What is July Fourth Toilet, anyways?
A long-running multi-piece ensemble from Vancouver who brew up a unique stew of musical styles, blending
gnomish acid folk, honky tonk stumble, glam tarnish, raw sweat ballistics boogie, synthesized organ matter, cult murder a cappella, crafted cacophony, archaic ritual invocation harnessing of the astral universe and aspartame pop balladry.
A lucid "Something For Everyone" of murk gloss arcana recorded studio matter and a wide variety of viscerally moody candy-coloured bargain basement showbiz extravaganza theme shows that walk the risky razor's edge. All infused with simultaneous childlike wonder and shambolic ritual, melody and sass, wrapped in a burnt husk warm crepe: cream spilling out the side, yearning to be free. Become one with us and find yourself if you haven't found it already.
We're really very nice.
Muzak Fer Sale!
White (Trash) Album (cassette)
2008 reissue of first classic J4T album from 1994!
$6 + $3 sh
July Fourth Toilet Plays Canada Day On John Knowles' Front Porch Live 1995! CDr
taken from our vaults, now available for the first time ever!
$6 + $2 sh
Something For Everyone CD
gnomish mushroom acid wave folk sugar pop from 2002!
$8 + $2 sh
Audio & Video!
July Fourth Toilet on CBC Radio 3 New Music Canada
July Fourth Toilet on Virb
July Fourth Toilet On YouTube
Follow the link, there are plenty more!
Subscribe to the July Fourth Toilet Internet TV channel on Miro!
Cosmic Metharthasis
November 2003
She Must Be Cast
April 2000
Ballad Of The Rooftop Sniper
December 2001
Childhood Will End
by July Fourth Toilet
A four-song EP recorded in 1996 for consideration of Stomach Ache Records, Childhood Will End is now available for download in MungBeing 11, ten years later! With original (stained) cover art by Robert Dayton salvaged from our archives, and liner notes by Robert and jody franklin. Full lyric sheets included, too!
Bio
"July Fourth Toilet is sort of a modern day Zappa and the Mothers or Bonzo Dog Band. A wild ride through happy pop, Waits-ish weirdness, demented '60s era folk-rock and points in between."
- The Province
"A fresh dose of weird art-rock that is eclectic and undeniably catchy. Sounds like a comedy album camouflaged behind the sounds of an elementary school band tuning up to play some T-Rex. Pure musical schizophrenia!"
- The West Ender
"Novelty rock to the max. Their live shows often fall into the legendary category."
- Chartattack
"Vancouver branch of the musical genre spearheaded by Thinking Fellers and Caroliner. You know, straddling the line between serious musicianship and songwriting and pretending they don't care about anything except being weird and quirky in a trippy sort of way. It's a hard fence to keep your balance on, but JFT do an excellent job. The result is a fairly interesting mix of songs that tend to sound like a 1970s children's album..."
- Scram
"July Fourth Toilet did an eastern mystical-snake preacherish Krishnabilly set... (They) are hillbillies. Their music is challengingly communal (though each member seems deeply tuned or purposefully detuned in to their own specific instrument, there is a snugness and dedication to the whole, and a sense of friendship...) The lyrics are high and close, the melodies range from delicate to foot-stomping, and the ethic is for hard work, wonder and woe... July Fourth Toilet has a musical sensibility I admire more and more every time I hear modern rock and realize how much it has tortured, betrayed and corrupted the childhood musical appreciations that each of us is born with."
- Terminal City
"Something for Everyone is... pretty fun, especially if your idea of fun is the kind of soundtrack you might hear if you fell asleep watching The 5000 Fingers of Dr T and then had a nightmare about The Beatles' Yellow Submarine. And, speaking of The Beatles, it's hard not to sing along with the final track, the six minute anthem, 'One Day Is Representative of Our Time Together.'"
- Discorder
Don't want to listen to the critics? Here's what our contemporaries have said:
"Something tells me that maybe something is going to happen with the kind of giant musical ensembles that were responsible for Hair. You've got the Polyphonic Spree, the Arcade Fire, and the Hidden Cameras. They all have this big-ensemble feel. The leader of this multimembered, costumed concept movement will be Vancouver's July 4th Toilet."
- the infamous Nardwuar the Human Serviette
"It's time for that record, you know the one that comes around every not-so-often to defy description. Don't be scared off by the vast Toilet spectrum, from old-world folk ditty, to amped-up helium romp through mythical lands of never-was, to the tenderest of ballads. It's an astonishing arsenal of pop hooks and poetic aplomb, weaving through eleven testimonials to the joy of song, where Laughter and Sadness and Whimsy commingle. Witness 'One Day Is Representative of Our Time Together,' perhaps the pinnacle of all shambling folk-pop sing-alongs, where the band picks itself up from the initial mournful dirge and rises phoenix-like from its own sad ash, building, voice by voice, horn by synth-horn, into a jubilee of wailing falsettos, chants and fanfare. Follow those voices and find the thing you've been waiting for."
- Dan Bejar of Destroyer and the New Pornographers on our album Something For Everyone
