Nightclubbing on the Edge : Entertainment: Trendy spots are popping up in some of Hollywood’s seediest areas, and for many of the customers the slumming is half the fun.

Scene 1, Las Palmas and Hollywood Boulevard: A thin, tall man with glazed eyes and a high-pitched voice approaches you at midnight as you park your car. He tells you he needs some help. Seems he’s lost his dope, and he’s convinced if he doesn’t find it soon, someone else will and that’ll be the end of his stash. Nearby, a couple of young guys begin to chuckle at the stranger, who by now has scooted under the car to take one last look around.

Scene 2, El Centro and Santa Monica Boulevard: Two wiry young men walk side by side at night. It’s springtime and unseasonably cold, but both have opted to go shirtless--their flannels tucked into the left back pocket of tight-fitting Levi’s. The driver of a gold Lincoln Continental slows to a cruise and motions them over. The younger looking of the two hops in for a ride, the other continues walking to Gower Street, where he crosses the boulevard and begins the walk back.

Scene 3, La Brea between Hollywood and Sunset: A well-dressed man stumbles out from behind a strip-mall bush. He begins walking up the street toward his car, when a group of young men start forming a circle around him. They taunt him until he tries to break away from them with an open-hand swipe at the tallest of the youths. One youth retaliates with a beer bottle to the man’s forehead, and everyone begins scattering in opposite directions.

Upon viewing these street tableaux, it’s clear you’re not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to the heart of Hollywood--an area that long ago relinquished its glamour tiara to the more prosperous turf on the Westside. Although such chance meetings aren’t for the faint of heart, threats of similar encounters don’t appear to be keeping too many club-goers at home: Each vignette illustrates actual events that recently occurred outside three of Hollywood’s newest and most vibrant nightclubs.

Bar Deluxe on Las Palmas, Bob’s Frolic III on Santa Monica and the Lava Lounge on La Brea represent the latest crop of trendy and fearless Hollywood clubs. Enticed into seedy parts of town after seeking out ailing venues with valid liquor licenses and space for live music, each of the three has proven the adage correct: If you build it, they do indeed come--even if that means street parking on El Centro.

In some cases, the danger factor seems to even enhance the patrons’ experience.

“When you enter Bob’s Frolic III from that weird side entrance, it feels like an underground club,” says Eva Rose Cook, a 21-year-old club-goer who frequents all three venues. “You get that shady feeling that you kind of want. It’s mysterious and people like that.”

“Why should I be afraid to come here?” says Vaughny Bower, a 23-year-old customer of Bar Deluxe. “I live in a ghetto. I live in Silver Lake.”

Michelle Marini, the 30-year-old owner of the Lava Lounge--the crown jewel of the new crop of clubs--says the dicey neighborhood also appealed to her for aesthetic reasons.

“The concept of the Lava Lounge was to create a paradise in the middle of hell,” says Marini, who worked as a film art and set director before opening the Lava Lounge six months ago. “You walk in and you’re swept away.”

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To be sure, Marini has succeeded in creating a small nether world in the oddest of places, a run-down Hollywood strip mall, with an edgy, unsavory feel to it. Customers walk through beaded curtains into a cozy room with faux lava walls and a Waikiki-meets-Vegas flair. Jazz trios perform a few nights a week to a crowd that appears too young to remember when glittery lounge acts were uncool. For Marini, the business has been steady ever since she opened.

“The mini-mall situation actually appealed to me,” says Marini. “I can get my laundry done, my nails painted and a bite to eat without leaving work.”

During the 1 1/2 years it took to purchase and transform the venue--which had been a Hungarian bar for eight years and, according to Marini, a “prostitute hang-out”--the Northern California native did have some trying moments.

“During construction, we used the peephole like television,” she says. “It was like watching ‘Cops.’ It was really seedy and a bit scary. But since we’ve opened, the crime seems to have actually subsided.”

Bob Nunley, the owner of Bob’s Frolic III, says that the month-old club has actually enhanced the safety of the neighborhood.

“We were kind of hesitant to start a club like this down here,” says Nunley, 47. “We were afraid that if something wasn’t done about the neighborhood, people wouldn’t come here.”

He says that the decision to transform the venue from a Latino bar to the Frolic III, coupled with a new theater (the Actors’ Gang) opening up across the street, has prompted more police cars to patrol the area. Most of the street-corner loiterers apparently decided to find a new location.

The Frolic III, which is the third in Nunley’s Frolic trilogy (the original Frolic Room is on Hollywood Boulevard and Bob’s Frolic II is on Wilcox Avenue), is the first to offer live music on a regular basis and favors local alternative acts.

“These venues were bound to pop us,” says Mary Nixon, a 33-year-old L.A.-based promoter who books the room five nights a week along with her partner, Johnny Vargas. “The Shamrock closed, the Central stopped doing its local alternative nights when it became the Viper Room and people don’t want to drive (as far as) downtown to Al’s Bar.”

Clearly the least fashionable of the three new clubs, Bob’s appears more concerned with showcasing new talent than with creating a paradise lost. There were no cosmetic changes before it opened. “We just closed it for a few months, changed the jukebox, did a little face lift, nothing major,” says Nunley.

But, somehow, this lack of atmosphere is part of the club’s charm.

“People like the little bar scene,” says Nixon, “where you feel like you belly up to the bar, playing pool, doing a shot, watching a band. That’s the feel that people want when they’re out at night. Unfortunately, the only places left to create these settings are in little dive restaurants, in lousy parts of town.”

Bar Deluxe, which opened six months ago on Las Palmas Avenue just above Hollywood Boulevard, built a mountain out of a veritable molehill when it took over an Indian restaurant. The club is in arguably the roughest location of the trio--when you walk in its neighborhood it’s not uncommon to be offered crack. A mere glance at the boarded-up buildings surrounding the place gives a hint of the work that its owner, Janice DeSoto, has cut out for her.

“I saw the potential for the space,” says DeSoto, an L.A. native in her 30s. “I didn’t necessarily want to be by Hollywood Boulevard, but, on the other hand, it didn’t scare me that much.

“Bar-hoppers are a lot more adventurous than other people,” adds DeSoto, who worked as a promoter for eight years before opening her own club. “It adds to the intrigue. It’s like, ‘Let’s find out what a place is like.’ ”

As her steady stream of customers might indicate, people are finding out just what lurks behind Bar Deluxe’s red-lit entrance.

Although the bi-level venue is beautifully decorated in red and black, with antique lighting fixtures and hand-painted details enhancing the club, the atmosphere is more relaxed than the Lava Lounge, which tends to attract a more be-seen crowd. The live music is partially responsible.

Favoring rockabilly, blues and country, DeSoto says she’s aiming for an “eclectic, country-bar vibe.” From psychobilly bands such as Jack and the Dead Cats to honky-tonk regulars, the Groovy Rednecks, the wide-ranging music attracts a mixed crowd of music fans and club-goers who aren’t put off by the neighborhood.

In fact, DeSoto credits the neighborhood for allowing her to create the type of music scene she wanted at Bar Deluxe.

“The neighbors don’t care what you do around here,” she says. “We’re the good guys on the block. We upgraded the area by attracting a nicer clientele. They don’t bother me about the music. Try getting that kind of attitude in more upscale neighborhoods.

“I’ve blended in and I’m kind of anonymous. They’ve got too many other things to worry about.”

Marini even credits her location for adding an element of intrigue to an evening out: “(My customers) tell me it’s kind of a challenge and kind of cool coming here. People like a bit of danger.”

“It’s like that ‘Twilight Zone’ episode,” adds Nixon. “ ‘Will I make it to St. Lou’? Will I live through the show? Will I get to see the third band?’

“We all get a thrill.”