BUZZ BANDS

Jump all you want

Their name is a homage to the classic song by the Stone Roses. Their sound suggests Pulp and the Jam playing a dance party celebrating the British Invasion. And their debut EP features guest vocals by the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley. What’s not to adore about the L.A. quartet the Adored?

Not much, unless you’re a little too snobbish to cut loose and embrace the visceral pleasures of roughhewn pop songs. “There are people who know too much about music for their own good -- they stand there with their arms folded,” guitarist Drew Seventeen says wryly. “There’s a big difference between playing a club in Silver Lake and a house party in O.C. where the kids are jumping around and we’re blowing fuses.”

Says bassist Max Humphrey: “The music we’re making now is what we would have liked when we were those O.C. kids.”

It also appealed to V2 Records, which signed the Adored after a couple of years of dues-paying in Los Angeles clubs and which will release the band’s debut EP (recorded with producer Dave Trumfio) in early January. Shelley, who caught the band at a New York club, eventually was asked to be a guest on the record.

Humphrey, Seventeen and bandmates Nat Keefer and Ryan George will close out 2004 playing to the crowd that helped them thrive locally -- the L.A. mod scene. The Adored will provide the live music Friday at the New Year’s Eve party at the Echo hosted by Club Underground, Hang the DJs and Club 82.

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Fast forward

* Three other emergent L.A. bands are ringing in 2005 with shows Friday, including Autolux, whose debut “Future Perfect” has earned mention on several music critics’ best-of-2004 lists. The trio plays at Spaceland.... At the Viper Room, garage rockers the Vacation hope to start the year in style -- and the quartet is liable to pick up momentum in the spring. The Vacation’s debut album, “Band From World War Zero,” will get a stateside release April 26 (it was out in the U.K. in September). Joining them will be sonically adventurous Gram Rabbit, the Joshua Tree outfit that makes twangy space jams.... Beth Hart’s show Friday at the intimate Genghis Cohen space is sold out; her album, “Leave the Light On,” released in October, is being used as promotional theme music for soap operas on CBS.

* One final nod to the old year -- longtime sideman-collaborator Frank Lenz, who plays in Starflyer 59, has released a solo album. The collection, “Conquest Slaughter” (Velvet Blue Music), is admittedly uneven, he says, “but for the first time I was making music in my own skin and I had to get the songs out there.” Despite what its orchestral moments might indicate, the album, highlighted by some Neil Young-type balladry, was recorded in his Huntington Beach apartment. “My living room,” Lenz says, “is not a living room anymore.”

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-- Kevin Bronson

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