BUZZ BANDS

They already look good on the dance floor

The Kooks are the kind of band that the British press loves to idolize: four foulmouthed mop-headed boys prone to lager-soaked all-nighters; an on-the-record rivalry with another band (Razorlight, if you can believe anyone would take it seriously enough); and, underneath the bravado, a puppy-eyed love of all things rock ‘n’ roll. Luckily for the band members who met at music school, their debut album, “Inside In/Inside Out,” produced by Angeleno Tony Hoffer and awash in soulful, spunky rock anchored by singer Luke Pritchard’s off-kilter yelp, is worth at least a third of the hype, which is a better ratio than most other Brit “it” bands have warranted (Starsailor, anyone?).

For all the fanfare overseas, barely anyone in America, outside bloggers and Anglophiles, knows the Kooks. And that’s all right by Hugh Harris, the band’s 19-year-old guitarist. “I’m looking forward to starting over in the States,” he says in a scratchy mumble. “You’ve got to respect such a huge country, the amount of people that you have to get your music across to. We’re going to build up from the roots.”

Los Angeles Kooks fans are fortunate that the band’s profile here is still low. After five charting singles and four sold-out tours in England, the Kooks will cram its big, joyous sound into Club Spaceland on Wednesday for Club NME night. And should the band convert America and get even bigger, Harris isn’t worried: “It means we’re winning.”

This band walks into a bar ...

London’s Archie Bronson Outfit may have just launched its first West Coast tour, prepping for a slot on this week’s underground combo platter Arthur Nights, but not long ago it was just a trio of bearded art students with post-punk anthems rattling in their heads. That is until fate -- and an impromptu performance at the same pub frequented by Domino Records chief Laurence Bell -- intervened.

“There was this band playing, these ex-punks or something, but it got kind of late and wild, so we thought we’d have a go as well,” says lead singer Sam Windett.

“So we just used their stuff and played a couple of our songs, and Laurence introduced himself. It was purely by chance.”

That chance meeting most recently spawned the band’s second album for Domino, “Derdang Derdang.” Obsessively written and rehearsed in the band’s south London flat before finally recorded in Nashville, “Derdang Derdang” bears a passing stylistic resemblance to label mate Franz Ferdinand. But its flinty, garage-sharpened guitars and Windett’s nervy yelp set the Archie Bronson Outfit well apart, along with drummer-lyricist Arp Cleveland’s sometimes uncomfortably blunt tales of romantic obsession.

“A lot of the times I don’t even ask him [what they’re about], I just sing it and bring my own meaning,” Windett says of his performances. “I like it, it’s kind of this detached thing. It’s quite a big thing to put your feelings on paper and share them with listeners, so this way I kind of avoid that.”

The Archie Bronson Outfit plays Sunday at the Palace Theatre with Comets on Fire, the Fiery Furnaces and others.

Fast forward

Touts: Kudos to Jacksonville-based blue-eyed soul combo Mofro for its juke-joint-shaking set at Fais Do-Do on Wednesday.... Gloomy singer-songwriter Damien Jurado muses at Hotel Cafe tonight, as do spunky rockers the Ettes at Spaceland, wry rockers Mellowdrone at the Orange County Museum of Art and upbeat rapper Pigeon John at El Rey Theatre with Lyrics Born and Cut Chemist.... The freakiest of folkers, Bonnie Prince Billy, plays from his great new album “The Letting Go” at venues all over the Southland, including Sunday at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, Tuesday at the Smell and Wednesday at the Malibu Performing Arts Center.... Bluesy duo Two Gallants soldiers on to the Troubadour on Friday after an awful melee involving police and Taser guns at Walter’s on Washington in Houston last week, while label mates Now It’s Overhead play dreamy experimental pop at the Knitting Factory Saturday.... Jangly post-punkers Oxford Collapse play Saturday at the Knitting Factory, and occasional Ladytron bassist Pop Levi joins NYC glam-rockers Earl Greyhound at Silverlake Lounge on Tuesday.

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Recommended downloads

Stream the Kooks’ “Eddie’s Gun” at www.myspace.com/thekooks

* Stream Archie Bronson Outfit’s “Dart for My Sweetheart” at www.archiebronsonoutfit.net/abo/releases