O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Timbuk3 Breathes Heaviest in Caustic Looks at Politics

One of the unwritten laws of rock stardom might be that novelty song hits equal career death.

Eric Burdon had a string of successes until he waxed “Spill the Wine” and disappeared forever from the airwaves. Though he had a couple of minor comebacks, Don McLean remains forever buried in “American Pie,” and he fares better than most novelty progenitors, the likes of whose “In the Year 2525” or “Curly Shuffle” might as well have been well-publicized death sentences.

In most cases that kiss of death has been a blessing for listeners. But in these times, “novelty” might apply not just to the quirky and gimmicky, but also, in contrast with the musical Velveeta clogging the airwaves, to the few bits of original, different music that do break through. (For example, see if we ever hear Tracy Chapman on the radio again.)

While Timbuk3’s “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” was not without its quirk quotient, it was also one of the most inventive and slyly ironic songs to hit the radio in the last few years. That 1986 song is but the least of the riches to be found on the Austin, Tex., duo’s three albums, but none has made it to radio.

That was reflected in the small audience that saw the band’s thoroughly engaging show Tuesday here at the Coach House.

Timbuk3 also is smaller than it once was. Husband-wife team Pat and Barbara K MacDonald have dumped the boom-box tape player formerly used to flesh out their performances with prerecorded backing tracks. While a gimmicky idea, on stage the tape machine had been effective, allowing the group to nearly duplicate the clever arrangements Pat crafted on record.

That dimension was scarcely missed in Tuesday’s 25-song, two-encore set, with the taped ornamentation being more than supplanted by the duo’s direct, no-frills delivery and engaging interplay.

Drawing heavily on the current “Edge of Allegiance” album, the pair backed their vocal harmonies with Pat, on acoustic guitar and harmonica, and Barbara moving from electric guitar to percussion and violin.

While they connected persuasively with a mournful fiddle instrumental and a rave-up two-harmonica rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” it is when illustrating Pat MacDonald’s often-caustic lyrics dealing with American life and politics that the pair’s music really breathes.

“Dirty, Dirty Rice” was given a Cajun fiddle treatment, highlighting the hard times behind the lyric celebrating the joys of dumpster dining behind Popeye’s Fried Chicken. A sense of spiritual decay was outlined on the Tom Waits-ian rumba “Standard White Jesus,” which included the line “They want rockets to fly up to heaven / And get the hell out of here,” while religious hucksters got a swipe on “Reverend Jack in His Roamin’ Cadillac Church.”

The pair’s songs did not only deal in bile. The opening “B-Side of Life” dealt sensitively, and perhaps even in self-reference, with the life that continues after fame fades. Given the affection the MacDonalds displayed for their music and each other, the performance left the impression that Timbuk3 will continue to flourish, fame or no.

Orange County’s Swamp Zombies opened with a typically antic set that showed both why they are local favorites and why they may never be more than that. There is a grungy whimsy in the way the acoustic quartet bashes out its twisted folk music and in its bid to steep the Irvine life style in voodoo murk. But there just is not much substance there, nothing that sticks after the last note fades.

That last note came rather abruptly Tuesday, as the Zombies’ set was halted at Timbuk3’s behest because the Zombies broke a beer bottle being used as a percussion instrument during their “Mr. Hate”--and spilled beer on the headliner’s stage carpet. That might not seem like a big deal, but, as Pat MacDonald later told the audience, “We’ve got to put this back in our bedroom again when we get home.”