BUZZ BANDS

Office puts on ‘Ritz’

Songwriter Scott Masson is not the first art-schooler to turn to pop music as a means of self-expression. Indeed, the 28-year-old frontman of the Chicago quintet Office credits the year he spent at Goldsmiths College in London, segueing from struggling painter to installation artist, for changing his point of view.

“It taught me how to look at the world with a more critical eye and be more focused,” the singer-guitarist says, remembering that as he emerged from undergrad school in Michigan he was “kind of lost.” Speaking of his early musical excursions, he says, “I was really only talking to myself rather than bringing in the world.”

With the Sept. 25 release of Office’s debut “A Night at the Ritz,” Masson and bandmates Tom Smith, Alissa Noonan, Erica Corniel and Jessica Gonyea will be bringing themselves to the world, dance beats and cheeky humor intact. Office’s glammy histrionics (think Pop Levi) and stuttery synths (think the Cars in stop-and-go traffic) put a hip-shaking twist on boy-girl vocal pop. The album was almost five years in the works. “Our greatest hits that no one’s ever heard,” Masson says with a laugh.

Office caught the attention of James Iha, who signed it to his New Line-affiliated Scratchie Records. Masson jumped at the chance to work with the ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist “rather than some business-type A&R; man,” he says. “Plus, I just like the idea of a small label.”

Office performs tonight at the Roxy with standout local bands the Deadly Syndrome, Let’s Go Sailing and the Western States Motel as part of Filter’s Revenge of the Sunset Strip program.

Smile while you rock

The mind-bending narrative twists and live-wire musicality on the last album by the Henry Clay People put the L.A. quartet on the must-see list for scenesters who like their pop smart, fast and fun. But to hear singer-guitarist Joey Siara tell it, the band might be evolving backward.

“We grew up listening to a lot of punk rock. A lot of bands start from those punk-rock roots and go from there,” Siara says of the new material that he, brother guitarist Andy Siara, drummer Eric Scott and singer-bassist Noah Green are preparing to record. “We’re kind of doing the opposite. Even the lyrics aren’t as esoteric.”

Not that the last album, “Blacklist the Kid With the Red Moustache,” didn’t have plenty of charm beyond its title. Arriving at an aesthetic that makes them sound like the teenage sons of Built to Spill gone off their Ritalin, the Henry Clay People make song puzzles with smile-while-you-rock titles like “Elly vs. the Eczema Princess” and “The Bandage on the Bloodclot.”

Even the band’s moniker -- it’s named for the 19th century politician and failed presidential candidate -- is liable to raise some eyebrows. “It was either ‘the Henry Clay People’ or ‘the Forgotten Presidency of Chester A. Arthur,’ ” says Siara, who majored in history at UC Santa Barbara. “ ‘Henry Clay’ got a moderate thumbs-up from the band.”

Something of a test-tube act in its early stages (the band made an album without having played live in L.A.), the quartet has racked up some 70 gigs since September. On Monday, it will help the Happy Hollows kick off their residency at the Echo.

Fast forward

Touts: Speaking of Chicago bands on labels started by musicians, the emo-pop quintet Treaty of Paris hits town for shows (with Victorville’s Lorene Drive) Tuesday at the Knitting Factory and Wednesday at the Alley in Fullerton. Its “Sweet Dreams, Sucker” is out on Airport Tapes and Records, the imprint launched by Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin. . . . The Brian Jonestown Massacre convenes at the Echoplex for shows Saturday and Sunday. . . . And Okkervil River plays Tuesday at the Troubadour behind its new album, “The Stage Names.”

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