The Swimming Pool Q's - Deep End Press

Royal Academy of Reality

Royal Academy of Reality is an ambitious and successful summer blockbuster of a release...a sexy tour de force...glorious odes to the solar system. It's an anthem of the sun that would bust out in blows against the empire if anyone had the energy to launch a wooden ship, much less a rocket.

--VILLAGE VOICE

Possibly the most progressive American rock record of the new century. It sets an artistic standard few bands will be able to match.

--THE STATE

Overflowing with musical and intellectual ideas...flat-out astonishing.

--WIRE U.K.

Pocket symphonies of silvery guitar and warm-water singing: Abbey Road wrapped in kudzu.
--ROLLING STONE

A lavish record that's as cryptic as R.E.M. and as expansive as The Flaming Lips...warm and humane rather than aridly cerebral...their time may have come. 4 STARS.
--Q MAGAZINE U.K.

A gorgeous disc from a unique band that has been out of action too long.
--WASHINGTON POST

GRADE: A: Repeat listenings of Reality yield countless new pleasures.
--ATLANTA JOURNAL

A sprawling 70-minute voyage into deep space.
--CREATIVE LOAFING

The striking scale and superb craft of this album are impressive by any standard.

--ALL MUSIC GUIDE

This is one terrific album...a spectacular sound, one that overflows with sheer exuberance and invention...a strikingly original piece of work, and proof positive that in the grand tradition of Sgt. Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon, imagination and ambition are still vital ingredients when it comes to making music that really matters.
--SOUTH FLORIDA'S ENTERTAINMENT

NEWS & VIEWS

A rock and roll Gravity's Rainbow.
--AMPLIFIER

Exquisitely crafted songs [that] burst on the ear with the sudden force and electric sizzle of an August thunderstorm. Others open like furled flower buds, petal by petal, with imagery that's both winsome and passionate.
--TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT

Administration

Deep End Press > Boston Phoenix (1) > Boston Phoenix

BOSTON PHOENIX Issue Date: October 25 - November 1, 2001

BY BRETT MILANO

The Swimming Pool Q’s

THE DEEP END (DB)

For about a month, Atlanta’s Swimming Pool Q’s seemed the band most likely to put Georgia on the musical map. As it was, their 1981 debut album (along with Pylon’s debut the same year, and the B-52s’ a year earlier) went a long way toward establishing the Peach State as the land of jittery rhythms, quirky lead singers, surf guitar, and a strange but friendly sensibility. Long out of print, that minor classic makes its CD debut on the band’s own label (yes, they’re still together); it’s coupled with another album’s worth of outtakes and extensive liner notes (by singer/guitarist Jeff Calder) that put the early-’80s Atlanta/Athens scene in context.

At the time there was no shame in being a college party band as long as you played the parties that the weird art students went to ("Rat Bait," a song apparently written as a good excuse to shout its title, captures what those parties sounded like). Anne Richmond Boston got the more poignant vocal numbers; the opening "Little Misfit" is rather touching and shows a melodic pop side that the band weren’t interested in developing yet (that would come on their later major-label releases). Alluding to everything from Johnny Cash to Captain Beefheart, the remaining tracks reveal how many good ideas can result when you’re willing to try anything: along with one of its era’s greatest song titles, "Model Trains (Are Better Than Rock ’n’ Roll)" sports a muttery vocal and a jangly lead guitar. If the future R.E.M. members weren’t actively taking notes, they were probably out tapping the keg.