Pulse!-Tower Records Music Monthly

The Swimming Pool Q’s--The Deep End

by David Greenberger

(DB) There’s no shortage of early-‘80s indie releases that now wobbly resonate with either nostalgic quaintness or full-blown annoyance. The reappearance of the debut by the Swimming Pool Q’s shows that the bothersomely labeled new wave years did indeed foster some vital and lasting works. The set’s original 11 tracks are joined by a full dozen more, with everything delivering a sonic wallop missing from the 1981 vinyl. One of the finest bands to come out of Atlanta, the Q’s were as unaligned with the collegiate strum bands from Athens as they were with the earlier crop of Macon-based boogie-mongers. Jeff Calder’s songs mix confident literary poetics with a journalist’s eye for local color. His vocals, full of bluster and character, contrast perfectly with the sweet melodic ache and mysteriously spiritual resonance of Anne Richmond-Boston. And all the while guitarist Bob Elsey uses his prodigious chops to create a crazy stew of dada-blues angularity mixed with surreally twisted stadium-rock stances.

Pulse! September 2001