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The Toilet Overflows

They were demented, unpredictable, inspired, and for one night they're back.

Shawn Conner 12 Jan 2012TheTyee.ca

Shawn Conner lives and writes in Vancouver, and currently publishes and edits The Snipe.

In 1973, Bob Dylan left Columbia Records for Asylum. Unhappy with this -- and remember, we're talking about a time when record companies had power -- Columbia went behind the Bobster's back to issue Dylan, a record of out-takes and covers that is regarded, even by hardcore Dylanologists (the Mother Theresas of contemporary music), as worse than Live at Budokan.

We bring Dylan to your attention to convey just what kind of band July 4th Toilet is, or might be at any given show. When the Vancouver collective takes the stage this Thursday night (Jan. 12) at the Waldorf -- its first Vancouver show in years -- it's anyone’s guess what they'll play, or wear, for that matter.

One night for instance saw the group play that Dylan album in its entirety, with lead singer Robert Dayton in whiteface kabuki makeup in tribute to Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour.

July 4th Toilet has also played marathon shows of six, seven and more hours' length; shows of nothing but 30 second songs; a show where they covered a K-Tel record called Rock Fantasy; a show that doubled as a celebrity roast for Jesus Christ; a show featuring "Your poems set to music," and a tribute to Paul Williams (with Williams, composer of songs such as "We've Only Just Begun," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "Rainbow Connection," sitting not 10 feet away).

The masterminds behind this madness were a group of people who didn't care about music. No, that's not fair; it was more like they didn't care about the industry and the clichés that had come up around performing music.

Many involved came from non-musical backgrounds -- in fact, the band probably boasted more cartoonists per capita (Jason McLean, Marc Bell and Julian Lawrence have all been involved in one way or another) than any other outside of Japan (where, if there isn't a band composed entirely of cartoonists, there should be). The group had a rotating lineup with a few at the core, although Dayton claims he is the only July 4ther to never have missed a show.

If July 4th Toilet seems like an anomaly in the usually play-it-safe Vancouver scene, that's because they took their cue not from other local acts but from the anarchic vibe of San Francisco like Three Day Stubble and Zip Code Rapists, whose John Singer and Gregg Turkington (a man who has gone on to infamy as self-styled comedian Neil Hamburger, lately the bete noire of Britney Spears fans on Twitter), suggested the name.

So what did people make of July 4th Toilet during its existence? It didn't tour, what with all the members that would have to be herded together, and its shows were infrequent and, as mentioned, unpredictable (and no doubt confusing to the casual music fan).

July 4th Toilet released two full-length albums, both available on bandcamp.com: Something for Everyone (2002, bandcamp tags include: "cartoon glam experimental psychedelic rock fantasy space rock warm psychedelic folk pop Vancouver") and Balls Boogie (2008, tags: "ballad biker boogie cartoon glam cosmic damage experimental heavy psychedelic rock fantasy space rock Vancouver").

British singer/songwriter Julian Cope, no stranger to experimental heavy psychedelic rock fantasy space rock himself, noted that the latter record "rescues several Long Dead musical genres from the Straights and slams them out eins, zwei, and drei, without so much as a soundcheck... Search out this hot slab pronto, Tonto..."

Musically adventurous Vancouverites would do well to apply this advice to July 4th Toilet's return, Thursday, Jan. 12 at the Waldorf. (Robert Dayton is also presenting his one-man show The Canadian Romantic the following night at UNIT/PITT Projects.)  [Tyee]

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