Forget the Velvet Rope

Outside Largo, they’re lined up, as usual, waiting to see singer-songwriter Jon Brion. His weekly musical free-for-alls are now in the fifth year of a room-filling run on Friday nights. Despite the obvious--that the place hasn’t yet opened--several people ignore the queue and try the door.

Rather than mocking newcomers, as some in-crowds might do, the regulars explain the drill: Dinner reservations? Stand to the left of the black door. Seeking a spot in the limited standing room in the 120-capacity space? Join the longer line to the right.

Wouldn’t a sign help? “Yeah, but, the thing is, people steal stuff like that,” says fast-talking but low-key owner-booker Mark Flanagan.

In July 1996, the 36-year-old impresario remodeled and reopened the intimate nightclub wedged into a dense stretch of Fairfax Avenue best known for its Jewish delis and bakeries. Since then, patrons have made off with just about any Largo thing that wasn’t nailed down, including a sardonic sign that told people not to give the doorman a hard time. Someone even tried to steal a picture of actor Peter Sellers hanging in one of the restrooms. Nowadays, everything is nailed down.

That’s not exactly the behavior you’d expect from Largo’s clientele--generally mild-mannered music and comedy fans--but then, Largo isn’t an ordinary club. It’s the kind of spot that with luck you’ll stumble across, or hear about from a friend. No flashy marquee, just a sign, a black door and a solid reputation. But once you find it, chances are you’ll go back. These days, the crowds come from down the street, across town even around the country to see some of the more eccentric, literate and critically acclaimed artists the city has to offer.

In an era when legendary L.A. nightspots exhibit little personality, Largo has emerged as potent exception. It’s shaped by Flanagan, whose strategy is simple--booking his favorite acts. He maintains full houses with this singular focus, even in the face of a nightlife culture that shifts with the hot new trend.

For performers, Largo feels like home, Flanagan is a friend, and most return again and again. Some just stay. Currently in weekly or monthly residencies are eccentric songwriter Joe Henry, Texas-born KCRW fave David Garza and veteran troubadour Loudon Wainwright III.

The club also attracts popular touring artists; Robyn Hitchcock and Neil Finn, of Crowded House fame, have graced its small stage. And the Monday night “Largo Comedy Show” features a caliber of comedians whose jokes, aficionados say, are much more intelligent than what’s heard in the local laugh emporiums.

Largo is, on the most fundamental level, an extension of Flanagan, a Belfast native with a melodious Irish accent. The decorating touches are the most obvious: the Celtic symbol above the low stage, the portraits of favorite musicians and actors lining the walls, and the back-corner “poet’s gallery” portraying the likes of Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan and William Butler Yeats. But the vibe is Flanagan’s as well. Like its host, Largo is popular, but not trendy. Classy, but not snobbish. Egalitarian, but not lowest-common-denominator.

When fans line up here, it’s not to be part of the scene or rub shoulders with beautiful people, as is often the case at other intimate L.A. clubs. People come to this dim, rectangular, burgundy-walled room to hear the music. And we do mean hear. Because, unlike most of Hollywood’s bar-chatter- and cell-phone-tolerant hot spots, Rule No. 1 at Largo is: No talking during the performances.

Not everyone who plays at Largo comes in knowing about the rule. When fresh-faced singer-songwriter John Mayer offers a short, impromptu, Flanagan-requested set, he thanks everyone for being so quiet. “Which you don’t really have to do,” he says, strumming an acoustic guitar. “Or,” he adds when the silence continues, “maybe you do.”

Oh, yes. “With serious singer-songwriters, or even comedy, you can’t have a rowdy audience,” says the cheerful, burly proprietor who favors flannel shirts, casual pants, often sports a tweed cap and is affectionately known as “Flannie.” If people are talking, “I’ll warn them a couple of times,” he says, “then I’ll throw them out. I’ve gone as far as buying people’s dinners and giving back their cover charge.”

His formula is simple, says L.A.-based singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, who penned most of the tunes for Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed 2000 film “Magnolia”: He wants good music in his club. “He recognized there was an audience for this kind of music, [when] other people didn’t think there was,” she says.

Proof walks in every night. Susan Parra has trekked from her Long Beach home to see Brion almost every Friday since he started playing there. She also attends shows by such Largo regulars as Phillips, Henry and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. Bobb, a Largo regular who goes only by one name, comes for the music and likes that “there’s not a lot of attitude here.” He started driving from Eagle Rock to see Brion about two years ago.

Bobb, Parra and other Largo habitues have made their niche, but they’re hardly an exclusive clique. In fact, they sound grateful for a place where, as Parra puts it, “There’s no velvet rope. It’s not about who you know. We never have to stand outside and wait while celebrities breeze past.”

If you have a dinner reservation, you’ll definitely get in. But be prepared to call weeks in advance. Otherwise, it’s first come, first served. “I just don’t like that Hollywood history of people being able to march up to the front of the line and say, ‘I’m Pee-wee Herman,’ or whatever,” Flanagan says.

And don’t try scoring entry by claiming to know Flanagan--chances are he’s the “doorman” you’re trying to convince. “At least twice, I’ve been standing at the door, and someone has said, ‘I’m a friend of Flanagan.’ One guy even said, ‘Flanagan will be [ticked] if you don’t let me in!’”

Largo’s story and its place in the current music and club scene are tied to Flanagan’s history in L.A. A singer-songwriter himself--although he’ll not easily tell you that--Flanagan arrived here from Boston a decade ago and quickly befriended some of the musicians he has come to champion. The “black sheep” in a long line of Irish bar owners, his initial plans involved continuing his graduate work in psychology and medicine.

In 1993, Flanagan and two partners bought the club, then known as Cafe Largo and Jean-Pierre Boccara, who went on to open and close LunaPark. Right away, Flanagan had an ear for quality, bringing in such artists as Brion, Grant Lee Buffalo and folk-poppers the Wild Colonials. Despite the packed houses and visits by such celebrity patrons as Dr. John and Branford Marsalis, he says, a year later his partners decided to turn the place into a sports bar. So Flanagan left and started booking his favorites into other clubs, including the Troubadour and the now-closed Alligator Lounge.

“The [outside] shows were OK, and we had good fun, but everyone kept saying, ‘We need a venue.’” In 1994, his ex-partners went bankrupt, and Flanagan made plans to buy the club himself. Two years and one economical remodeling job later, he was ready to do Largo his way.

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After the doors open, regulars stream to the dozen low-backed stools around the gleaming, dark-wood bar at the rear. A staffer tells Flanagan that some people who aren’t dining will be sitting at a side table until the reserved group arrives. Comically inept magician the Amazing Ronaldo (Ron Lynch) who will be doing bits later with Brion, asks if Flanagan has seen a short piece of rope needed for his routine.

Although the tables are so close together that some might say it feels more claustrophobic than intimate, the arrangement is designed (yes, by Flanagan) to maximize sight lines, optimize the sound and minimize chatting. The dim yellow light is extremely flattering, but so faint that, if you order one of the salads, pastas, pizzas or entrees created by Italian chef Marco Lucrini, you may have a hard time seeing the food on your plate.

The room fills up as servers hurry back and forth. Music plays over the sound system until the lights go even lower and comedian Paul F. Tompkins gets up to rip on holiday movies for 20 minutes.

Upstairs in Flanagan’s alley-view office, a plate of food awaits him and a television silently transmits images. Across the truncated hallway is the green room for the artists. The cramped space is decorated with Christmas lights, vintage jazz posters, old Largo fliers, Beatles pictures and other miscellany. The room twists back under the eaves, almost Seuss-like, past a plastic-wrapped air duct, and is filled with assorted unmatched furniture donated by various benefactors. Despite the whimsical impression, there are also the practical touches of a full-length mirror and a water dispenser.

At the moment, there is only one occupant: Brion. He’s wearing his tweed coat against the still-departing chill in the air. A textbook-sized collection of Bob Dylan’s lyrics sits on the coffee table, soon to be joined by Brion’s dinner plate.

Brion, who has known Flanagan for a decade, compares his friend to the record-label and movie moguls of old. “Instead of making decisions by committee like they do now, those businesses used to have one or two people at the top whose tastes determined everything,” he says. Indeed, Flanagan’s faith in people’s talent and willingness to go with the flow has helped to make Largo a launching pad for acts as diverse as alt-poppers Better Than Ezra and comic rock duo Tenacious D.

Such old-school magnates had the luxury of indulging themselves, which is exactly what Flanagan did when he gave Friday nights to Brion in the summer of 1996. Why? “I’ve never seen a performer like Jon in my life,” Flanagan says.

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Brion is a solo artist with a penchant for writing gorgeous gems that have the classic Beach Boys/Beatles melodiousness. A multi-instrumentalist who plays such obscure items as optigan and chamberlain along with more ordinary guitar, piano and drums, Brion is also known for lending his playing and producing talents to such Largo-friendly acts as Mann, Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright, as well as Jakob Dylan’s band the Wallflowers and electronica group Crystal Method.

Flanagan’s residency idea was a hard sell, even to artists without overt commercial aspirations, who tend to complain bitterly about being misunderstood and underappreciated.

“He literally forced me to do it,” says Brion, who had developed his quirky style of performing--no set list, lots of audience participation, comic interludes--while Largo was in limbo and Flanagan was booking at other venues.

The first week at Largo, Brion recalls, only 15 people showed up. But Flanagan told him to wait. A few weeks later, 60 people came, and a few weeks after that the club was full. It has stayed that way for more than five year’s worth of Fridays.

On this Friday, the clanking of silverware and the clinking of glasses have subsided by the time Brion takes the stage. In a room so still you find yourself holding your breath without even realizing it, he plays vaudeville-style piano while the Amazing Ronaldo goofs on sleight-of-hand tricks; tosses off such requests as Cheap Trick’s “Voices in Your Head”; improvises music over recorded snippets of Tompkins’ routine; tweaks the upright piano’s exposed innards for percussive effect; and generally entertains a crowd that’s clearly ready for anything he throws at it.

“That fun, communal feeling really enhances the atmosphere,” Brion says later. “You never know what’s going to happen next.”

Indeed, it isn’t just the customers who appreciate Largo’s differences.

“It’s the only thing that gives me a sense of community in Los Angeles,” says Mann. “You always know you can go back there to meet new people and see old friends.”

Playing Largo also provided Mann and her musician husband, Michael Penn, with the novel approach they applied to their 2000 concert tours. During the many Largo shows they played both alone and in tandem, they developed the quirky practice of having comics handle their between-song banter on stage. “You would never be able to do that any other place,” Mann says.

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Booked by Lisa Leingang, a veteran of the SF Improv and NBC, the “Largo Comedy Show,” currently running twice a month, attracts a similarly respectful crowd that’s a little more boisterous and a bit younger than the music fans, observes bartender Ellen Tunney. A longtime employee like most of Largo’s staff, Tunney met Flanagan a few years ago when her husband, Eric, hosted Paul Greenberg’s comedy show “Bunk” at the club.

Along with getting to see all the shows, Tunney likes how patient the crowds are, even when it’s busy, and the regulars. “There’s a different set for every night,” she says.

Rather than being limited to Mondays, comics often open for the singer-songwriters. That might seem odd to anyone who witnessed the verbal abuse taken by comedians opening for rock acts in the ‘70s. But, to Flanagan, it’s quite sensible.

“I have a lot of singer-songwriters who don’t write about the happy things in life,” Flanagan deadpans. “I mean, there’s a sense of humor in there, but you gotta dig deep for it. In Ireland, when I was growing up, a comedian or a magician would often open for an artist. So I thought it would be good to do that at Largo.”

Pretty much whatever Flanagan decides is good is what goes. If he likes your act, he won’t just let you do whatever you want. He’ll insist on it. Which is a far cry from nightclub owners who want to first know how many customers an artist can draw.

Take the up-and-coming Tuesday-night comedy and music bonanza known as “The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show” featuring Dave (Gruber) Allen, David Koechner, Tom Chan and J. P. Fitting. “In our show, there’s all this crazy stuff happening,” says Allen, who is indeed naked during his act and definitely unconventional--offering up a sort of rambling discourse on life as a cross-country trucker, layered with comedy and music. “Toward the end of it, we even joke about the freedom. But that’s exactly what we like about playing [Largo].”

More often than not, Flanagan’s conviction provides a much-needed boost. “Comedians are supposed to acquire more and more confidence to be themselves on stage,” says Tompkins. “Largo has helped me do that, [whereas] the battle you fight in other places is to just get people to pay attention.” The downside, he says, comes “when you perform in other places, and you don’t get that kind of respect. It makes it tougher to go out into the wild.”

And sometimes being at Largo is the catalyst, says Allen, whose believes his group got noticed by the mainstream press directly as a result of Flanagan’s booking. “Sure, we’re talented and funny and all that stuff,” he says, “but if we weren’t at Largo, none of [the attention] would’ve happened.”

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Brion’s set is winding down. Some people have slipped away into the cold night, but most of the room is still riveted. Flanagan continues to monitor, stopping to watch his friend amid a knot of regular patrons, then making the rounds to ensure that everything is as it should be.

Flanagan has had numerous offers from people wanting to buy Largo, or to move it to a larger space. But he likes things they way they are. “If I preserve the integrity of it, there’s no way it can’t do well,” he says. “And people like Grant [Lee Phillips, of Grant Lee Buffalo] and Jon and David are ever-evolving,” he says. “You always want to come back and see what they’re up to.” At least it’s a sure thing that Flanagan does.

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Natalie Nichols is a regular contributor to Calendar.