Winter/Spring 2010 News

2010 News:

Jeff Calder  interviews Australian author Deirdre O'Connell about her book, "The Ballad of Blind Tom." She has also made documentaries for the Jimi Hendrix Estate and the United Nations Environment Program. It can be accessed on the GPB Cover to Cover website. The archive of interviews Jeff has conducted for Cover to Cover are available on the GPB Blog.

Jeff Calder's interview with Michael Gray for his book, "Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell" can be accessed on the GPB Cover to Cover website. The archive of interviews Jeff has conducted for Cover to Cover are available on the GPB Blog.

SPQ's Drummer Bill Burton returns to his movie making roots with, "My Sweet Misery." Burton was the Director of Photography for this independent film. You can read an interview with Bill at the Access Atlanta online article.

Photo by Adrian Sosebee

2009 News:

Jeff Calder's interview with the poet Coleman Barks airs 8 PM this Sunday August 9 on Georgia Public Broadcasting's literary show Cover-to-Cover. (WUGA in Athens and other stations statewide.) Coleman is the internationally renowned translator of the Sufi poet Rumi. It's a special one hour version ofCover-to-Coverthatspotlights Coleman in multiple musical formatsincludingperformances withTuatara, the world music combo featuring Peter Buck of R.E.M. It can be streamed live http://www.gpb.org/radio-streaming or accessed laterin the Cover-to-Cover archive http://www.gpb.org/covertocover/term.

From the GPB Cover-to-Cover blog: Coleman Barks is one of the most popular literary figures to emerge from the South in recent decades. In person, he is gentle and accommodating, not at all fearsome until he draws himself up to recite a poem. Then everything gets extra real in the manner of 800 BC. The great seductive power of his voice—fully evident in the interview that runs this Sunday, August 9 at 8 PM—seems to put the listener in touch with the time when language first began to express complex psychological states. Coleman has achieved an international profile as an interpreter of Rumi; his many translations of the Sufi poet have sold over a half-million copies worldwide.

He has written a half-dozen books of his own poetry, selections of which have recently been published under the title Winter Sky by the University of Georgia Press. He runs Maypop Books, a publishing company based in Athens, Georgia. He’s taken part in two hour-long PBS specials with Bill Moyers. Coleman has appeared on an astonishing variety of recordings, reciting his own poetry and Rumi’s against backgrounds of mandolins and oboes from the West, sitars and tablas from the East. 2008 marked the release of The Here and The Gone, his third collaboration with Tuatara, the world music combo featuring Peter Buck of R.E.M. A variety of these songs can be heard throughout this hour-long interview. In 2006, Coleman Barks received an Honorary Doctorate in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran. He taught at the University of Georgia for 30 years and has since retired as Professor Emeritus.

For more information about Coleman and the interview, please visit the GPB Cover-to-Cover blog http://gpbcovertocover.blogspot.com/

SPQ's Jeff Calder is referenced in Q&A about the recording of Siamese Dream w/ producer Butch Vig and engineer Jeff Tomei about the intro for the song "Hummer":

"The sitar was a coral sitar that belonged to a musician named Jeff Calder in an Atlanta band called the Swimming Pool Qs. We never recorded the real Sitar Billy brought in. I seem to remember Butch making a Loop in his Akai S-1000... I think Billy played it through an amp to get the distortion"-Jeff Tomei

Special Double Bill on St. Patrick's Day Weekend
THE SWIMMING POOL Q's & GLENN PHILLIPS BAND

The Swimming Pool Q's would like to thank Lakeland Music and Friends  for their presentation of The Q's at the Polk Theater in Lakeland Florida on April 26. Carey Blanton and Roi Cornish organized a spectacular event that attracted a crowd of over 800. Photos are available here.
The Q's first bassist, Billy Jones, sat in with the group on two early Q's songs including "Ballad of the Wildman". (You can read about and listen to the Wildman in Jeff Calder's acount of Florida in the 1970s, A Tomorrow of Moons.

Other artists on the bill were Conrad Oberg, Take Five with Franke Everett and Larry Berwald (Larry played acoustic guitar with The Q's in on Ballad of the Wildman), and The Mudbreakers featuring Charlie Souza and Danny Roberts.  Note: Danny has sustained a remarkable recovery from a near-fatal automobile accident the following week.


Jeff Calder's interviews with authors can be heard on Georgia Public Broadcasting's literary show Cover-to-Cover.  Poets featured include Sean Hill and Ed Pavlic. Hill's Blood Ties & Brown Liquor is an imagined history of Milledgeville, Georgia's African-American community. To access these interviews please click here.

Ed Pavlic's book is poetic appreciation of Donny Hathaway, the singer/musician/songwriter who committed suicide in 1979. Jeff's interview with historian James C. Cobb (Georgia Odyssey:  A Short History of Georgia) is forthcoming.

Advance tickets are available from Tiny Team Concerts. 

Guitar legend Richard Lloyd was cofounder of TELEVISION with TOM VERLAINE.  Supporting Richard in the Sufi Monkeys will be Television drummer BILLY FICCA. This is a rare stop on Richard's first Southeastern tour in more than two decades.  He'll be performing songs from his new album The Radiant Monkey (2008), as well as his own versions of old Television tunes.

The Q's will be appearing at The Hummingbird in Macon, Ga. on Friday, May 2nd.  For more information, visit: http://www.myspace.com/thebirdstage

The SPQ's will begin celebrating their 30th Anniversary with a special show, Living by Night in the Land of Opportunity Tour: Returning to Lakeland after 30 Years on the Road in the Music Business.  The show will be on Saturday, April 26th at the ornate,  historic Vaudeville-era movie palace, the Polk Theater in Lakeland, Florida.  Doors open at 6 p.m. The event was named after an essay written by Jeff Calder in the book, "Present Tense, Rock & Roll and Culture", edited by Anthony De Curtis, Duke University Press, 1992. For ticketing, and more information about the event, visit the Lakeland Music and Friends website.

On Saturday, March 15, St. Patrick's Day Weekend, The SWIMMING POOL Q's and THE GLENN PHILLIPS BAND will be appearing on at Red Light Café in Atlanta, Georgia.  Glenn Phillips Band plays at 8:30; The Swimming Pool Q's play at 10:30.  Jeff Calder of The Q's will also play keyboards and guitar with Glenn.  It will be an all ages, non-smoking event.  The Red Light Café is located at 553 Amsterdam Avenue in Atlanta, 403.874.7828

Q's Drummer Bill Burton suffered a broken jaw in an accident in December, 2007. We're happy to report his full recovery. Above you can see him enjoying his recuperation with the Queen Live DVD, getting it on with his 80's pointy Creepers.  Additionally, you can click here to visit the trailer for the new comedy series Bill shot for VH-1 featuring special guests such as Keifer Sutherland and Howie Mandel.

You may enjoy scrolling to the bottom of The Q's photo archive link to see some recently discovered shots of Jeff, Anne and Bob circa 1985 with Paul Shaffer of The David Letterman Show.  Paul/Q's photos by Diane Allinson. Click here to see photos.

The Pylon reissue of Gyrate Plus is finally available from DFA Records.  Here's a nice interview with bassist Michael Lachowski in Flagpole.

 Following their recent appearance at the Cox Capitol Theatre in Macon, sponsored by the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, The Q's are back by popular demand this Friday, November 2, appearing at The Hummingbird in downtown Macon.

www.hummingbirdstageandtaproom.com
430 Cherry St.
Macon, GA 31201
(478) 741-9130

 The Swimming Pool Q's will appear at the Cox Capitol Theatre in Macon, Georgia on October 23 for the Live @ Five concert sponsored by the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Also appearing will be Hank Vegas. Show starts at 5:30. Cox Capitol Theatre is located at 382 Second St. in downtown Macon.

In a special double bill, both THE GLENN PHILLIPS BAND and THE SUPREME COURT will be appearing on SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th at SCHROEDER'S in Rome, Georgia!

 On Friday, July 27, The Swimming Pool Q's will play Five Spot in Atlanta's Little Five Points community.  http://www.fivespot-atl.com/   Throughout the evening, The Q's will hit a number of rarely played songs from our 2003 disc Royal Academy of Reality. 

The Q's have recently had several successful regional dates, including a full house at the spectacular ballroom of Savannah's American Legion Post No. 135 and Roswell's Riverside Park, where 1500 people turned out.  Members of The Q's also joined Tom Gray, Charles Woolf and Keith Christopher of The Brains at an Atlanta benefit at Club 29 for the late producer/engineer/musician Mark Richardson.

The Q's will appear Saturday, July 7th, Roswell, GA at the Roswell Riverside Sounds concert series.  2 sets.  7:30 to 9 PM.

There is a new interview with Jeff and Bob in the Press section, from the Atlanta Journal Northside Review  By Adrianne M. Murchison

In June The Q's will be playing the following dates:

Friday, June 22 in Macon, Ga. The Hummingbird.
Saturday, June 23 in Savannah, Ga. American Legion Post No. 135, 8 p.m. door; A Tiny Team


Jeff Calder will perform with The Glenn Phillips Band on Saturday, June 2nd at Schroeders in Rome, Georgia at 8 p.m.

In May 2007 the Q's will play two dates in South Carolina.

The Windjammer at the Isle of Palms, SC on Thursday, May 10
Doc's Gumbo Grille in Columbia, SC on Friday, May 11.

The Q's played at International Pop Overthrow held in Atlanta at Vinyl onSaturday, February 24.  Bill Rea, the legendary bassist for Glenn Phillips Band was our special guest on fretless bass this evening.   Old friends Magnapop were also on the bill.

 The Swimming Pool Q's played at Doc's Gumbo Grille in Columbia, SC on Friday, Nov. 10.  In addition to performing songs from their classic repertoire, The Q's set featured selections from their most recent release Royal Academy of Reality and their album-in-progress, Suddenly Not Yet.

Saturday, August 26th The Q's with the Glenn Phillips Band at the Red Light Cafe, Atlanta. 8:30-GPB and 10:30- SPQ's.  For the first time in 20 years, the Q's will play "Wig of Sensation."

Jeff Calder appears in a promo spot for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim for the Brak Show and SeaLab2021 DVD box set release.  To see the video on the site click here. 

On Sunday, June 4, the Swimming Pool Q's will take part in the Wax & Facts Records 30th Anniversary celebration at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.   This should be an entertaining evening featuring The Selmanaires, Anna Kramer, Vietnam, Tim Lee Band, Good Friday Experiment, The Carbonas and more.  Beginning around 9, The Q's will perform several songs including the great Brains' hit,  "Money Changes Everything" with the song's composer, Tom Gray.  (Tom will also accompany the illustrious guitarist Kevin Dunn on "Nadine," his 1979 discombobulation of  the Chuck Berry standard.)  The event starts at 6:30.  More details at http://www.myspace.com/waxnfacts

Two nights before, on Friday, June 2, Q's guitarist Bob Elsey plays with the Hampton Grease Band reunion at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse. This is the group's first show with Col. Bruce Hampton in 33 years, so it should be a historic outing.  Opening act:  Thermos Greenwood!

The Swimming Pool Q's  appeared at noon on Saturday, May 27 at the Decatur Arts Festival on the gazebo stage. The wooden structure somehow survived the detonation of J.E. Garnett on bass.  We played many songs from our A&M albums, The Swimming Pool Q's and Blue Tomorrow.  Lots of out-of-town fans turned up, and it was most enjoyable affair.  Many thanks to the event for inviting us to play!

The Swimming Pool Q's date at Jake's Toadhouse on Saturday, May 20, was postponed.   The club's extensive renovation was not  completed in time for The Q's show with the Tim Lee Band and Shanghai Gesture.   We'll be in touch about a return date later this summer.

A note:  Tim Lee was a cofounder of the legendary Mississippi group, The Windbreakers. Concrete Dog, his new CD was released on April 11.  It is one of his strongest albums ever, and it  has a very funny cover shot which says it all.  Tim is an extremely versatile musician who has played with The Swimming Pool Q's and Mitch Easter's famous combo, Let's Active. www.timleemusic.com

The Swimming Pool Q's televised performance at the 2004 Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards Show  can be viewed on The Q's website.  Also, last week's "Big Fat Tractor" at Inman Park Festival is up on You Tube. 

Several unreleased studio cuts and live performances are stashed on the Q's site, including Geoffry Himes 1986 NPR All Things Considered review of Blue Tomorrow.

 Photos from www.concertshots.com of the Q's at the 3 Rivers Festival in Columbia, SC have been added to the Photo Gallery section. 

 Jeff Calder's interview with Clarence "Jockey" Etienne, the legendary drummer on Slim Harpo's "I'm A King Bee," appears in the Jan/Feb/Mar issue of Classic Drummer.  CD is an excellent magazine based in Marietta, Georgia. Visit their website at http://www.classicdrummer.com/archives/index.htm  and select the Clarence "Jockey" Etienne  link, or  Download the PDF file here: http://www.classicdrummer.com/archives/vdmarchives/The_Jockey.pdf

The Swimming Pool Q's are preparing material for a new album.

On Saturday, August 27, 2005, at the Red Light Café in Atlanta, Jeff Calder and Bob Elsey of The Swimming Pool Q’s joined original Hampton Grease Band members Jerry Fields, Mike Holbrook and Glenn Phillips for a special tribute performance honoring guitarist Harold Kelling.  They played every song from the Grease Band's 1971 classic double-album Music to Eat. Kelling, who died in May, was a founder of the HGB. He was also a talented painter who created the surreal album cover for, Music To Eat, as well as covers for Supreme Court Goes Electric and the forthcoming Supreme Court disc, Sun Hex.  Glenn's eulogy for Harold is posted on the band's website www.glennphillips.com

In late July, The Swimming Pool Q’s performed at The Windjammer in Isle of Palms, SC and Boc’s Gumbo Grille in Columbia, SC.  On both occasions, J.E. Garnett played bass (J.E. was the The Q's bassist on The Swimming Pool Q's, Blue Tomorrow, and World War Two Point Five.)  Brief notes:  The sound system at The Windjammer was astounding; Boc's is run by  Doug Goolsby who first booked The Q's in Columbia at his legendary club Greenstreet's in March, 1979; among the unreleased  tracks in the repertoire was "Make Me Bigger Than The U.S.A."; both gigs were a blast.

With engineers Karl Egsieker and Tom Tapley at Atlanta’s Southern Tracks Recording, Jeff Calder supervised the master tapes reassembly of  Gyrate, the first Pylon album from 1981. With bonus cuts and their debut single, "Cool" b/w "Dub," the reissue will be retitled Gyrate Plus. The Athens’ quartet has been playing shows recently, and they are working on new material. No release date on Gyrate Plus as yet.  www.wearepylon.com

Archiving of The Q's video and film performances continues, including black & white footage of the group's first engagement in June, 1978 at the Underwear Invitational in Atlanta, recently discovered.

Supreme Court, featuring Jeff Calder of The Q's and Glenn Phillips are completing their second disc, Sun Hex, recorded on magnetic tape at Southern Tracks studio in Atlanta; Anne Richmond Boston contributes vocals to several tracks; the group's first lp, Supreme Court Goes Electric, was well received, including a 4-star notice in Rolling Stone.

In May, 2005, The Swimming Pool Q's performed at the Inman Park Festival and The Red Light Cafe in Atlanta.

The Q's played a benefit to help cover medical expenses for Phillip "Fly" Stone of the infamous Nasty Bucks at Jake's Toadhouse in April; among the many artists on the bill was the legendary Atlanta band Thermos Greenwood & The Colored People; Bob Elsey of The Swimming Pool Q's joined Thermos to play guitar on this date, as well as at their full-blown reunion gig in 2004.

At his luxurious underground studio in mid-town Atlanta's Biltmore Hotel, Q's bassist Tim DeLaney has been producing/engineering several up-and-coming Atlanta acts including The Selmanaires, Roy Owens, Jr. and Silver Lakes...

2003 was one of the great years for The Swimming Pool Q's. Their compact disc, Royal Academy of Reality, reestablished contact with old fans and brought the group a whole new audience. Following its release in May, 2003, on Bar/None Records, RAR collected Four Star-plus reviews throughout the American music press, including praise from David Fricke in Rolling Stone and Richard Gehr in Village Voice, as well as raves in British publications like Wire (Ed Ward) and Q (Ian Gittins). Royal Academy of Reality appeared on numerous Year-end Best-of writer, radio and industry polls, including the prestigious 2003 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll, in which Charles Johnson and Voice writer Richard Gehr made RAR their number one album of the year, with additional high rankings from Jim Musser, Scott Wilson, Kevin O' Hare, and Bob Townsend.

Kevin O'Hare of Newhouse News Service (42 papers, 7 million readers), made Royal Academy his No. 2 disc of the year, one click behind acclaimed Atlanta fellows, Outkast.

Geoffrey Himes of Washington Post ranked RAR as one of his top recordings and The Q's DC appearance as one of his best shows.

The Wallflowers' Greg Richling, listed RAR as one of his favorites of 2003: http://www.wallflowers.com/greg.html

Beta, a superb publication from Singapore, called Royal Academy "The Years Best Comeback" and ran a lengthy interview with Q's vocalist, Jeff Calder. See http://betamusic.i.am

At radio, Barry Smolin of KPFK 90.7 FM in LA listed RAR his No. 2 Album of the Year. See http://www.mrsmolin.com/radio.php

Eric Levin of Atlanta's Criminal Records and President of Alliance of Independent Media Stores (AIMS) dropped Royal Academy into his Hits Magazine Top Ten.

And, finally, James Mann wrote at Ink 19: "[Royal Academy of Reality] will achieve the masterpiece status afforded works such as Neutral Milk Hotel's In An Aeroplane Over The Sea and R.E.M.'s Murmur. Yeah, it's that good."

The Q's charted at College Radio, generated considerable play at AAA (Adult Alternative) formats, and received broad support from XM Satellite Radio (see details below).

In a surprise turn, "More Than One Heaven," a song from 1986 album, Blue Tomorrow, surfaced in the Steven Spielberg Scifi Channel miniseries, Taken.

In November, 2003, The Q's visited Washington DC to play at Club Iota. The next afternoon, they recorded a live performance at the magnificent studios of XM Satellite Radio, which supported Royal Academy since its release. The session was engineered by XM's Quinton Roebuck and later mixed in Atlanta at Southern Tracks Recording by Greg Quesnel, producer of The Q's 1989 album, World War Two Point Five. The song selection featured the following cuts from RAR: "Everybody Knows Tomorrow"; "Light Arriving Soon"; "For No Reason"; "Earth Makes Us Feel Things"; "Yesterday's Rain"; "Alpha Centauri's Rise". From their back catalog, The Q's also tracked "The A-Bomb Woke Me Up," "Overheated," "Wreck Around," and "Rat Bait." Their DC jaunt was documented by Andy King, who created photographic record at http://www.unminded.com/xm/.

Backstreets, the quarterly magazine dedicated to Bruce Springsteen, ran the first promotional photo of The Swimming Pool Q’s, shot in the summer of 1979 by Atlanta photographer Richard Perez, who documented The Q’s early career. The location of the original picture was the rooftop of a midtown apartment building, then the residence for Q’s Deep End drummer, Robert Schmid. When Danny Clinch, the gifted photographer for Bruce’s album, The Rising, came across the old black & white, he thought it would make an excellent site for a photo session with Bruce. Indeed, Danny’s images from the Ponce roof appear throughout the CD booklet, including the cover. The Rising was recorded at Southern Tracks, the magnificent Atlanta studio where The Q’s tracked and mixed much of their album, The Royal Academy of Reality. Of historical note, The Rising’s internationally acclaimed producer, Brendan O’Brien, engineered and mixed The Swimming Pool Q’s 1989 album, World War Two Point Five. Brendan is also credited with co-producing (with Rob Gal) and engineering, Anne Richmond Boston’s 1990 solo disc, The Big House of Time (DB 90). He also plays bass on three songs on Royal Academy.