DIY music spot The 4th Wall celebrates its two-year anniversary with a Saturday show featuring performances by Mobius Trip, Sawtooth and All the World’s Gems. The lineup digs deeper into the extended “Sonic the Hedgehog” universe than I could ever hope to understand or explain. Give yourself over to the 16-bit magic on this special night.
The venue-within-a-venue, tucked away inside Capitol Theatre in Arlington (usually Theatre 2), has a ways to go before it hits bigger milestones such as, say, the 20-year mark. But the plucky outfit has already accomplished so much in its 24-month run, hosting edgy and experimental lineups with musicians from next door and around the world.
Highlights from The 4th Wall’s history so far include, of course, the inaugural show on Nov. 11, 2023, with performing acts Awnthay, G.O.L.E.M. and Albany, New York’s The Snorts. In advance of the show, I interviewed the founders and organizers behind The 4th Wall, Biff and Ethan, who seemed concerned, above all other considerations, that overexcited fans might crash through the very, very, very expensive movie screen, the eponymous “4th Wall,” during the gig. The venue’s slogan is, now and forever, “Don’t Break the 4th Wall!”
The inaugural show also established the blueprint for including a strong visual component alongside the music. Local projection artists Digital Awareness became a fixture at shows, crafting immersive “audioreactive” installations that turned Theatre 2 into a kind of psychedelic womb. Other visual projection artists followed suit, transforming the venue into one of the preeminent spots to witness the melding of sights and sounds in the area.
Other highlights? Local legends Pile played Theatre 1, demonstrating that The 4th Wall can scale up to bigger acts and larger rooms as needed. Who could forget the quasi-musical stylings of British comedian Jim E. Brown, self-proclaimed “fat fuck,” who drank from a puddle and demanded the audience pay him tribute in the form of endless pints of beer? And the bills booked outside the confines of the Capital Theatre are always special events, such as the lineup presented at this year’s Moon Over Salem, featuring Layzi, Mallcops, The Croaks and more.
There are too many highlights to recount. Better to pay the venue a visit and make your own memories. I’ll be celebrating with them, because The 4th Wall was born into this world in the same week as this very music column.
Their birthday is this column’s birthday.
Their anniversary is this column’s anniversary.
And their love of the local music scene is the same passion that keeps the fires lit at this column.
So pour out a glass of frosty ’Gansett and knock one back in fond memory of another circuit around the sun. May there be many more.
Hit this
Saturday: Christine Fawson Quartet (The Mad Monkfish, Cambridge)
Vocalist and trumpeter Christina Fawson is no stranger to the local jazz landscape. She’s a Berklee College of Music graduate and served as a faculty member from 2003-2017. The dusky winds did blow her to the Southwestern territories in recent years, but she’s never wanting for a stage to show off her old-school stylings when she returns. Joined by Jane Potter (piano), Bruce Gertz (bass) and Mike Coffey (drums), the quartet will stock the cupboard with more classic tunes by more bluechip artists than the Holiday Jazz Playlist streaming at your parent’s house during the annual Thanksgiving Day visit. Assuming your parents like jazz, know how streaming platforms work and you aren’t estranged from them.
Monday: The Fringe (The Lilypad, Cambridge)
There aren’t many shows around town scheduled as late as The Fringe’s. The doors open at 10 p.m. every Monday, and the music doesn’t start for another 30 minutes. Midnight’s approach brings with it a certain kind of romance that complements the free jazz trio. George Garzone (saxophone), the only original member of the group, has been steering the ship since 1971, and he is joined these days by John Lockwood (bass) and Francisco Mela (drums). Residencies such as this are too easy to take for granted because consistent execution is its own brand of soporific. But I’m not one to sleep on a good thing.
Wednesday: French Cassettes (Arts at the Armory, Somerville)
San Francisco’s French Cassettes write indie rock songs with that West Coast glow. At least to East Coast ears. A gentle, swaying melodicism with bright notes carries the listener through stories about riding the Megabus, being “medium horny” and having a normal day on their latest album “Benzene.” Relatable stuff with a bit of wit and charm. Shades of the Beach Boys, Fastball, Magnetic Fields and, now and then, some neosoul swank. This is a prime “date night” concert event – affable, unassuming, with some sneaky canoodling moments. Local indie popper Layzi and Jonny Tex open.
Live: Kennebec at The Rockwell
A night of New Age ambient world rhythms took over The Rockwell on Monday with headliner Kennebec performing songs from their latest album “The Water Wheel.”
Kennebec is the musical brainchild of Eric Phillips, one of those genre-marauding adventurers who must have warehouses full of obscure instruments for sailing the seas of unexplored sounds.
Slow Meadow opened and Kennebec closed. Standout performances from the violinist, drummer and flautist sparkled, while Phillips kept time on his acoustic guitar, alternating between a six- and big-bellied 12-stringer.
From jazz to ornate pop to folk to flirtations with hip-hop and Latin beats, Kennebec loves to experiment, and the ambient flair of the latest album provides a maximally permissive superstructure to house an impossible variety of sounds within the same building.
There’s a fine line to walk with ambient music, though, which provides a nearly infinite amount of room for play and experimentation but can sand the rough edges off musical ideas to the point of making them toothless.
In a possibly apocryphal interview with electronic musician Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), the artist was asked whether his purported musical turn – from the more abrasive textures of his earlier DJ work to the gentler ambient themes found in later albums such as “Drukqs” – signaled a kind of dulling of his artistic mien. James responded, to paraphrase, “Well, at any rate, it’s still not music my mother would listen to.”
In fact, Phillips’ mother may have been in the house at The Rockwell. Though the musician now resides in Portland, Oregon, he has local roots, and Monday night’s gig was one of those gigs where all the friends, family and well-wishers come out of the woodwork to share in the warm conviviality of the homecoming spirit.
Good music, good people, good times at The Rockwell is enough to make anyone smile, no matter how many teeth they might be missing.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
A stronger
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