BANDS

Quirky quintet

Jake Bellows isn’t nearly as bummed as he sounds on his band Neva Dinova’s second album, “The Hate Yourself Change,” a fuzzy, country-tinged meditation that elevates world-weariness to an art form. But he sounds amused by folks who might be more fixated on where his band is from rather than the music.

“There’s so much focus on Omaha right now, but you could go to any number of towns and find a bunch of sweet bands,” says Bellows, who collaborated with Conor Oberst on a split EP last year and comes to town this weekend as an opening act for Bright Eyes. “It’s just luck, that’s all. There’s nothing in the water in Omaha, ‘cept a little chlorine and maybe some catfish butt.”

Three years after its debut album, “Neva Dinova,” the quintet again delivers songs that could have originated at the end barstool of a deserted Midwestern roadhouse. Bellows, plaintive and scratchy, sings lines like “I’m much too tired to explain / how I let my life get away” but then does a fair job of doing just that. “The original working title of the album was ‘Kill Yourself or Someone You Love,’ ” the 29-year-old singer-guitarist says with a chuckle, “but by the time we started recording it we had an attitude change.”

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Stylistic tapestry

Singer-songwriter Sylvie Lewis decided to spend a year in L.A. after she graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston. “Five years later, I’m still here,” she says -- and Saturday night at the Hotel Cafe she’ll celebrate the release of her debut, “Tangos & Tantrums.”

The London-born chanteuse’s wry, worldly twist on relationships springs from numbers styled in cabaret, jazz, ragtime and waltz, held together by her rapturous, dusky vocals. “A lot of styles are interwoven for me, and the album in that way reflects a lot of songbooks,” Lewis says.

It also reflects her collaborators, including “Tangos” co-producer Richard Swift, whose own old-timey take on modern pop has earned him a growing fan base in L.A. Says Lewis: “It’s nice to be part of a wonderful artistic music community.”

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Fast forward

* Ex-Guided by Voices guitarist Doug Gillard will perform tonight at the Echoplex club (a new space beneath the Echo) as part of next week’s D.I.Y. Festival. It’s his first show after his solo debut album, “Salamander.”

* Local bands Red Muffs and Rowdy will be joined by TV actor Jesse Metcalfe and others for a benefit Sunday to raise money for the victims of the La Conchita mudslide. The show kicks off at 5 p.m. at the Blue Bar in Agoura Hills.

* The Jan. 15 installment of Steven Van Zandt’s radio show was a tribute to Bomp Records founder and garage rock champion Greg Shaw, who died in October at age 55. Hear it online: www.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com/play/archive.html

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-- Kevin Bronson