California rockers bring smiles to Garfield

Limbeck…Limbeck With John Ralston, My Son Daniel and Wayne Beck 8 p.m. Garfield Artworks 4391 Penn Ave. $9 advance, $10 at the door 412-361-2262

While current trends seem to suggest that electro-dance beats or brooding sadness are the new black when it comes to music, Limbeck, from Orange County, Calif., chooses to swim upstream. This quartet of ex-punkers has, over the course of four albums, refined its brand of bounce, guitar and melody-driven alt-country party music.

Need an album to pop in your car CD player on your next road trip to keep everyone appeased and entertained – and to keep you awake? These are your guys.

Limbeck first formed in 2000 as a power-poppy-punk group a la Homegrown or Hot Rod Circuit. By 2002, with the release of the uber-positive album Hi, Everything’s Great (the title gives it all away), Limbeck’s sound morphed into the still-evolving brand of rock it plays today – rootsy country jams about life on the road, sleeping on friends’ couches and coming home to your baby. Think The Get Up Kids with a whole lot more twang.

And though the band tours heavily, especially for its just-released self-titled album, it has yet to lose touch with how it feels to scrape by.

“When we’re not touring, I still work at the same record shop I have for years,” singer Robb MacLean said in a recent interview. “Luckily, my manager is pretty understanding.”