The Swimming Pool Q's - Jeff Calder's 50th Birthday Memoirs

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

Jeff Calder's 50th Birthday Memoirs > Bo Howard (1) > JeffCalder1969

1. I have known "Pickles" since he was about 14. In 11th grade he placed a telephone order to the A.B.C package liquor store and left the callback # as Miss Thrift's 11th grade Honors English class where Becky Covington (now Mrs. J.F. Calder) was in attendence. Miss Thrift, a Methodist college President's daughter, was, to say the least, only mildly amused. She did however regain her sense of humor when the suspicion arose in her mind that there could be only one person capable of such a prank, and that said person was no doubt engaging in some bizarre form of ritual courtship with one Miss Covington. Those that realised that only Calder could be behind this were in tears having just witnesssed Miss Thrift's first experience with any form of alcohol, even though it was only verbal.

2. Calder had himself inserted in the National Honor Society (of which he was not a member at the time) yearbook group shot and was able to have his name listed as "Randy Pego". Calder being the devout student of Victorian pornographic literature knew that the translation of Randy Pego meant "horney penis"!

You might ask him to justify how he let his parents brand new car be driven 12 miles on the railroad tracks from Lakeland to Plant City. I, for one, have no idea. As you know, this is a man of true genius who was universally revilled by the less cerebral members of our class, i.e. the football team, but they could never quite catch up with him. Wonder Why?