BUZZ BANDS

Getting to bare truth

Hollywood resident Har Mar Superstar has become an entirely unlikely indie-rock icon -- he prefers pop gloss to distorted rawness, he’s pudgy instead of pencil-thin, and he’s a performer who strips down while doing synchronized dance moves -- not exactly the could-not-care-less attitude of most L.A. hipsters. Some haters have accused the ubiquitous Har Mar, who performs Friday at the Troubadour with Ben Lee, of being a one-trick pony, but there’s more to the Superstar than his half-nakedness would suggest.

First off, as he told us at this year’s South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, he’s developing a show for Cartoon Network’s hugely successful “Adult Swim.” “It’s about this drug mule from Tijuana who moves to L.A.,” he says. “I write an episode almost every time I take a shower.”

Har Mar also is working on music with his writing partner (and ex-Beck sideman) Greg Kurstin for an unlikely group of artists. They’re helping INXS write songs for their comeback record, working with former ‘N Sync member JC Chasez and hoping to sell a song to pop princess Kylie Minogue. So is all of this a guilty hipster pleasure? “No! I like all that stuff,” Har Mar says, dead serious. “It’s a pleasure. It’s not guilty at all. And it pays my rent.”

Everyone switch

If not for their game of musical chairs, the three members of Gliss are liable to send listeners into a trance, their spare dream-pop carrying Martin Klingman’s vaguely pinched vocals into the ether.

But then a song ends, and Klingman, David Reiss and Victoria Cecilia are trading duties on guitar, bass and drums.

“We’re definitely a collective, and switching off is just something we did and didn’t think about,” says Klingman, whose trio delivered a hypnotic set Monday in the opener to its May residency at the Echo. “But it’s become a selling point; people like it.”

The set even started without a live drummer, relying instead on Cecilia’s programming before Klingman clambered behind the kit. Yes, hiring a drummer might fix Gliss’ lineup, but, says Klingman, “this band is more about relationships, and adding to it would be kinda like dating somebody you don’t really want to.”

Just back from a tour of England, Gliss is celebrating the release of its “Kick in Your Heart” EP, six songs relying on measured guitar dynamics and subtle electronics. After their May dates in L.A., the trio goes back overseas for a series of appearances at European festivals.

Fast

forward

What a post-punk nugget -- “Celebration Castle,” the latest from the Ponys, throbs with urgency; think the Velvets on a tight deadline. The Chicago quartet plays the Echo on Tuesday.... Also Tuesday, dreamy California rockers Fairechild celebrate their album release at El Cid, with some heavy-hitting celebrity guests.... Damon Aaron, the hip-hop-leaning troubadour who celebrated the release of his album “Ballast” with a party this week at the Little Temple, will perform May 13 at the Temple Bar.

-- Kevin Bronson

and Jeff Miller