BUZZ BANDS

Things are rolling now

He has busked in Brea, strummed outside the cineplex at the Irvine Spectrum and sung over the whir of espresso machines at most any coffeehouse that would have him. But the most serendipitous 15-minute performance of Tyrone Wells’ career came a year ago at the National Assn. of Campus Activities convention in Boston.

“I played ‘No Good Without You,’ then I told a story,” Wells says of the showcase in front of collegiate talent buyers that led to about 150 offers to play gigs. The son of a preacher from Spokane, Wash., ended up taking more than 100 of them; then, in a manner of speaking, he ran the table on 2006, getting signed to Universal Republic, which on Feb. 6 will release his debut “Hold On.”

“Sometimes I felt like I was pushing a boulder up a hill,” Wells says. “Then I got to the top and everything started rolling.”

Wells’ stock in trade is a sincerity that gives shape to his soulful, peace-love-understanding balladry. He’s as liable to lapse into storytelling at his shows as he is jamming -- “Anybody can hop onstage and play a couple songs,” he says -- and his charisma is very real, friends say.

“He will play anytime, anywhere,” says Wells’ producer, Orange County-based Chris Karn. “If he’s at Denny’s having breakfast and meets a group of people who might be interested in his music, he will grab his guitar, stand up in his booth and play.”

Wells headlines the El Rey Theatre on Saturday.

Not too hopeful or melancholy

You don’t have to listen to much of Low vs Diamond’s first single to get an idea of where songwriter Lucas Field is coming from -- dirty and restless guitars, muted atmospherics, vocals pleading to “show you ‘Life After Love.’ ”

“As a middle-schooler in Seattle, I listened to the things you’d expect -- Mudhoney, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Nirvana,” Field says. “Then I went to Colorado for school, and it was like, ‘Oh, the String Cheese Incident is playing tonight.’ It sent me in a different direction.”

For now, the L.A.-based quintet stands precipitously between overwrought melancholy and chimey hopefulness, slipping fully into neither. While Field’s introspective songwriting leans toward the former, the band’s commercial prospects suggest the latter. Singer-guitarist Field, drummer Howie Diamond, keyboardist Tad Moore, guitarist Anthony Polcino and bassist John Pancoast hooked up with British label Marrakesh Records (formerly Lizard King, which initially signed the Killers) for a debut EP out Feb. 5 in England. Then Epic inked the band to a U.S. deal.

Only a year after playing around town as Colored Shadows and retooling its lineup, Low vs Diamond is recording its debut with producers Stacy Jones and Bill Lefler. “It’s going to be sweet,” says Field, 26, whose band plays tonight at the Troubadour. “I’m always going to be into arrangements like [in the songs of] Bacharach, Marvin Gaye and artists like that. But I want to incorporate the big moments that rock fans love.”

Fast

forward

* Touts: The Broken West’s calamitous pop has made its residency shows Mondays at Spaceland (two remain) feel-good affairs. The quintet’s debut “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On” comes out Tuesday on Merge Records, with an in-store performance at Sea Level Records in Echo Park that day to celebrate.... The Bird and the Bee, the Inara George / Greg Kurstin collaboration, plays at the Troubadour on Tuesday, the day its self-titled album comes out on Blue Note’s Metro Blue imprint.... SoftLightes continue their residency tonight at the Silverlake Lounge, and other January residencies offer myriad flavors: The Submarines play heart-rending pop Mondays at the Echo; the Pity Party unleash their experimental new wave Monday at the Silverlake Lounge; young rockers the Procession tee it up Tuesdays at El Cid; and edgy power-poppers Get Set Go hold forth at the Key Club.

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-- Kevin Bronson

buzzbands@latimes.com

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Recommended downloads

For more about these artists and others, visit the Buzz Bands blog at latimes.com/buzzbands.

* Stream Tyrone Wells’ “What Are We Fighting For?” at www.myspace.com/tyronewells

* Stream “Life After Love” by Low Vs Diamond at www.myspace.com/lowvsdiamond

* Download the Broken West’s “Down in the Valley” at toolshed.biz/asset/resource/5924/03_Down_in_the_Valley.mp3