BANDS

All revved up

When Dylan Callaghan got fed up with his last band, he decided it was time to strip things down to the essentials.

“I didn’t want a band that sounded like a record,” he said. “I wanted something raw that would rock on a basic level.”

That would mean guitar-bass-drums, and that’s what Callaghan has built with Shapes of Race Cars, a no-gimmicks blast of buzzing rock ‘n’ roll with a nice detention-hall attitude.

The group has been around L.A. for a little less than a year, after a transition when Callaghan and bassist Dale Zyla searched for the next path to follow. “We went through the Dark Ages,” Callaghan recalled. “We played out with different names, different drummers. We were Angel Dust, True Love Always, New Best Friend.”

The bright spot emerging from that shadowy period is a seven-song EP, “Apocalypse Hurts,” assembled from tapes capturing them at various predominantly nontraditional recording venues, including “some stuff in a guy’s pool house.”

The results belie the ragtag production (or, perhaps, thrive from it), with the roll-the-windows-down anthem of “Angry Books,” the slice of power-pop, heavy on the power, of “Megaside” and the closing title track, which gives a protracted nod and a wink to the glam era of Brit rock.

The group kicks into high gear live, with Callaghan the down-to-earth singer-guitarist-host, while Zyla and drummer Josh Grolemund hammer away on their instruments. The trio’s next area plug-in is Feb. 15 at the Derby in Los Feliz, and they’ll do a month of Thursdays at Canter’s Kibitz Room in March.

The guys are also prepping for a recording date. With the unsigned band already seeing songs licensed for independent films and TV shows, including “The Real World,” “Road Rules” and “The Simple Life,” it seems like now’s the time for Shapes of Race Cars to get into a real studio and do things right. Not that Callaghan would be averse to something a little more DIY.

“I personally like the sound of four-track,” he said, “but for record companies, well, they all say they understand, but they really want it brought to them on a silver platter.”

Here, sir: Your indie band is ready.

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Fast forward

A limited number of tickets to the tsunami relief benefit at the Key Club tonight will be available at the door. Camp Freddy headlines, with Carmen Electra, Jerry Cantrell, Annabella Lwin, Steve Jones, Juliette Lewis, Terri Nunn and others.

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-- Frank Farrar