10 Questions for: The Fourth Street Experience

The Fourth Street Experience at Montara Lighthouse

Montara has many talented and creative inhabitants. Among them are Mike McCall (right) and Mark Kostrzewa (left) individually talented musicians, collectively known as ‘The 4th Street Experience‘. You can catch these guys performing their live acoustic set all over the coastside. But right now they have 10 Montara Life questions to answer…

How did you guys meet and how long have you played together?

We first met at the local gym, Coastal Lifestyles, back around 2000. At that time, the term “12oz curls” meant something. We started jamming and playing music together about 3 years ago and have been “gigging” together since July of 2007.

What style of music do you guys play?

We classify it as “creative acoustic”, since there is really no other description for music that spans many different styles. How else do you describe a set list that includes latin music, brazilian music, blues, bluegrass and slide guitar? A lot of our songs are original compositions by one of us. We have a great a great classical style player (Mike) and a strong slide guitar player (Mark). It’s an unusual combination of music styles that works great in a live environment.

What do you love most about Montara?

Mike: What I love most about Montara is the serenity. You just feel as if you’re in this protective cocoon in Montara, somehow isolated from crime and other big-city problems. Great friends, too. A very communal feeling.

Mark: What I love most about Montara is the people that live here. Montara draws a very passionate and artistic style of person. I’m always amazed when I meet someone new to Montara as they always seem to have an interesting career or hobby or combo of the two. Pound for pound, Montara has some of the most interesting people around. Oh yes, people like to party here too!

Where is your favorite place to play live?

Mike: The Half Moon Bay Yacht Club is my favorite place. A very lively, friendly and supportive crowd and you can’t beat the venue! 50 feet from the water’s edge.

Mark: My favorite place to play live is probably 7th street restaurant. The food is great, it’s close by, and we always get a good local crowd. It carries a lot of the Montara energy in there. Café Lucca on the open mic night’s is great as well for similar reasons.

Have you guys ever recorded your music?

Mike: I’ve tried, but quite honestly, I suck. If you judged my musical abilities from my recordings, you’d probably end up hiring an accordion player. But I’m getting better. (Since this article was written Mike has actually released a CD ‘The Lone Cypress’).

Mark: I’m currently in the studio recording a CD of my own compositions. Mike and I had talked about getting a CD of the “4th Street Experience” together and I think that will happen soon as well.

Which guitarist do you admire most, and why?

Mike: Still has to be Jimmy Page. He showed me that you can be a great guitar player with both acoustic and electric, playing both soft and loud. He remains the most versatile guitar player I’ve ever seen.

Mark: Just like Mike, I’m a huge Jimmy Page fan. Although he is known as a hard rock king, his acoustic stuff really sits well with me. I’m also very much into the jazz scene – Pat Metheny, Al Dimeola, Wes Montgomery. The solo acoustic players I know have had big influence as well – Pierre Bensusan, Michael Hedges, Tommy Emmanual and Leo Kottke. Hopefully people hear a little of each style in our music.

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened at a gig?

Mike: This lady begged me to let her sing “Summertime” at a gig and promised me that she was a very good vocalist. To this day, Billie Holiday continues to roll over in her grave and I learned not to let anyone step in on my performance ever again.

Mark: Since most of our stuff are acoustic instrumental originals, I would have to say there was a night at the San Benito house where this “primed” individual was insistent on us playing some covers of Beatles, Dead or whatever. We tried to explain to him the ‘original’ concept of our guitar playing. He just didn’t get it. Haven’t seen him much lately at our gigs.

What’s your favorite song you play, and why?

Mike: La Llorona and Guerrero Espanol. La Llorona always makes me things of the mariachis who sing the song beautifully and Guerrero Espanol was the first Spanish-influenced song that I wrote.

Mark: It’s a song called “Creekside Smokehouse Blues”, very fun. Very upbeat with a combination of strumming, finger picking and slide playing. It maybe one of the few songs that we occasionally get people dancing to. We had a couple of nice looking girls dancing to it one time, that’s why it’s my favorite song.

Where is your favorite spot in Montara?

Mike: In my back-yard, looking out at that mountains on a sunny day.

Mark: My favorite spot in Montara is probably the deck at Lucca. Since I’m basically there every single morning of my life, it better well be! It’s the closest thing to Montara Central. If you want to see somebody, just wait a capucino or two and they will appear. The benches on the trail above Hwy 1 is a great spot also.

Can you describe your perfect Montara day?

Mike: Let’s see… Waking up to a mixture of sun and fog, coffee on the back deck. Then a nice hike with my wife Charlotte and our dog Monty… Perhaps some drinks around sunset with our friends. And of course a little guitar playing during the day.

Mark: A perfect day in Montara for me is a mid-week day when you don’t necessarily have to be at work and the sun is shining. Everyone else is cleared out for the day to go to their jobs. It gets very quiet and it seems like you get the whole place to yourself.

blog.montaralife.com would like to thank Mike and Mark from the 4th Street Experience for taking time out to answer our 10 questions. Check out our events page or visit Montaramusic.com for more information and a list of up and coming live gigs from the boys, you will have a great time guaranteed.