I attended quite a posh function the other night, and I ran into an extremely talented writer/performer. I congratulated him on all his success. He was gracious and then said, and I’m not quoting here, well Colin if all else fails, we’ve always got Largo, because more then anything else, we’re quite good Largo acts.
I first met Flanagan around 1990, just as I’d been dropped by MCA Records. It was the end of my decade long affair with major record label hoopla. He’d just opened the old Largo on Fairfax. He asked me to play there, which of course I did, again and again. Rosy cheeked Jon Brion would come down and accompany me on whatever he felt like, and they, were magic nights. I saw so many brilliant performers over the years, Mitch Hedberg, Elliot Smith, Aimee Mann, Sarah Silverman to name a few, and watched the development of the genius of Andy Prieboy’s “White Trash Wins Lotto”.
My favorite part of playing the old Largo was when I’d finish playing, and Flanagan would walk me round the block to the back of the club, chatting nonsense the whole way.
Things change, Largo moved to La Cienega, and is now, if you’ve just come out of a coma, Largo at the Coronet. It’s still the same, because Flanagan still owns it. It’s Flanagan’s world, and I’m more than happy to drop into it from time to time. I’m there on December 13th, you should come, I’m quite good you know.
