Ed Prevost Jr., Jen Swanner, Sara Van Buskirk, Kam Franklin, Kenny Hopkins, Nick Walton, Evan Escalante.
Mark Beebe
Above, from left to right: Peyton, Mark Beebe.
David Anderson
Kam Franklin as a guest with host host Mar[k Beebe on ‘Late Night at the Lagoon.’
Screen shot by Cary Darling
On certain Sunday nights, Midtown record shop Sig’s Lagoon turns its heavily stocked music haven into a talk-show set for “Late Night at the Lagoon.”
Debuting in April on YouTube, this mini-talk show is a silly 15-20 minutes that features interviews and performances filmed on the store’s first floor. Nick Walton, an employee and “keyholder” since last November, created “Lagoon” with producer/musician Evan Escalante, the son of owner/executive producer Tomas Escalante.
What: A series from Sid’s Lagoon record store in which Houston musicians are featured in an interview format
Where: YouTube
“When I started, they were mentioning that they’d been wanting to do video content for a while,” says Walton, who handles directing and editing duties. “I have a background in radio, television, film, and music. So I was like, well, I can cook something like that up.”
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Using Adult Swim shows like “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” and campy old-school variety programs like “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special” for inspiration, Walton conceived “Lagoon” as a kooky, offbeat time-waster with random, absurd bits (one running bit, “Captain Snarl vs. Lil Drippy,” has two masked figures competing in miniature games around the store) and kitschy retro clips (some provided by Houston Public Media’s archive) in-between the talk-show segments.
“The show is, like, heavily edited,” says Walton. “ It’s by no means a free-flowing conversation kind of show, even though I’ll let long parts of answers play at times. But I’m definitely chopping a lot up and rearranging things and editing for flow. So, that takes me three to four weeks to do, pretty much.”
Getting good guests
So far, they’ve done four episodes, with host Mark Beebe (“the owner’s keyboard player,” as the announcer credits him in the intro) interviewing an artist for each installment. R&B singer Peyton, guitar virtuoso Kelly Doyle, jazz bassist John Koozin, and The Suffers’ frontwoman Kam Franklin (who recently released her solo debut “Land of the Neon Sun”) have all conversed and performed on the show. (As an added bonus, all guests have their albums displayed on a “Featured On” shelf next to the front door.)
Walton admits to having a loose criteria when it comes to booking guests. “I mean, as we were getting started, it’s just kind of been ‘Who do I like? Who can I reach out to?’… And then it’s like, do we have any means of contacting them? Are they a reasonable guest? You know, there’s been a bunch of people I’ve reached out to that I’ve not heard back from – Morris Day being one of them. He lives out in the Woodlands, trying to get him on the show.”
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Sig’s employee/sound mixer/graphic designer James Garcia, who has gotten a few requests from performers about getting on “Lagoon,” says guests must have something worth plugging.
“There are some things that we want to prioritize the guests having, so that it kind of fits within the structure of the show,” says Garcia. “I mean, I think everybody at the shop at this point has probably been approached by somebody to do it, which is cool.”
Keeping it old-school
Walton is well-aware that people may compare “Lagoon” to another YouTube show featuring artists doing stripped-down performances in front of a cluttered-physical media backdrop, “Tiny Desk Concerts.” But don’t forget that “Lagoon” is still a loopy musical trip.
“There’s that element of ‘Tiny Desk’ in it with the performance,” he admits. “But, in my head, it’s almost more like an old, late ’90s/early aughts, Adult Swim kind of thing. That’s how I’ve been. Every edit I do, I keep Adult Swim in my eyes, just that level of comedy and absurdism. So, it’s like trying to do all those things that are pervasive on the internet right now, but in a more cohesive, old-school package.”
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The fellas behind “Lagoon” are working on making the show a more recurring affair. They have episodes with local supergroup Ancient Cat Society and mulit-instrumentalist Geoffrey Muller ready to be edited. They want to drop those before they move on to conceiving special holiday episodes. These guys don’t expect this weird little thing they do to go viral, but they would like it if more Houstonians tuned in. “My goal isn’t to do some viral internet program, getting just hundreds of thousands of clicks and everything,” says Walton. “I really do want it to be just a cult Houston show, you know, that locals know about and want to watch and think is fun.”
“And we spotlight local acts, and kind of emphasize that part of the music scene in the local community,” adds Garcia. “Because I feel like there’s not a lot of light on it in certain areas, which is good all around.”