MUSIC : A Crash Course : Canadian band hits the road with a debut album to sell and a sound all its own.

Crash Test Dummies is the name of the band, but singer/songwriter/guitarist Brad Roberts is no dummy. A Dummy, sure, even the Big Dummy, but no dummy.

He’s one of those college cats (degrees in philosophy and English) who writes all the clever songs brimming with artsy smartsy lyrics. So freedom of choice survives in rock ‘n’ roll--reach for a dance partner or reach for a dictionary to decipher the words.

The Crash Test Dummies are from Winnipeg, the city in Manitoba, Canada with a name almost as weird backward as forward. They’re a folk rockin’ quartet and not some mannequins in one of those seat-belt films they show at traffic school.

The band has been in the back of one of those big old buses touring Canada. It is dropping down to do the sea-to-shining-sea gig and will be stopping by the Anaconda Theatre in Isla Vista on Tuesday night. It’s only five bucks.

And--big surprise--the band has just released its debut album, “The Ghosts That Hunt Me.” (It’s rare to find a band that has no new album and just wants to take a drive.)

“The album is doing really well,” Roberts said in a recent phone interview from Toronto. “We didn’t slug it out and pay our dues. We’re just a bunch of spoiled brats who didn’t pay any dues at all.

“There’s so many good bands up here because it so cold that there’s nothing to do except sit around and play music. And I couldn’t play hockey because I’m one of those uncoordinated people; I had to engage in some sort of extracurricular activity.”

Roberts said the band got its start at a place in Winnipeg called the Blue Note Cafe that is open until 4 a.m. seven days a week.

“A lot of famous acts have passed through there,” he said. “Rod Stewart’s band jammed here. Neil Young jammed there. KISS ate burgers there. The place has this open-mike format, so I thought I may as well try my hand at songwriting. We made a demo tape and pretty soon we received a number of serious offers on the basis of that tape, and here we are.”

The first thing one notices about Dummies’ music is Roberts’ voice. It’s almost deep enough to make James Earl Jones sound like a soprano and it’s, well, very original. Roberts doesn’t really sound like anyone else.

And when keyboard player Ellen Reid kicks in with the harmony vocals, it’s sweeter than a 30-foot bonbon. In addition to the usual guitar, bass and drums, the Dummies also utilize harmonica, accordion, cello, banjo, violin, mandolin, recorder, and of course, the penny whistle.

“What we do, essentially, is throw together a number of styles into a musical mixing bowl,” Roberts said. “It’s very difficult to put a finger on our music. There’s country and folk influences, but our music is not country or folk. Lyle Lovett and the Roches are our most obvious influences.”

Roberts rankles at some of the language other musicians use to describe their music.

“You read a lot of self-congratulatory labels from various musicians who say their stuff is so original that it can’t be categorized,” he said. “To say that music has a purpose other than music itself, I think, is obscene. Music is done for its own sake and no other purpose. It’s not to put you to sleep or anything. I’m not trying to be pretentious or anything, but I think our music is pretty hard to define.”

Now that the band has achieved a certain level of success, they are experiencing some of the requisite perks, Roberts said, like recording in a sophisticated studio.

“We now have the luxury to spend hours on any particular facet and make it sound as good as it can possibly sound,” he said. “In other words, you get to record your stuff in a nice place.”

That’s the good news. Now for the not-so-good news.

“The touring part is physically grueling. You get to travel around and see a lot of stuff, but there’s no time to really do anything,” Roberts said. “We’re going to New York City, but there won’t be time to walk around. And in California, I’d like to go to Disneyland, but there won’t be time. There’s always something--traveling, sound check, an interview. Then when we get back, there’s still the daunting task of another album of my stuff. Right now, it’s tour, tour, tour until our legs fall off.”

Or maybe they’ll all just die laughing. Crash Test Dummies is a pretty funny name for a band. How’s this for a dream gig? The Dummies, the Woodentops, Ian Drury & the Blockheads.

“A friend of mine who is a med student saw this film on accident victims at school and told me we ought to name our band the Crash Test Dummies. We adopted the name at first just as a lark, but actually, this whole thing is a musical crash test played out under rather whimsical circumstances.”

So much for funny. How about trippy, gnarly or even scary? The album cover art is extra twisted--a drawing of a girl playing dice on the deck of a wrecked sailing ship as Death looks on. Hey, maybe this is a seat-belt thing after all.

Along with the cover drawing are several more--one for each song--contained in the lyric booklet. These are in fact, the original drawings by Gustave Dore that accompanied the 1797 debut edition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I told you Roberts was smart.

* WHERE AND WHEN

Crash Test Dummies and Richard X. Heyman at the Anaconda Theatre, 935 Embarcadero del Norte, Isla Vista, 685-3112, 9 p.m. 5 bucks.