Label Eludes Off-Beat Different World : Eclecticism: Even Andy Robinson, known for his role in San Diego’s Horsefeathers band in the ‘70s, doesn’t know how to describe the music played by his new group, which will appear in San Diego tonight.

Minutes before a recent phone interview with Andy Robinson of the Los Angeles-based group Different World, UPS delivered the soundtrack to the upcoming Abbe Wool film, “Roadside Prophets,” which stars John Doe of the band X and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys. The timing of the package’s arrival was ironic.

For one thing, the soundtrack includes the song “Dinosaur Tracks” from Different World’s self-titled 1990 debut album on Vanguard Records. But the film also is a modestly budgeted, non-mainstream effort that is expected to find a specialized audience. The same can be said about Different World, which performs locally tonight at the Better Worlde Galleria in Mission Hills.

However, anyone attempting to describe the eclectic, mostly acoustic music made by Robinson, Betsy Gerson and Michael O’Leary would be well-advised to use more caution than the person who assembled the press release for “Roadside Prophets.”

“They’re calling us an ‘alternative-pop’ group,” Robinson said with some disdain. “I hate the word ‘alternative.’ It’s a perfectly fine word that’s been so overused it no longer means anything. But, the truth is, even we’ve never known what to call the kind of music we play.”

Certainly, the music on “Different World” precludes pigeonholing. Two- and three-part harmonies are wrapped in the peasant-cloth textures of Gerson’s acoustic guitar, which Robinson embroiders with colorful touches of mountain dulcimer and kalimba, or African thumb piano (a hand-held, tine-studded gourd or wooden box that produces a plucky, jack-in-the-box sound). Both humorous and poignant lyrics are given an upbeat melodic and rhythmic tilt that renders the music’s emotional core beguilingly elusive. The deceptive simplicity of the songwriting conceals relatively complex emotional and psychological content.

“We’ve toyed with coining our own term,” Robinson continued. “For a while, we called our music ‘folk-pop,’ and about a month ago, I was convinced we should tell everyone we play ‘power-folk.’ ”

Clouding the issue was the group’s evolving format. The band that recorded “Different World” was a quartet. After drummer Russell Battelene moved to New Jersey a year ago, Different World expanded by adding a rock rhythm section consisting of a drummer and a bassist, which enabled bassist O’Leary to return to guitar, his natural instrument. Recently, they abandoned that experiment.

“We’ve trimmed ourselves back to an acoustic trio, so now there’s no mistake about it anymore,” Robinson declared. “Basically, we’re a band with folk instrumentation that plays pop songs. So, can I be any more vague?”

Robinson is no stranger to such ambiguity, or to San Diego. In the ‘70s, the Crawford High and SDSU product played drums and dulcimer for the local band, Horsefeathers, which played an imaginative, at times archly humorous, and ultimately category- defying brand of progressive-rock. The band had a large, loyal following, and opened San Diego shows for the likes of the Kinks, Foghat, and Tim Weisberg.

In 1976, Horsefeathers moved to L.A., but subsequently broke up. Two years later, Robinson drummed for Elton Duck, a band personally signed to Arista Records by label president Clive Davis. The mogul felt they had the perfect combination of new- wave currency and traditional pop tunefulness. Davis later second-guessed himself and refused to release Elton Duck’s completed debut album, prompting the band to file suit for breach of contract.

The case was settled out of court years later, by which time Robinson was singing and playing percussion and synthesizer in the techno-pop trio Invisible Zoo, whose 1983 independent album produced a regional hit single, “Nobody’s Girl.” Invisible Zoo played the Spirit in 1985, but within a year Robinson was feeling artistically frustrated.

“In 1986, Invisible Zoo was using sequencers, drum machines and computers, and, for me, the project had gotten out of control. Originally, I wanted to play dulcimer and kalimba with the electronic stuff, but the more we got into it, the less room there was for my (acoustic) instruments.”

At the time, Robinson was a waiter at the same restaurant where Gerson tended bar. She had moved to L.A. from Pittsburgh, where she sang in the Penn State University Choir and performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Andre Previn’s baton. Before moving to L.A., Gerson occasionally was the opening act for an R&B; band. One day at the restaurant, she petitioned Robinson to hire her for his band.

“I was getting sick of Invisible Zoo, and I decided to take my songs and put them in a more natural, acoustic setting,” Robinson recalled. “I remembered that Betsy was the only person who’d specifically said she played acoustic guitar. The first time we worked on a couple of my songs, she instinctively played the perfect guitar parts. Plus, she was comfortable singing in a lower range, which enabled me to sing above her. We’ve given each other a share of grief and inspiration ever since,” he added with a laugh.

Robinson and Gerson formed the Earthlings, which became Different World. Throughout the late ‘80s, the quartet was an activist fixture on L.A.’s emerging “nu-folk” scene, and eventually were one of the first acts signed to the revived, legendary Vanguard folk label.

A few months before Different World was to go into the studio, Robinson was mugged near his home in a relatively quiet L.A. neighborhood. The culprits beat him pretty severely for the $15 in his wallet. During his recuperation, Robinson wrote a song for the album called “The House I Return To,” which is an evocative paean to the security and simple pleasures of the home life once provided by mom and dad.

Robinson doesn’t forsake his roots, either personal or musical. While he insists that his current group and his former San Diego band are vastly different, he admits to some degree of conceptual continuity between Horsefeathers and Different World.

“In some ways, I think about music so differently now,” he said. “Horsefeathers was 100% experimental; we were a little snobby about not staying in 4/4 time for very long, and that sort of stuff. I learned a lot in that band. It was imaginative, challenging and exciting, and I still enjoy listening to those old tapes.

“But Different World writes more singable, easily digestible melodies,” he continued. “If there’s a link between the two bands, it’s in the use of an imaginative approach to instrumentation and lyrics. For example, Different World does a song, ‘Buy Me,’ that’s a satirical treatment of the use of women in advertising, and that could just as easily have been a Horsefeathers song.”

So could “Dinosaur Tracks,” a Robinson original about a poor family in the desert that creates bogus dinosaur tracks to lure tourists. The song’s askew humor generated some excitement at college radio stations, and that helped to sell several thousand copies of “Different World.” That’s not bad, considering that the opus received very little promotion. But Robinson claims Different World has already surpassed that collection with a wealth of new material.

“We now have about 80 minutes of music, half of which we’ll be doing in San Diego,” he said. “We’ll do seven songs from the album, including ‘Dinosaur Tracks’ and (Peter Gabriel’s) ‘Solsbury Hill,’ and six newer ones. The more recent songs have slightly more complex chord progressions.”

One new tune, a dulcimer showcase called “Scarecrow,” speculates about a scarecrow that has sentient feelings. With a snicker, Robinson described it as “our Hungarian-polka-rock-folk sorta thing.” Another new tune, “Mr. Fun-loving,” peeks over the shoulder of a woman perusing the personal ads, while “Liberty Bell” addresses the issue of freedom of speech, especially as it pertains to lyric-writing. In a follow-up call Wednesday night, Robinson claimed that, so far, both the new-old lineup and the newer music are a hit.

“We played our first gig last night as a slightly amplified acoustic trio, and we went over extremely well,” he said. “Now I’m really looking forward to playing in San Diego.”

Different World will perform at 7 p.m. today at the Better World Galleria, 4010 Goldfinch Street, Mission Hills. There’s a $5 suggested donation. For more information, call 260-8007.