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 > Leonard C. Carter (1) > Black Rooster Tie Hanger

"Could This Possibly be Jeff's First Public Performance?"

The year was 1968 and the place was Lakeland, Florida, where Jeff and I were juniors at Lakeland High School. Jeff was working at a "fine men's store", Maddox's, under the supervision of a 1950's beatnik who became one of Jeff's early mentors, Mr. John Dickson. I was lead guitarist in a 5-man local cover band, The Prone Position, just embarking on a successful two year stint. The Prone Position had played in public once before, and now had been booked to perform at a private party for (then State) Senator Lawton Chiles' son. The party was to take place in the basement of the Polk Federal Savings and Loan, a building still standing today
in downtown Lakeland. As fate would have it, the Prone Position's singer came down with mononucleosis a week before the fabled night, and Jeff agreed to stand in for the crippled crooner.

After 1 or 2 hurried practices and considerable pruning of the Prone Position's limited repertoire, the now historic evening arrived. The band setup and sound-tested the equipment, then I drove to Maddox's Men's Store to chauffeur Jeff to the event. Arriving at the store I found Jeff in full regalia with a back cape, hurriedly snapping the heads off of black rooster tie hangers and stuffing them into all available pockets. John Dickson and I proceeded to drench J.F. in colognes and aftershaves from every sample bottle on the display counter until he reeked
like a French whore. Driving to the Polk Federal Savings and Loan building, Jeff and I planned his grand entrance.

I proceeded downstairs to the party, strapped on my guitar and announced into a microphone, "It's good to see everybody here tonight. As many of you know, our lead singer is sidelined with mono and so tonight we have a special guest.....Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to introduce THE BLACK COCK!" Jeff strolled into the room tossing handfuls of black cock heads into the crowd, and we immediately started into our first set.

A good time was had by all, we got paid, and to this day legend has it that at midnight during a full moon, the moans of "Twilight Zone and Torture Chamber" can be heard in the darkened basement of the Polk Federal Savings and Loan building in downtown Lakeland.
--Lo Carter
Lakeland High School Class of 1969