BUZZ BANDS

Music, minus caffeine

A year ago, Jason Mraz was a San Diego coffeehouse legend, the crown prince of Java Joe’s. “A weekly gig, no P.A.,” he recalls. “Here I am now traveling from city to city with a full band -- it’s really insane.”

Maybe, but not to devotees of the 25-year-old’s introspective songs and jazzy delivery. His album, “Waiting for My Rocket to Come,” is taking off, he has opened for Dave Matthews and Jewel, and his headlining gig tonight at the House of Blues in West Hollywood is sold out.

Oh, and Kevin Spacey called, wanting the kid from Mechanicsville, Va., to play a show at the Sundance Festival. “First you think it’s one of your friends pretending to be Kevin Spacey,” Mraz says, “except it sounded exactly like Keyser Soze,” the criminal mastermind Spacey portrayed in “The Usual Suspects.” The attention is dizzying for a performer who once complained about playing for “a crowd too large for what I had to say.”

Says Mraz: “I like to know that I can make eye contact with every person in the room, but now I know there are hundreds of eyes I’m not going to get to see. My stuff can be pretty sensitive, so what happens between songs kind of wipes the slate clean. It keeps the crowd with me and me with them.”

Not center ice, but it’s a living

Eric Torcasio of Grenwich Meantime has a word of caution for bands that land gigs playing at the Arrowhead Pond before Mighty Ducks hockey games. “Not quite as good as it sounds,” he says. “We were on a little stage in the parking lot, with a lot of kid-oriented games set up right in front of us.” Not to sound ungrateful, though -- the quintet has been performing tirelessly since self-releasing a five-song EP of driving, melodic rock. Shows Feb. 21 at the Gypsy Lounge in Lake Forest and Feb. 28 at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano are ahead. “If the songs are good, they’ll find an audience,” Torcasio says, “and if they find an audience, they’ll find industry backing.”

Fast forward

Yellowcard, the hard-touring Florida-to-Orange County pop-punk band, has begun work on its next album. Fans will hear some of the new material at the Troubadour next Thursday.... Early arrivals for the last week of Patrick Park’s residency at Spaceland on Monday were treated to a glistening set of rootsy rock courtesy of the Bay Area’s Noelle Hampton -- think Tuesday Night Music Club-era Sheryl Crow on three pots of coffee.... DJ Me DJ You’s new album, “Can You See the Music?,” has landed, and the duo celebrates with a record release party tonight at Joseph’s in Hollywood.... Jim Bianco, lately a staple at the Hotel Cafe and recently earning a few eclectic minutes on KCRW-FM (89.9), brings his quirky, bluesy material to the “Circle of Songs” showcase at 7 p.m. Monday at Genghis Cohen in Hollywood.... The cozy Sherman Oaks Lounge offers a pop show Friday, and the last of four acts are the aspiring heartthrobs in Sterling, a quartet recently transplanted from the U.K.

-- Kevin Bronson

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