11/11/2023
Two musicians who played on "The Language of Birds", the debut album by The Hot Place (Jeff Calder of The Swimming Pool Q's and Richard Lloyd- Television) are both featured on this new Punk Rock box set! Very Cool!
“Rat Bait”, the Swimming Pool Q’s’ 1979 debut single has just been reissued as part of “Blank Generation: A Story of U.S. / Canadian Punk and Its Aftershocks 1975-1981”. It’s a spectacular 5-CD box set of singles with a booklet documenting the era. Curated by the U.K. label, Cherry Red Records, it includes Blondie, The Cramps, Devo, Patti Smith Group, Television, The Ramones, and, of course, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, plus our Georgia colleagues, The Method Actors and Pylon. “Rat Bait” is the first song co-written by Q’s singer Jeff Calder and lead guitarist Bob Elsey. This is the original version recorded at Hitmakers Studios, a repurposed produce market in Ybor City, Florida. (It would be re-cut for “The Deep End”, the 1981 DB RECS album.) “Rat Bait” is sourced from the original 45 RPM Vinyl released on Chlorinated Records, and like all 130 tracks on “Blank Generation”, it sounds fantastic.
The following excerpt is from Jon Harrison’s liner notes, featuring the 45 sleeve and band photo by Richard Perez: “Folks who think of Atlanta’s Q’s as strictly a southern jangle-pop band of the kind that grew thick after R.E.M. became the Beatles of college radio should note that this record predates the Athens foursome by a year or two, and further, no Rickenbackers here, but a lurching Beefheart groove over which vocalist Jeff Calder spits a character sketch of a fellow who sounds like one of Flannery O’Connor’s peripheral miscreants.”
Release Date Nov. 17, 2023, and the pre-order is available now at:
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/blank-generation-a-story-of-us-canadian-punk-its-aftershocks-1975-1981-various-artists-5cd-book-set/?fbclid=IwAR0QyYfKr1Z3qQJ2PajVjKaMi9jT0-nOiUDIo573zxdoXi-2qitqm3sevaM
