Here's a taste of the Death Cab for Cutie Q&A from our May issue. Get the full story on newsstands, or in SPIN Digital (free registration required).

What's the Deal? Jack White's evil scheme failed, the one where he'd sneak the second Raconteurs album into stores today, under the cover of darkness, bypassing the customary press advance copies, so that all fans could hear the music for the first time at the same time, pure and untainted by critical white noise. But the album leaked Friday. On freakin' iTunes.

"Good evening, children of South by Southwest. Come to me."

Michael Stipe has long been considered a saintly father figure of sorts to indie rock nation, so why not greet the capacity crowd at Stubb's with a fitting benediction? Wearing a knit hat, scarf, sweater, and jacket, the R.E.M. frontman looked like he was more prepared to hail a cab uptown than lead his band through a 90-minute set designed to win over (and win back) an audience of jaded, beer-soaked cranks and bloggerati half his age. But the frenetic one-two punch of "Living Well's the Best Revenge" and "Mansized Wreath," the opening tracks from the redemptive new Accelerate, followed by a lacerating spin through Reckoning's "Second Guessing" a proved a more apt, more complicated greeting: We are not fucking around.

While your Kids in the Halls and your Monty Pythons prefer to make funny in large gangs, and your Flight of the Conchordses and your Little Britains prefer to work in more intimate pairs, Human Giant—currently launching the second season of their eponymous MTV series—constitute the rare three-man sketch-comedy act. "You always