Bright Eyes, et al. ). Think the kind of charm that George Costanza exudes on a good day. Blend that sweetly with starkly strummed guitar, classic gospel country, songs about hookers, and a pretty standard rendition of Henry Lee. That amalgam is more or less the entirety of what Dan McCarthy hit us with. Not a bad bout of musical exercise, but as is the adverse of all exercise, someone is going to get tired. I’ll wager more than a few of us suffered the fatigue, but luckily touring has obviously honed the So and So’s skills of setup. They had managed to cart in and assemble their musical array with such hasty adroitness that languor had barely any time to manifest.

They looked ragged, but not worn. Buzzed, but not bashed, and undoubtedly more motley than their silky debut suggests. Richard Edwards clumsily swaggered behind the microphone and proclaimed that he had written the first song we were to hear just that afternoon while in a park. The song was pretty, but served merely as a bridge. The band hugged the floor and sat out this number, whether or not it was truly as impromptu as Edwards had wanted us to believe, I’ve no clue. The song’s conclusion leads almost seamlessly into “Skeleton Key,” followed by “Vampires in Blue Dresses.” Both songs are apparent standouts on “The Dust of Retreat,” and live they are simply incredible. Any urgency lacked or lost in the recording is more than made up for. “Casey Tennis,” whose prance-dance pop ‘n locks would have made Prince-era Carmen Electra feel slighted, molested a bevy of auxiliary percussion pieces. The kind of bombast that man creates with a couple of mallets likely can’t be rivaled. Aside from the thump-bumping beats, the rest of the band swam through melodies like gum purportedly does through bile. I found that the songs lost a lot of their sheen in this setting, and much to their benefit. Edwards’ voice cracked and roughly emphasized lines with a sneer that isn’t at all as evident on record. For the first time the nightmare in “Paper Cat Nightmare” was palpable, even if subtle. The dimension was much more realized. That is exactly what I was hoping for. The songs that are great on record (“Skeleton Key,” “Vampires in Blue Dresses,” “Quiet as a Mouse,” “Dress Me Like a Clown”) sounded even better slightly roughed up. A rule for every song they played, even the solely Rhodes, guitar, and voice renditions of “Talking in Code” and a superb new song, which they closed with.

Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s did exactly what a band such as they need to do. Sate an Ace of Base loving nine year old in me, as well as toothy emphatic rock’n roll hound.