Tuesday, June 2, 2009

THIS MADE MY WEEK


...mannnnn, it is hard sometimes slogging it out as many of you know from your own personal experiences....
My crazee West Coast band July Fourth Toilet was formed in 1994 with a mandate of no 2 shows the same and we're so rag-tag it hurts and it's hard to get things done but I had to make a gorrrrgeous second album happen for us and happen on vinyl (I had done many albums before but only on CD which are more and more simply becoming lil ugly disposable file carriers, as a record collector vinyl seems real, an art object that will outlast civilization) and make it the most amazing disappointing second album ever! An album that combined hard biker psych with G funk keys and astral projection instrumentals and ballad zonk.I busted ass on this album, it took us a year because it had to be perfect.
We played the Vancouver Art Gallery and that was neat:
CLICK TO READ HERE
A Georgia Straight article came out that was good:
CLICK LINK TO READ HERE
And then I sent out tonnes of promos to the US...one terrible terrible and brief review on Dusted that ticked me off so much (do you want me to rant about this? It relates to the concept of musical comedy and lazy journalism/critical dismissal and I will rant...let me know) because I spent 9 bux on postage to get the worst kind of review: a poorly written bad review, if it was at least well written it'd be okay but I really thought they'd be smart and informed but they just played the same weak comparison game of any ill-informed cheap reviewer that sees some band as funny and dismissively compares it to a popular and dismal 'funny' band from the last five years that we don't listen to or enjoy.

And then there was...nothing.
Finally a great Roctober review came out which is awesome!!!!:
ROCTOBER REVIEW
If one is willing to use the word "Legendary" to mean "band that's been around a long time and even though no one has ever heard of them, if people in Vancouver had any taste or intelligence they would have long-ago embraced and canonized this ambitious, outrageous bizarrely brilliant performance art rock band that surveys pop history's greatest moments and transmutes them into weird gold", then this is the new album by the legendary July Fourth Toilet. Paying homage to the finest aspects of the 1970s; the weary magic of Kristofferson's voice, hair salon culture (and its cultural brother, the arm wrestling fad), shameless drug use, and ess eee ex (italics)! When I say this record is heavy, I mean some kind of otherwordly heaviness that Jack Kirby would write about in one of his doesn't-quite-make-sense, making you question his ability as a writer Fourth World pseudo-science moments! Seriously heavy! The best record recorded by a band with "Toilet" in their name EVER!

I am affiliated with Roctober so sweet as it was, it felt nepotistic- even tho they've given me bad reviews before (a good reviewer is one who is unafraid to give bad reviews to fellow contributors, friends, family)!
(By the way, Roctober is an incredible mag out of Chicago go to their website here)
But the icing on the cake, what really made my week was a glowing review that just came out by Julian Cope, who I decided to send an album to recently, out of the blue cuz he is the key writer of freeeeeeky rok! A real master of taste. Writer of Krautrock and Japrock books and more! A musician of merit. Yes! And he gets it! It feels validating!!!Maybe I should send all stuff just to Roctober and people like Cope over in Europe from now on...
Here is review:
www.headheritage.co.uk/addressdrudion/121

Our website:
www.julyfourthtoilet.com



Our MySpace:
www.myspace.com/julyfourthtoilet


The album is available in lotsa places around Toronto (Hunter and Cook HQ, Katharine Mulherin, frantic City)and The Couve (Dandelion, Luckys, Audiopile, Zulu, Scratch) or by our website! Act fast:only 500 copies with MP3 download code and art booklet.

Anyways here's some nice viddys live 2000!

2 comments:

shay said...

there you go, nothing like a julian cope review to affirm youre on the right track

Robert Dayton, Junior said...

It feels good!