Staff

Studio Owner/ Manager:

KATHLEEN WIRT has operated the legendary 4th Street Recording studio in Santa Monica, CA since 1987, and has been the sole owner since 2001. Twenty-two acts have been signed to record deals through 4th Street Recording, starting with Fiona Apple, whose spec deal recording of “Shadowboxer” became the first single on her Grammy-nominated multi-platinum album “Tidal.” Next came Incubus, Alien Ant Farm, and Hoobastank, all to become platinum-selling artists.

Kathleen graduated magna cum laude from Missouri State University with a B.A. in English and a minor in Speech. Her poetry was published in the school Literary Journal, and her senior year she won the university’s short story contest. After booking work in regional television commercials and volunteering as a camera operator at the local PBS station, she spent four years as a Program Coordinator for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, supervising ten department heads and 1,400 people as the line producer for the LA MDA Telethon.

Kathleen enjoyed a brief career as a comedic actress, then worked many diverse jobs as she and her partner struggled to get the studio off the ground. She was a founding member of Filmmaker’s Alliance, worked “every job but boom,” was the set decorator on 35 music videos, then co-produced and directed the film “Doubleday.” She was interviewed for, and contributed footage she directed, to the documentary “Who Killed Nancy?” 

Kathleen wrote for “Wow!” and “Hot” teen magazines, and hosted a weekly women’s writing group in Venice called Pandora’s Box. She read scripts for Trimark and wrote the pitch that secured funding for “Fried Green Tomatoes.” In the mid 90’s, she was a co-founder and administrator of Rave The Vote, working on political campaigns for LA Mayor and the Los Angeles City Council. As a Music Consultant for United Way, she produced events including a party for Gloria Estefan, and recruited No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani as a spokesperson for Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving.

For eight years, Kathleen hosted a salon at her home in Venice, the Albert Hofmann Friday Night Dinners, where speakers included a broad spectrum of counter-culture intelligentsia, including Dr. Oscar Janiger, Frasier Clarke, and Allen Ginsberg. A fictionalized account of one of these meetings appears in Lorenzo Hagerty’s novel “The Genesis Generation,” in the chapter titled “Caitlin’s Salon.”

She also created and hosted Represent:US, a series of socially conscious hip-hop freestyle nights at 4th Street, and sponsored artists from Venice 2000, a program for at-risk youth.