BUZZ BANDS

Reaching beyond its niche market

Becky Stark sings as if she were on a tight wire suspended high among billowy clouds. The 25-year-old rather talks like it too, the threads of conversation leading to the disarming smile she unexpectedly flashed at a sinister-looking man at London’s Heathrow Airport, to “the total madness of how our culture devalues age,” to how fortunate she is to be working with guitarist Jeff Rosenberg, keyboardist Steve Gregoropoulos and drummer Ron Rege Jr. in her folk-pop quartet Lavender Diamond.

That her delicate, ethereal musings -- “protest songs disguised as love songs,” she says -- have found listeners beyond their obvious niche is even more of a marvel.

“The lines of culture are breaking down in amazing ways” thanks to the Internet, Stark says, remembering a recent tour to London, where fans were singing along to her words. “We have an audience that even five years ago we couldn’t have imagined.”

This from a band whose discography is one self-released EP. Signed to Rough Trade in England (but without a U.S. deal), Lavender Diamond plans to release an EP in November and an album in February. The releases figure to be another way station in Stark’s circuitous artistic path, which has included classical vocal training, a foray into academics at Brown University, guitar lessons with Kenny Edwards, a stint in the Merce Cunningham Dance Conservatory and a 56-city tour as Lavender Diamond -- the lead character in her punk operetta “The Birdsongs of the Beauharoque.”

If Stark’s writing prompts references to the great songstresses of the ‘60s, she feels a kinship with the noise and punk scenes because “of their spirit of invention and rebellion,” she says. But, she adds, “Linda Ronstadt is the inspiration for Lavender Diamond. I want to make a record that sounds like that.”

Stark will appear Friday night with side project the Living Sisters (a trio including Inara George and Eleni Mandell) at the Homage to Woody Guthrie at Theatricum Botanicum. On Saturday, her quartet has a late-afternoon slot at the Sunset Junction Street Fair.

Raw, just the way they like it

Everything you need to know about Agent Sparks is in the coed chorus of the song “Face the Day,” off the L.A. quartet’s debut album, “Red Rover.” Over a punky thrash, Ben Einziger and Stephanie Eitel opine: “If you’re anything, don’t be afraid to be yourself.”

For Einziger, Eitel and band mates Paul Fried and George Purviance, it was all about staying true. “We shaped our sound with an acoustic guitar and our voices,” Einziger says. “For me, I was influenced by really raw, organic music -- the early ‘90s was the pinnacle. I didn’t necessarily want to re-create that sound ... but I wanted to emote in a way that feels natural.”

That feel gives Agent Sparks a Pixies- and X-flavored rawness -- in the cathartic boy-girl vocals as well as the stripped-down production courtesy of Ben’s big brother, Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger. Indeed, “Red Rover” represents a sonic departure not only for the label that released it, Immortal Records (home to Incubus and Korn), but also for Einziger and Fried, his half brother, who were band mates in Audiovent, which made one album for Atlantic four years ago.

“It took a year for us to make the Audiovent record, and at the end it felt like we were making cars on an assembly line,” Einziger says. “We did the [Agent Sparks] LP in two weeks, and that helped contribute to the rawness.”

Agent Sparks, home after a summer tour with label mates 30 Seconds to Mars, headlines the Troubadour next Thursday.

Fast

forward

* Shouts: To Hellogoodbye, the electro-pop quartet from Orange County that moved more than 56,000 copies of its debut “Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!” in the first two weeks of its release. That has to put smiles on faces at local indie Drive-Thru Records. The foursome is back in town Oct. 14 for the Bamboozle Left Festival at Cal Poly Pomona.

* Touts: It’s a crowded week for releases by L.A. artists. The Randies’ sophomore effort, “Saw the Light,” elevates the quartet’s sound considerably from its jagged pop-punk beginnings; it will celebrate the release with shows Monday at the Viper Room and Sept. 4 at the Key Club.... Punkstress Josie Cotton makes a strong return with “Movie Disaster Music”; she plays the Knitting Factory tonight.... And the Tyde’s “Three’s Co.” is yet another installment in the quartet’s Flying Burrito Brothers-tinged “beachgazing”; the band plays Sunday night at the Echo before setting off on tour with the Brian Jonestown Massacre.... Also easy on the ears: Sky Parade heads the Sunset Junction after-party Saturday night at Spaceland; Portland, Ore., trio Stars of Track and Field, touring behind “Centuries Before Love and War,” play the Troubadour on Monday; and L.A.’s Eskimohunter performs at Spaceland on Tuesday.... This just in: The preliminary lineup for Arthur Nights, the shindig put on by Arthur magazine, has been announced. Among the acts for the Oct. 19-22 event at the Echo: Devendra Banhart, Be Your Own Pet, Wooden Wand, Comets on Fire and the Fiery Furnaces.

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-- Kevin Bronson

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Recommended downloads

* Download Lavender Diamond’s “You Broke My Heart” at www.lavenderdiamond.com/music.html.

* Stream Agent Sparks’ “Polly Anne” at www.myspace.com/agentsparks.

* Stream the Randies’ “Born Again New” at www.myspace.com/therandies.

* Watch the video for the Tyde’s “Brock Landers” at www.thetyde.com/brocklandersvideo.html.

* Download “Say Hello” by Stars of Track and Field at www.starsoftrackandfield.com.