The Swimming Pool Q’s “Firing Squad for God” 1987. EP. DB Records. Today’s pull a totally random pick. I’m guessing this was purchased at a used record store in the late 80’s, but for some reason but I’m not familiar with the band and don’t recall ever listening to it much, if at all. So it feels like a fresh new listen!

The Q’s, according to some quick online research, are from Atlanta, GA and formed in 1978. They are classified as a new wave band but I’m not sure that label fits as I listen to this record (I cannot speak about their other releases). Perhaps “new wave” was thrown around as freely as “indie” is today; it simply provides labels and record stores a way to classify music that might otherwise be non-classifiable or belongs in its own teeny tiny subcategory. Another reference given to their music is “folk pop gone country,” but I don’t think this is necessarily accurate either, though they do employ blowharp and “pipes of pie pan on nut plate” on this recording, so I guess maybe that’s folk-pop-country? I was unable to find any links to songs from this EP but here is some awesome footage from their performance of “Big Fat Tractor” on Dance-o-Rama, a new wave TV dance party on Atlanta public access.

Vocally it feels rather Peter Murphy-esque, but without as much doom and gloom (it’s hard to feel gloomy when a blowharp is in the mix). The track “Reprisidente” on side 2 is just plain manic with gobs of guitar and vocal distortion.  According to the band’s website, this EP is a satire of televangelism which in 1987 had reached its zenith and then saw its rapid decline with the Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker sex and fraud scandal.