Charleston City Paper

Back Home from The Deep End

The Swimming Pool Q’s

by T. Ballard Lesemann III

Atlanta’s durable and unpredictable Swimming Pool Q’s were busy cranking out their own eclectic brand of “new wave” jangle-rock in the day. They’re still at it with full force. Guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Jeff Calder-a Charleston native-formed the band in Atlanta mid 1978 with guitarist Bob Elsey and vocalist-keyboardist Anne Richmond Boston. Through various lineups, this core unit led the Q’s through a successful 11 year run, which included several major tours and the release of four full-length albums. Touring the South this summer and fall behind a “20th Anniversary Collection” version of their musically quirky and sophisticated debut album, The Deep End, The Q’s are set for something of a homecoming to Charleston this week.

“We’ve been playing the Windjammer since the early 80s!” laughs Calder. “The place we played in Charleston was the Dancing Bear on Folly Beach back in late ’79. For many years, there weren’t many places for a band like ours to play in Charleston in that early stage.

When I was growing up, South Carolina was never a place that had a very strong original [rock] music scene,” he adds. “It’s changed slowly. There was nothing comparable to what happened in Atlanta and Athens in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It was a little slower in coming around. Obviously, in the past ten years, there’ve been some highly successful bands that have come out of it. It’s a strange to me because it’s such a unique place, and the irony has always been that South Carolina has never produced too many artists, writers, or musicians of highly original stature.”

The Q’s released the new version of the musically quirky and sophisticated debut, 1981’s The Deep End (DB Recs), this summer. The album features an extensive essay/booklet-something of a musical autobiography written by Calder-detailing the vibrant “pre-new wave” and rock ‘n’ roll scenes in and around Atlanta in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

“I felt that it was the right time to begin a historical evaluation of The Swimming Pool Q’s, and what better place to begin than the beginning.” says Calder.

The booklet includes photos of all of the various Q’s (drummer Robert Schmid and bassists Pete Jarnukas, Billy Jones, and J.E. Garnett, and others) and provides insight to the band’s early years when they rubbed elbows and shared stages with such “new wave” luminaries as The Police, The B-52’s, The Talking Heads and Devo. R.E.M. and Love Tractor opened for the Q’s at The Deep End “Album Release Party” in Athens in September 1981.

“A number of writers have commented recently on how fresh ‘The Deep End’ sounds after all these years,” remarks Calder. “If this is so, I would like to add that it is due in no small measure to the lead guitar playing of Bob Elsey, who was hardly more than 20 years old when we tracked the album. His guitar solos have always displayed an extraordinary range, but, as far as I’m concerned, if we never cut another record after The Deep End, his performances here rank among the greatest and most unique to ever come out of this region.”

“I can’t even remember any of the lyrics,” adds Anne Richmond Boston. “I have to have cheat sheets on stage nowadays!”

After The Deep End, the band inked a deal with A&M. 1984’s Swimming Pool Q’s stepped away from the slight, punkish aggression and moved toward a more fully realized, song-oriented “guitar-pop” sound. Calder’s and Boston’s growing facility with the songwriting craft was evident on such college radio hits as “Pull Back My Spring”, “Purple Rivers”, and “The Bells Ring.” Blue Tomorrow, released in 1986 was an even more sophisticated pop-album with a bit more raw growl and emotional aggression, as heard on the title track, “Corruption,” and “She’s Lookin Real Good (When She’s Lookin.)”

After the EP The Firing Squad For God for DB Recs in 1987, Boston exited the band. Calder and the guys pressed on and released an unusually slick-sounding World War Two Point Five in 1989 for Capitol Records. By 1992, The Swimming Pool Q’s had tired of life on the road and took an extended break.

According to Calder, the Q’s never really “broke up,” although they unofficially disbanded for a spell around 1990. Calder concentrated on composing and recording music and writing journalistic pieces during the ‘90s. In recent years, he put serious time into tracking tunes for what became the forthcoming Q’s album, The Royal Academy of Reality.

In 1999, Calder re-assembled the classic Q’s lineup with late-era drummer Billy Burton and new bassist Tim DeLaney of The Sightseers.

“I read quite often that our lineup has changed a lot over the years, but, the fact is, The Swimming Pool Q’s have been a remarkably stable group, given certain financial considerations,” says Calder.

A hint of Southern nostalgia, regional references, and romanticism runs through all of the Swimming Pool Q’s music thanks to Calder’s colorful lyrics. The 49-year old spent his first 14 years growing up in the Lowcountry and feels the experience relocating from the Holy City to what he calls a “flimsy” culture in Florida helped shape his satirical wit and romantic sensibilities.

“The shock between the very old world of Charleston in which I grew up and the world I encountered in a prefabricated state like Florida left a strong impression on me,” he says. “The tension between those two things is throughout a lot of the Swimming Pool Q’s music.”

The band will be performing songs from every period of their 23 year career at the show this weekend- from The Deep End material and unreleased cuts through Blue Tomorrow and the forthcoming album (Calder calls it “typically over-elaborate in the traditional Q’s way”).

“It should be fun,” says Boston. “We’re not really trying to accomplish anything more than just playing music.”