Mexican Summer & Anthology

Fourth Chapter was a garage rock band from the Dearborn Heights suburb of Detroit made up of Charlie Block, James Henterly, Pat Mezza, Bob Okonowski, and Gordie Roedding. These childhood friends started jamming together at the tender age of ten, and it wasn’t too much later that they solidified their status as local legends on stages throughout the Great Lakes State. The band released its one and only 7” as Fourth Chapter, “Whatcha Gonna Do 'Bout It” b/w “In the Rain,” on Michigan’s Pennie Records in 1973. A few years later, under their new Mariner moniker, they’d go on to win a local Battle of the Bands and tour worldwide.

Fourth Chapter’s “In the Rain” is a bleary portrait of an era; a time when the garage rock that bubbled up from the 60's ferment was still reverberating throughout DIY rehearsal spaces across the USA, and the last gasp of free love drifting down from the countercultural clouds was inspiring a whole new generation of bedroom poets. Emerging from the sleepy Detroit suburbs in 1973, “In the Rain” proudly wears its 50's nostalgia on its bohemian sleeve—a track made for both slow-burning dances and no tomorrow afternoons. Simple piano chords land with an almost childlike innocence, and the group’s home-spun vocal harmonies recall some of doo wop’s best. A nascent jam starts to build up partway through the track before settling back into the warm fuzz of wet concrete and rainbow sunshowers, lending an echo of lost psychedelica to this lo-fi snapshot of early indie journeying.

Written by Patrick Neal Mezza, Michael F. Smyt & Jimmy Henterly
Produced by Dave Atkins
Recorded at Mutt Record Corp. (Inkster, MI)
Engineered and mixed by Bill Williams
Digitized and restored by Frédéric Ménétrier and Alexis Eskandari at Gecko Studios (Montreuil, FR)
Mastered by Peter Beckmann at TechnologyWorks (London, UK)

Pat Mezza - bass, vocals
Jimmy Henterly - piano, vocals
Mike Smyt - guitar, vocals
Bob Okonowski - guitar
Gordie Roedding - drums

Published by Copyrights of Sunset Songs (ASCAP) administered by Peermusic III Ltd. (ASCAP).