BUZZ BANDS

As sad as he wants it to be

Pardon Jimmy Tamborello of Silver Lake if he sounds defeatist. His new album, a product of his mostly snail-mail collaboration with Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard, is titled “Give Up,” due Tuesday from Subpop Records. The duo, using the nom de music Postal Service (get it?), exchanged songs via mail, with the Seattle-based Gibbard tweaking Tamborello’s outlines on his computer. “A lot of the songs are about leaving everything behind,” says Tamborello, the man behind Dntel’s sampler/keyboard creations. “They strike a balance between hopelessness and hopefulness.” And if “Give Up” isn’t an overt enough downer, there is Tamborello’s monthly Club Give Up at the Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz. “There’s been a good crowd, but it’s not as sad as I’ve wanted,” he says. Club Give Up convenes Sunday and again March 16. “Then we might take some time off,” Tamborello says, “so people can have a happy spring.”

Pleasantly surprised

Alexi Murdoch has gotten odd reactions when he’s invited fellow musicians to give mini-sets during his residency at the Hotel Cafe, every Tuesday this month. The series started off with Irish phenom Damien Rice performing three numbers before Murdoch’s set of poetic songs recalling English progressive folk icons Nick Drake and John Martyn. “When I tell people, ‘Just come up and play 15 minutes,’ they don’t understand what I’m talking about,” he says. “They say, ‘You mean 15 minutes of your time?’ ” The Greek-born, Scotland-schooled Duke graduate (also opening for Smokey & Miho on Friday at the El Rey) hadn’t expected to find such community spirit when he started performing around L.A. last year. And now, “Orange Sky,” a song off his four-track EP, has become a favorite on KCRW-FM (89.9). Despite the attention, Murdoch’s not shopping for a record deal yet, wanting to make an album and refine his live show. Says Murdoch: “It was funny how quickly I found this community, which I had assumed wouldn’t exist in a town like this.”

Cool with the label

Josh Hagquiest, frontman for Riverside emo-rock band The Beautiful Mistake, has no problem being compared to like-minded bands such as Thursday or tour mates Further Seems Forever. “Everyone’s going to have a label,” he says. “As long as the tag isn’t limiting someone from listening to us, I don’t care.” The band has gone from a do-it-yourself outfit to a full-fledged touring group in just over two years. They’re playing three shows next week, at the Troubadour on Monday, Anaheim’s Chain Reaction on Tuesday and Westlake Village’s Kung Foo Corner on Wednesday, supporting their first full-length, “Light a Match, for I Deserve to Burn.” It’s an album brimming with intense bouts of screaming, raunchy guitar breakdowns and intentionally vague lyrics, about which Hagquiest admits, “I like it when people can make up their own meanings for our stuff.”

-- Kevin Bronson, with Steve Hochman and Jeff Miller

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