BUZZ BANDS

You don’t just hear a lot of the 1990s in the music of L.A. quartet Hazelden, you hear a lot of singer Mary Jane Snow’s ambition. As one of the few kids from her self-described “white-trash Minnesota neighborhood” to attend college, she lived in Chicago, London and San Francisco before taking up songwriting in earnest, inspired by this decade’s rock revival, informed by heroes such as Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and maybe even channeling a little “Celebrity Skin”-era Hole. “It was about the time you started to hear the Strokes or the Vines on the radio,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is what I want to do.’ ” She came to L.A. to do it, first playing open mike nights before falling in with bassist Joshua Wayne, guitarist Travis Garrecht and drummer Pete Vasquez, (pictured from left with Snow) who on Hazelden’s debut EP “Deadstock Rock” help give Snow’s sometimes-foreboding anthems a snarling, soaring edge -- as evidenced on the track “To Live and Die in L.A.” “I was nervous about putting [her first batch of songs] out, because I knew people would say, ‘Oh, this is Hole,’ ” Snow says. “But the guys have taken what I wrote and made it this new thing. . . . This is an imposing town to play in, because there’s a million bands, but I think we have something unique. I’m not Jimi Hendrix, I’m not Janis Joplin, but I have confidence in my ability as a singer-songwriter.” Live: Hazelden plays Monday at Winston’s in West Hollywood, Feb. 16 at 14 Below in Santa Monica and Feb. 22 (its EP release show) at Bordello in downtown L.A. ALSO CHECK: Nice triple bill Saturday at the Wiltern (and Sunday at the House of Blues Anaheim): Louis XIV (behind its new “Slick Dogs and Ponies”) and Hot Hot Heat warm up for Editors. . . . And a record-release show for locals the Breakups and I Make This Sound on Wednesday at the Echo.

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-- Kevin.B[email protected]