MT Swag, the diabolical alter ego of an East Nashville household, reverted toward the dark side of the dual personality vein last night, erupting with a night of manic swagger. The zenith, a set by local mobsters Mom and Dad, was the opportunity and right of gumption to set the house afire with a radicalism that set the impassioned crowd into frenzied motion. Before all was said and done, the band converted their raw impressionism of simplifying instrumentation and harmonies into an even subtler take on combining experimentation with a foundation of no-strings-attached rock ’n’ roll thrills.
Mom and Dad is a four piece hailing from the college town of Murfreesboro, Tenn. Claiming to make real instruments cool again, the band starves wonderment for the rawness of minimal fidelity. But I do have to wonder when “real instruments” were ever not cool. The image conjured when thinking of instruments has taken a viscous turn away from the mad hatter rawness of creating each song with a hit or strum and toward the choreographed electronics of artificial sounds which are cool and real, but a long way from the old ma-and-pa two-step of the spoon and jug bands. No one wants to jam their laptop into the side of a base drum at the end of a show. When someone does that, I will be a fan ’til the end.
Mom and Dad keeps the computer at home, exchanging digital devices for guitars, drums and amps, and never apologizing at the end of each gig if something gets broken. Mom and Dad seems to try and undercut their more rockist ambitions with dissonant textures and queasy atmospherics, or lace their prettiest ballads, like "TV Screen Fantasy Dream," with subversively ominous lyrics. Check out the guys and gals on February 9 at the 5 Spot in Nashville. – David Wright