The Consortium of Genius-created live-streamed show has continued since COVID times, now with more than 100 episodes featuring local musicians in a life and death struggle.

During the COVID lockdown in 2020, we covered live-stream music programming initiated to try and give musicians a chance to play and earn a few bucks. While many live-streamed concerts were little more than digital busking, some people put in the effort to up the presentation. We wrote about Lewis D’Aubin of Consortium of Genius (C.O.G.), who took advantage of having a recording studio set up for video production to create a series featuring New Orleans rock bands and his own C.O.G. characters.

Escape from the Secret Lab was theoretically the brainchild of the evil genius Dr. Milo T. Pinkerton, who trapped bands in his secret lab and made them play for their freedom. Fans could help them escape and survive by contributing money via Venmo. The show had its roots in the low-budget aesthetics of New Orleans’ ’60s horror movie host Morgus the Magnificent, and the cheapness is one of its selling points.

Once venues reopened, many musicians started to get away from live-streamed shows, but some have kept at it. Alex McMurray continues to stream shows regularly on Tuesday nights, and Escape from the Secret Lab has 104 episodes including a wide variety of bands, ranging from Lynn Drury (who has a new album, High Tide, due out April 5), The Tin Men, The Unnaturals, Tomb of Nick Cage, The Iceman Special, and Dash Rip Rock. The plot has changed and the show now theoretically takes place in 2033 in a post-nuclear wasteland and is live-streamed to mutant survivors from a location under the Mississippi River.

The most recent episode streamed on Sunday night with Twinspan, a “metalcore” band from Mandeville, and I appeared as a guest judge. You can see for yourself if Twinspan lived or died, and if musical justice was served.