BUZZ BANDS

Coming into their own

Many bands that have been active a decade or longer are nostalgia acts; the guys in Big City Rock are just getting started. “It’s something that we’ve been together 11 years, and now we have a chance to make a record,” says keyboardist Frank Staniszewski. The quintet, three of whom were boyhood friends in Madison, Wis., is finalizing a deal with Atlantic, so expect BCR’s amped-up power pop to have a special energy when the band co-headlines the Troubadour on Tuesday with kindred spirits the Waking Hours.

Big City Rock -- the band adopted the name after moving to L.A. from the Midwest -- was hatched by Staniszewski, guitarist-vocalist Nate Bott, bassist Timothy Resudek and drummer Jeff Conrad. After Conrad left to replace Jason Schwartzman in Phantom Planet, BCR added Kaumyar Delkash and then another guitarist, Andy Barr. “Andy was the final puzzle piece,” Staniszewski says. “We can’t wait to start writing for the album.”

Fever dream

Convulsive guitars, four-on-the-floor beats, funeral-a-go-go organ, yelping vocals -- sure, the Fever can get you dancing. But what might separate the quintet from the tsunami of New York City hipster bands is its aesthetic, as conveyed by frontman Geremy Jasper’s striking collage on the cover of the band’s debut, “Red Bedroom.” Suggesting a future in which man and machine are interchangeable, it advertises songs with mechanical rhythm but full of heart.

“I wanted to create snapshots of the world where this album would be a soundtrack,” Jasper says. And the soundtrack? “We’re a mix between ‘Blade Runner’ and vaudeville.” The Fever opens for Moving Units on Saturday at Chain Reaction in Anaheim and visits Spaceland on Wednesday.

The dating scene in song

While writing songs for her 2001 debut, Tracy Spuehler’s world shuddered with “big life things,” including the death of her mother and a breakup with a longtime boyfriend. And go figure. The song that earned her notice was “Where Do We Go?” -- used in a Nissan car commercial.

“It was my poppy, happy song,” says the 32-year-old singer, whose tunes charmed their way into the public’s ear on KCRW-FM and beyond, with bursts of wit and sweetness tempered by dollops of sobering reality.

Now comes her follow-up, “It’s the Sound,” which Spuehler will celebrate Tuesday with a show at the Hotel Cafe. “It’s my L.A. dating album,” says Spuehler, a producer for music television by day and a former violinist who didn’t take up songwriting until she was in her mid-20s. “I love the process. It’s very therapeutical and still very exciting.”