By now we all know that the five-day Outside the Box Music and Arts Festival kicks off today on Boston Common, and we are super aware that Smash Mouth performs a headlining set tomorrow night. But as we’ve been noting in each Outside The Box post since its initial artist announcement in May, the local lineup for the free and all-ages fest is pretty solid.
Part of that is thanks to non-profit Boston music organization the Record Company, which, as it leads to the release of a local artist compilation this December, has provided the chance for three bands and artists to play alongside the national headliners: garage rock band CreaturoS (Thursday at 4:45 p.m. on the Capital One stage before Smash Mouth and Vertical Horizon), pop-soul singer Ruby Rose Fox (Friday at 6 p.m. on the Capital One stage before Daughtry), and hip-hop sparkplug Dutch Rebelle (Saturday at 8 p.m. on the Fountain Stage before Michael Franti & Spearhead close the night out across the Common).
Record Company executive director Matt McArthur tells Vanyaland his organization worked with Outside The Box to select the artists that properly reflected the city’s music scene, and that their efforts wouldn’t be relegated to a lonely stage somewhere far off in a corner of the Common. “We definitely think they made the right choice,” McArthur says. “The entertainment value with all three artists is a given. We were excited about distribution across the entire festival and Outside The Box was willing to integrate the artists we brought to them in a more spread out way.”
Record Company program director Jesse Vengrove agrees, noting the variety in sounds and genres welcomed by Outside The Box, and adding that “it was really important to get hip-hop [represented] on Saturday night.”
The Record Company additions, combined with local Outside the Box bookings like Bearstronaut, Latrell James, Jenna Lotti, We Were Astronauts, Jaggery, Analog Heart, and others, adds up to a pretty decent week of music.
To get properly primed, the Record Company has been unveiling its new spotlight video series titled Let’s Talk Boston Music, and so far the six clips include each Outside The Box participants — Dutch ReBelle’s video went live this morning — as well as looks at the Barbazons, Milk, and the independent efforts of Boston Hassle.
Check out the full Outside The Box lineup here, and scan through the video below using our slider.