Internet sensation Jon LaJoie - his musicvideos and fake commercials have been played millions upon millions of times on YouTube - made his U.S. concert debut Tuesday at Largo in Los Angeles, mixing live music, stand-up comedy, videos and an old-fashioned, analog power point demonstration. For a debut, this was a smartly shaped, well-paced hour.
Crowd was split between industry and rapid fans and, in a rarity for a debut, the entire room was laughing as rapped about his ordinary life, sang about his uncle's lack of genitals and explained, with crudely created graphics, how to become an Internet star.
The act, obviously in its infancy, is loaded with observations that veer toward the smutty and the sophomoric; sex, vomiting, masturbation, lesbians and pickup lines are piled on one another in an intentionally awkward manner, the nasty words and phrases leaping out out of seemingly benign sentences. His naivete is there to make the audience squirm.
The Montreal native is navigating a mighty crooked line that has been walked by a multitude of comic acts - there's Steven Wright, "The Aristocrats," Flight of the Conchords, Andrew Dice Clay and Dane Cook - yet never in this manner.
Among the tunes performed on acoustic guitar and his $25 keyboard were "Everyday Normal Guy" and the encore "Show Me Your Genitals" with an extraordinarily gut-busting "High as Fuck" in the middle of the show. He screened a good number of videos, several of which are not yet on YouTube, among them the classic "Pedophile Beards." (see below)
LaJoie, who is exploring TV and record company options, will return to Los Angeles at the end of October to play at Spaceland. Show is tentatively scheduled for the 21st.   

Largo, one of my favorite venues since it opened in 1992 and was booking acts like the Wild Colonials and Love Jones, will shutter its 120-seat Fairfax Avenue location after a final comedy show Monday and open June 2 at the Coronet Theater space on La Cienega. Aimee Mann, who will release an album June 3, will be the first performer.
Move is motivated by wanting to get away from the bar business and having more space.
“You get tired of turning people away,” Largo owner Mark Flanagan said while we toured the new space Wednesday afternoon. The news has been out there for a little while, but the renovations taking place in the two performance spaces make it clear this will quickly become a reality.
Since Flanagan took over as sole owner in 1996, Largo has been known as a haven for singer-songwriters, such as Fiona Apple, Grant Lee Phillips and Nellie McKay, as well as comedians.
The Coronet has been a legit theater since it was built in the mid-1940s and once housed the West Coast offices of Rodgers & Hammerstein. The bar space next door, the former Coronet Pub, is slated for renovation and reopening as well.
New venue boasts two performances spaces — a 280-seat theater and a smaller room that can accommodate up to 70 — as well as a lobby space and a courtyard. The stage from Largo will be placed in the Little Room as it is being called. Unlike the current venue, it will not serve food beyond pastries and gelato and will only have a beer and wine license for the smaller room. Tickets will be sold as they are now, via a phone reservation system, and through a box office that is expected to be open in the afternoons.
“Different is good,” said Jon Brion, the composer-performer whose Friday-night residency, which has lasted 12 years, will continue in the new home dubbed Largo at the Coronet. “Here it is obvious that (the evening) is about the performance. It will be more focused.”
Coincidentally, as the doors on the original Largo are closing, a documentary on the venue will be starting to make the festival rounds. “Largo” has been accepted at the Los Angeles Film Festival — screening June 22 —  and the Times BFI London Film Festival.
The trailer: