Video really did kill the radio star Friday, Sept. 7, at Mid City hangout The Radio Bar. The bar held a special event featuring a six-hour sequence of alternative music videos as an homage to MTV’s popular show “120 Minutes.”
From 8 p.m to 2 a.m. the Radio Bar became “Videobar.” An installation of projectors and 30 vintage TV’s played a curation of synchronized music videos. The music videos were some of the more underground tunes from 1986 to 1991.
Brian Baiamonte, co-owner of The Radio Bar, helped hand-select the songs and playlist order along with Sofia Dupre, an LSU graduate and former intern for the bar.
“We got together, and I made a list of songs that I thought either stood the test of time or were still relevant. Or stuff that maybe slipped through the cracks that was really good, but people might not know about it,” Baiamonte said.
Baiamonte said he and the rest of his team were meticulous about how they ordered the music.
“We took into account the time of the night each song was going to be played. A lot of effort went into that, and that’s just the front end creative side,” he said.
Dupre, a former DJ at KLSU, and Baiamonte share a passion for alternative music from the ’80s and ’90s that inspired the creative direction for “Videobar.”
“It was kind of cool to have two generations connecting on a common denominator of good music,” Baiamonte said.
“MTV’s whole thing during that era was going against the mainstream and appealing to the counterculture, so it just really aligns with what Radio Bar has been about since they opened,” Dupre said.
“Video Bar” was already in the works when Dupre started interning for The Radio Bar in August 2023, during her senior year at LSU. Dupre said she spearheaded the design elements of the event, the bar’s reinterpreted logo and the physical installation. She also put together and edited the actual feed of the music video footage.
“I never helmed a creative project that large with that much control over it,” Dupre said. “It felt definitely very challenging at first. Just how much we had to get together. As each step went on it felt more real.”
Behind the captivating video projections and synchronized TVs was a technological side to “Video Bar.”
James Sypsa, a web developer and friend of Baiamonte’s, managed the technology involved with the event. He connected the music videos with the 30 TVs and synchronized the footage with the audio, which he started working on around nine months before the event.
“That’s largely where I contributed, putting the pieces together to help make the lights work so to speak,” Sypsa said. “Coming up with a technological solution that was extremely cheap and super flexible, I’d say was the biggest challenge and the most fun part of it.”
The collaborative effort of those involved with “Video Bar” was worth it. It was nostalgic for those who grew up with the music, and a unique night out for those from a younger generation. “Video Bar” successfully drew in a crowd while paying proper tribute to a previous era of music.
“It’s a love letter to that music and that time and that culture,” Dupre said. “It’s something very cool that I haven’t seen being done before, at least in Baton Rouge.”
