Timbuk3’s Quirky Music Finds an Audience

“What really grosses me out,” Timbuk3’s Pat McDonald reports from his home in Austin, “is all the people who throughout the ‘70s were saying, ‘The ‘60s are dead. Now you’ve got to be into money and vote Republican. You’ve got to be ruthless and greedy because the ‘60s are dead . . . .’ ”

The best way to deal with that attitude, which McDonald sees raising its ugly head once more, “is by writing about it. For Barbara and me,” he said in reference to Barbara K, his wife and band mate, “music is our way of bringing idealism and everyday struggle together.”

“But I don’t think it’s necessarily moralizing,” K adds quickly. “It may be more like: ‘Oh wow! Look at that incongruity. Isn’t it strange, this attitude or that?’ ”

The ability to spot those incongruities helped land Timbuk3 in the Top 20 last year with “The Future’s So Bright I’ve Got to Wear Shades,” a perky little ditty that skewered the very college kids who shout along with the chorus.

“Greetings From Timbuk3,” the album that spawned “Shades,” brought a Grammy nomination for Best New Group. Timbuk3 will perform Sunday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

Timbuk3’s latest album, “Eden Alley,” is far moodier than “Greetings From.” Like its predecessor, though, it’s full of wonderful characters such as the marauding preacher in “Reverend Jack and His Roaming Cadillac Church,” the lusting couple seeking fame and fortune in “Dance Fever,” and the post-nuclear North Carolina family whose children won’t learn to read or write--they’d rather “Sample the Dog.”

K and McDonald joined forces in Wisconsin and moved to New York, where they played for change on the street corners before settling in Austin, Tex., a thriving college town with a then-bubbling alternative music scene.

When IRS Records came to Austin to film a segment of “The Cutting Edge” (the half-hour show the label produces for MTV on non-mainstream artists), label reps were was intrigued by the band’s a-guy-a-girl-and-a-beat-box approach and was floored by its quirky songwriting. A contract soon followed.

“We were used to inching along, doing lots of little gigs in bars. Then, suddenly, bam!” McDonald said with a laugh. “But the media stuff, like going here and there to be on TV, doing interviews . . . ,” his voice trails off, “we weren’t sure we were ready for (that) kind of exposure . . . . We weren’t sure we were ready to be familiar faces.

“We’re adjusting to it, though.”

Although it has yet to produce as successful a single as “Shades,” “Eden Alley” has picked up solid reviews for its bending and blending of reggae, country, blues and bluegrass sounds against a fairly sparse pop-rock framework.

“With this record,” McDonald said, “we took our time.” (It, like their first, was recorded in producer Dennis Herring’s basement.) “With the first record, it felt like a dance you do when someone’s shooting bullets at your feet. I think that came in part from all the years in clubs where you’ve got to hold people’s attention every second or you’ll lose it.”

In clubs these days, McDonald and K and their four-track tape recorder don’t have to compete with the jukebox or with noisy college kids, belly-to-belly at the bar pounding down dollar beers. But just because the audience is on its side doesn’t mean that Timbuk3 is taking it easy.

“We look at playing as an opportunity to show people that there’s more to us than just sunglasses,” K says. “I think Pat’s songs are all jewels, and this is a chance for people to see that and appreciate it.”

Timbuk3 plays rock at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, Sunday at 8 p.m. Tickets: $15. Information: (714) 496-8930. Timbuk3’s new album, ‘Eden Alley,’ is full of wonderful characters such as the post-nuclear North Carolina family whose children won’t learn to read or write--they’d rather ‘Sample the Dog.’