Arlington's Capitol Theatre celebrates a year of breaking the 4th Wall

A spectacle-filled mid-October Friday night was winding down at Arlington’s Capitol Theatre. The end credits for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” rolled in the main theater and the final gory scenes of “The Substance” played out in auditorium three, but for manager David Jubinsky, the show was just getting started.

In Auditorium Two, a sound tech was busy setting up a PA system. As movie-goers left, a small group of musicians and their fans gathered for a night of left-field improvisational computer music. With laptops plugged in and an array of glitching shapes and animal skulls looping on the projector, the transformation from cinema to music venue was complete.

Dubbed 4th Wall by Jubinsky and talent buyer Ethan Gerber, this room has hosted bands almost every week for the last year. The idea came to Jubinsky after a tour with his chiptune band, Battlemode, took him through various improvised, do-it-yourself venues that included a climbing gym and a rooftop in Brooklyn. It dawned on him: why not do the same thing at the theater?

Nervous, Jubinsky floated the plan to leadership at FEI Theatres (the company that owns the Capitol and Somerville theaters). “It would be cool if a guy with a guitar came,” he suggested. “I was beating around the bush a little bit.” But according to him, the response was enthusiastic, “Why don’t you just have shows here?”

Gerber was enlisted to help book talent. An environmental engineer by day, he once ran his own DIY venue at his college home in Albany, New York. After moving to Boston for work, he picked up a job at Capitol Theatre’s sister venue, the Crystal Ballroom, where he and Jubinsky met.

The two of them wanted 4th Wall to offer more than the typical basement while maintaining an independent ethos, an approach Gerber calls “DIY-plus.”

“We want to treat everyone like a star,” he said.

That includes taking advantage of the Capitol Theatre’s projector and silver screen to combine music with professional-grade visuals. To do so, 4th Wall has regularly partnered with the small, Boston-based video artist collective Digital Awareness.

Founding members Josh Artman and Harley Spring, who are close with Jubinsky, provided visuals during the Battlemode tour where he had the idea for 4th Wall. Their set-up involves a convoluted board of visual gadgets that allows them to stream from multiple cameras and send the output through warping effects before throwing it up on the theater’s projector.

They believe high-quality visuals can elevate any set. “Every venue should have a visual component,” Spring said. “Bands love it, audiences love it, and I love it.”

For them, 4th Wall has acted as a springboard for the collective, and the medium more widely. “Most people think that visuals just come with the band,” Artman explained. “4th [Wall] has helped establish that the artist and the band are different things.”

Their DIY-plus approach has brought some success. In its first year, 4th Wall has hosted an impressive roster of local musicians including Pile, Paper Lady, Pet Fox and Trophy Husband. “It’s weird how well this came together,” Jubinsky said. “It shouldn’t have come together so easily.”

But there have been challenges. Some are relatively minor. A back door left open at one show led to a noise complaint and a visit from the police. There’s a bar in downtown Boston with the same name where several confused bands have wound up by mistake.

Other obstacles feel more critical. The Arlington location isn't easily accessible by the public transit favored by college students, and, because they can't overlap with movies, bands don't usually start until 9:30 p.m.

“That is a hang-up,” Rachel Devorah Wood Rome she said while waiting for her Friday night electronic set to start in the theater’s ice cream shop. But she admitted that maybe that’s just the case for millennials like her, “We’re old.”

Nonetheless, Rome and her collaborator, Forbes Graham, are grateful. Any venue willing to host their experimental music is a boon. Although it was his first time playing in a movie theater, Graham’s musical career has been defined by playing in unusual locations: a town hall, an anarchist complex, an abandoned paper mill.

The 4th Wall enjoys the freedom to prioritize art and community over profit.

“We want to, at some level, have it pay for itself,” Jubinsky said. “But, in the macro picture, it’s about bringing people, younger people, to the space.”

“My goal is to build the music scene and encourage fans of all shapes and sizes and sounds to come play,” Gerber explained. “There’s so much good music out there. If you need a place to play, we’re here.”

Founded just as a group of DIY house venues began closing their doors, 4th Wall has filled a crucial role in Boston’s independent music scene. The people in and around 4th Wall were concerned about the dearth of places for up-and-coming Boston acts to play live. After the closure of mainstays Great Scott in Allston and ONCE in Somerville, bands turned to basements around the city for space to share their music and maybe earn some beer money. But according to Gerber and Jubinsky, police visits to several of these homes last year have scared many organizers off running these technically illegal venues.

“I wouldn’t be a professor today if I hadn’t put in my 14 years on the DIY circuit in California,” Rome said. She’s a professor at Berklee College of Music and hears directly from her students about the challenge of finding space. “I feel so sorry for my students who have no opportunity to play, there’s just no way of throwing shows.”

Since its opening, Gerber has been overwhelmed by booking requests. “It’s tough,” he said. “I want to get back to everyone.”

But 4th Wall has already proven more resilient than some other DIY venues. By hosting in the Capitol, 4th Wall can operate as a sort of nonprofit that doesn’t concern itself with booking the hottest act, and it’s legal. “There’s nothing to hide,” Gerber noted.

Its first anniversary will be celebrated with two stacked shows. The first, on Nov. 13, features Texas shoegazers Trauma Ray and indie duo Joyer. Two days later, on Nov. 15, the venue welcomes Declaw, Trash Sun and The DreamToday. With the premier of Wicked and Moana 2 following a few weeks later, the month is expected to be a big one for the Capitol.

“I think it’s safe to say that blockbusters are back,” Jubinsky said, grinning. That’s good news for the 4th Wall. As long as the lights are on Jubinsky, Gerber and company will keep rocking.