Capturing the Hoodoo, Spirit of the ‘60s : Rock ‘n’ roll: The Hoodoo Gurus, due at the Coach House tonight, like to conjure up the icons of pop culture past.

For many who were there, and for quite a few who weren’t even born at the time, the late ‘60s have come to be celebrated as a golden era for rock music and all that went with it.

Anyone feeling nostalgic for the decade that just won’t fade away might embrace the Hoodoo Gurus’ recent single, “Miss Freelove ‘69,” as a voyage back to a garden of countercultural, sexual-revolutionary delight. It’s a zesty piece about a naughty hedonistic blow-out so enticing that even the cops sent to break it up can’t help but join the revels instead.

The song’s refrain, “Miss Freelove, come back some time/Miss Freelove of ‘69” could well be taken as a fond, if futile, wish for a return to bygone days.

But Dave Faulkner, the Australian band’s singer and main songwriter, says he isn’t one of those pining for the ‘60s as a paradise lost.

The song “isn’t meant to (celebrate) some hallmark year,” Faulkner, who will front the Hoodoo Gurus tonight at the Coach House, said in a recent phone interview from a tour stop in Denver. “It’s a gag on peace-and-love stuff, which was the flavor of that year and the couple of years before that. If I wanted to recapture an era, it would probably be the ‘30s.”

Influences from the ‘60s aren’t hard to detect in the Hoodoo Gurus’ own sound. Catchy pop melodies and unruly, garage-style fuzz-tone guitars are its foremost elements. But the band, which has released five albums during its 11-year run, also is capable of reaching back to earlier rockabilly and country sources, or injecting a song with punk-inspired energy. The Gurus have a way of sounding like a ‘60s band, but without succumbing to a riff-by-riff regurgitation of their sources.

At 34, Faulkner is old enough to have absorbed ‘60s music when it was still fresh. But he resists nostalgic impulses.

“A lot of younger kids feel they missed out on the age of great experimentation in rock. They wish they heard Eric Clapton the first time around. I loved the Beatles, but it’s not as if I want to live in that period. I liked the quality (‘60s) music had, the melody and the abandoned beat. But I see as much ‘70s punk (in the Hoodoo Gurus sound) as ‘60s punk and ‘80s junk. It’s whatever we happen to like. We don’t worry about looking at the tree rings. We just admire (a past influence) for what it is.”

The Hoodoo Gurus--Faulkner, the band’s founder, is joined by guitarist Brad Shepherd; drummer Mark Kingsmill; and bassist Rick Grossman, a former member of the Divinyls--clearly don’t mind being seen as a receptacle for outside influences. The inner sleeves of their past two albums have included a “Hall of Fame” roster citing such diverse honorees as Jay Silverheels (who played Tonto on “The Lone Ranger”), Bobbie Gentry (chanteuse of “Ode to Billy Joe”) and Ja (who played Dr. Smith on the old “Lost in Space” TV series).

“We’re not expecting people to watch those TV programs or read Jane Austen books. It’s just showing what we like,” Faulkner said. “I guess for us it’s a way of giving them some sort of recognition.” The band’s habit of hailing often-kitschy icons “is not trivializing what we do, but raising what they do to the importance it deserves,” Faulkner said in a fully serious tone of voice. “Dr. Smith on ‘Lost in Space’ is genius. It makes us laugh.”

Album titles such as “Stoneage Romeos,” “Mars Needs Guitars!” “Blow Your Cool,” “Magnum Cum Louder” and the current “Kinky” don’t herald a band bent on profundity, and the Gurus’ live shows tend to be rambunctious, rocking-for-rocking’s-sake affairs. Still, there are reflective currents running through Faulkner’s songs.

“1000 Miles Away” seems to be a typical rocker’s lament about having to lead a perpetually transient and harried life on the road. But Faulkner’s delivery is unusually poignant, reflecting his own view of the song as a deeper psychological commentary. He said the song isn’t intended as a complaint about the rigors of the touring life: in fact, that’s a life that appeals to him. Instead, he said, he is lamenting his own motives for being constantly on the move.

“It’s about using geographical distance to create emotional distance. I do it as an excuse to avoid getting too close” in relationships, he said. “Castles in the Air” finds him wishing for ties that bind--which, he says, are largely missing from his life.

The often-offbeat Hoodoo Guru repertoire also includes “Where’s That Hit?,” which may be the only song ever penned by an Australian that displays a strong appreciation for baseball.

Faulkner said he first became interested in America’s National Pastime in 1979, when he spent several months in New York City during his first see-the-world sojourn away from his hometown of Perth. His fandom deepened on subsequent return trips with the Hoodoo Gurus, who first came to the United States in 1984.

In “Where’s That Hit?” Faulkner seems to be using baseball as a metaphor for his own lot in life: The song gives a play-by-play account of an unproven player batting under late-inning pressure, trying to come up with the big hit that will establish him in the major leagues. In America, Hoodoo Gurus have been college-radio favorites--the equivalent of a promising minor-league star who is still looking for the big breakthrough that will guarantee a lucrative career in the majors.

But Faulkner says he had no music-industry metaphor in mind, only a broader notion of life-as-a-ballgame.

“People would presume” that it’s about the music business “because we’re a band, but the song is only about the struggles of whatever you’re doing, where it comes down to you against yourself. It comes down to whether you can produce what you want, and satisfy what you think you’re capable of.”

In a literal, pop-world sense, Faulkner said, the Hoodoo Gurus aren’t obsessed with coming up with the big hit.

“It’s not a matter of ‘When are we gonna be rich beyond our dreams? When am I gonna be famous?”’ he said. “That’s not a way to lead your life. What I’m doing is what I want to do--make music--and the rest is incidental. As long as we can justify the expense of making records.

“In Australia we’ve had pop success,” he added. “Here we’ve had underground success. We get the feeling of still struggling, but also of being successful. We’re kind of lucky that way.”

* Hoodoo Gurus play s tonight at 8 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $19.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.