In a basement bar in Tokyo, Matthew Pagoaga found out that inspiration can spring from the least likely sources. After watching a band perform there, he was surprised by the transformation that ensued.
""[The band] finished their set, then everything was rearranged on stage,"" Pagoaga said. ""A guy came up and interviewed the band.""
Pagoaga doesn't speak Japanese, so he couldn't understand what the interviewer and the band were discussing.
""It's possible that what was happening on stage was not what I thought was happening at all,"" Pagoaga admits.
Nevertheless, what he saw onstage gave him an idea for a live talk show concept in which musicians perform for an audience and then sit down with a host who leads a discussion about various topics. ""The Magic Lantern Show,"" which Pagoaga hosts the last Thursday of every month at the Project Lodge, was born from this idea.
The show's name is a throwback to the first movie projectors, which were called magic lanterns. Enterprising folk would travel from town to town, selling tickets for shows in which they would project images for paying audience members.
The allusion to this early format of cinematic entertainment is fitting. Pagoaga and his co-collaborator, Dr. Jimmy, rely heavily on a projector during the show. During the monologue section of the show, the hosts take breaks and project vintage commercials on a screen.
If the show has a retro feel, it's probably due to the legacy the show is attempting to preserve.
""It's based on the Dick Cavett Show, which ran up against Johnny Carson,"" Pagoaga said. ""They did a standard monologue, then they would bring up guests.""
Cavett's show featured artists such as Woody Allen, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Pagoaga recalls a particularly memorable episode in which Cavett asks Hendrix a question and Hendrix coolly responds, ""You know what, I talk better with my guitar.""
That's exactly the kind of conversational, loose, mélange of music and discourse that Pagoaga is shooting for with his show. Through this format, the lines between performer and spectacle and those between spectacle and audience are obscured.
In fact, audience involvement is a major aspect of ""The Magic Lantern Show."" Again, drawing inspiration from Cavett's show, in which the guests would answer questions written by audience members before the show, Pagoaga incorporates questions people send him through Facebook into every monologue.
Taking the idea of audience interaction even further, Pagoaga wants the shows to include themes, such as dressing up as a favorite animal to ensure that by doing ""their own thing, the audience is invested in the show.""
Thursday's show is ""Moustache Night,"" wherein showgoers sporting real and fake moustaches will receive a discount on the price of admission. The musical guest will be Anna Wang and the Oh Boys!, a poppy rock outfit that is inspired by emo boys, sex, Phil Spector and flip-flops, among other things. Since the bands featured on previous shows have all been electronic outfits, Anna Wang and the Oh Boys! add variety to a show that is meant to be eclectic.
The variety won't end there either. Pagoaga hopes to expand the types of guests on his show to include politicians and local media figures. Furthermore, he's in talks with other local venues about hosting his show.
That doesn't mean the Project Lodge gig is nearing an end. The venue is well-suited for the show because it's a quiet, intimate space and its conduciveness to a projector setup, Pagoaga says.
But don't take his word for it: Slip on some flip-flops, assemble your contingent of emo boys, grow a moustache and check it out for yourself.
