SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD: IT’S NOT ALL THAT ROMANTIC : ORANGE COUNTY POP

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —  Say the words “on the road” to any aspiring musician who hasn’t experienced the touring life, and nine out of 10 will conjure up romanticized notions of non-stop excitement, fancy hotels and throngs of screaming fans.

Ask members of Orange County’s James Harman Band about the highlights of their three-week Midwest tour and you’ll get a more down-to-earth picture of what it’s really like to be a traveling musician.

“My favorite thing was the world’s largest grain elevator in Kansas,” said grinning bassist Willie J. Campbell, standing in a motel parking lot Monday in Omaha, Neb., while preparing to embark on the 350-mile drive to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a show that night.

“I like the stick farms the best,” countered group leader James Harman, making a joke about the broken corn stalks from last year’s harvest that cover mile after mile of the farm land they’ve driven by.

Beneath the sarcasm, however, one can detect the boredom that comes with going “on the road.”

Because the long drives between cities provide plenty of time for thinking and talking, Harman elaborated as he rode in the back seat of one of two vans carting the group through 10 states in the West and Midwest. By the time this tour ends April 18, the troupe will have driven more than 5,000 miles.

“One of my favorite things is drag racing,” the Alabama-born singer and mouth harpist said. “You’ve got the professional racers, but you also get the guy who drives in with his wife and kids and his souped-up Chevy. He jacks up the back, puts the racing slicks on, adjusts the carburetor and then races in his class, and maybe he wins.

“It’s the same with music Not everybody gets to travel in limousines. Somebody’s gotta do it this way. That’s why we’re out here traveling around like this.”

MTV and the music video revolution aside, this is still the way most rock ‘n’ roll bands first present themselves to America--one town and a few hundred people at a time.

Hours later, it was guitarist David (Kid) Ramos who was leaning against a window in the van and reminiscing about some of his early experiences that illustrate the central role music has played in his life.

“I remember one band I was in when I was about 14 or 15,” Ramos, 26, said. “We were playing this big party. There must have been 300 people there, and the cops came and broke it up. They were sending everybody home, but I didn’t want to leave without my guitar. I asked the guy if I could just reach down and get the guitar, but he just started tapping me on the shoulder with his billy club and told me I ought to be on my way. I had to go back the next day and get it.”

“Man, I was worried,” Ramos said, shaking his head with a wistful smile. “That guitar was all I had.”

Besides the hours consumed by road travel, one of the other big sources of frustation for this outfit has been hotels and motels.

When the band pulled in Monday evening at the Imperial 400 motel in Omaha, Ramos was among the first to get to his second floor room. Opening the door, his face turned sour at the stale odor that came from inside. “It smells like somebody’s been smoking socks in here.”

Downstairs, Harman had finally finished squaring away the group’s accommodations with the manager, but only after a comical series of misunderstandings that rivaled Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” routine. Meanwhile, down the hall from the band, one motel guest could be heard singing scales and arpeggios, apparently as part of some operatic warm-up exercises. Laughing, Harman said, “I thought the whole things was going to be a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

The next afternoon, while the group was checking into a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, motel, a desk clerk who seemed to be oblivious to temperatures that were in the 30s and falling, asked each band member in dead earnest, “Would you like a room poolside?”

During the few stops where the group gets to stay for more than one day, there is time for a little relaxation and perhaps even some fun.

In Lincoln, Neb., where the group played a four-night stand last week, Harman got to indulge in one of his favorite pastimes when he stopped by a small thrift shop and bought a shiny green 1960s-vintage suit in almost new condition.

Compensating for the frustrations the band has faced each day has been the generally positive audience response for the group’s nightly performances. At most shows, crowds have been downright ecstatic.

Even on a potentially slow night like Easter Sunday, nearly 200 people packed the tiny Howard Street Tavern in Omaha to sample one of the Harman band’s incendiary performances that combine blues, soul, gospel, R&B; and rock music.

Joe Kathrein, a 24-year-old Omaha native, told Harman after the show that he saw the group four years ago in Newport Beach when the band was playing regularly at the Red Onion restaurant. “When I came back home,” said Kathrein, who brought two of his co-workers to the club with him, “I even called my volleyball team ‘Those Dangerous Gentlemen.’ (Harman’s official nickname for the band is “Those Dangerous Gentlemens.”) When I found out they were coming here, I couldn’t believe it.”

Later, Harman would comment, “That’s the kind of stuff I love the most, where somebody has seen us before and liked us enough to come back and tell their friends.”

The five musicians are essentially a good-humored lot, but after clocking almost 2,500 miles in 10 days, even the best of natures can begin to wear thin.

Drummer Stephen Hodges said, “This band draws a lot from our personalities, but those personalities can cause some friction.”

Harman added, “At one time or another, we’ve all been at each other’s throats. Sometimes we’ll go on stage mad as hell. But there’s a big difference between being angry and not giving a (damn) about the music. If you stop caring, you might as well stop playing.”

“A rut and a groove is the same thing,” Harman is fond of saying. “It just depends on whether or not you’re diggin’ it. For every hour I’m on stage, there’s a solid 17 or 18 hours of bull I have to go through.”

Ramos added, “So you should like what you’re doing. But sometimes it’s really hard to remember that.”

Harman continued, “You hope that down the line that it’s going to pay off and things will get a little easier. But like Kid said, it’s also important to like what you’re doing while you’re getting there. I’ve been doing this for so long I must either like it,” Harman said, suddenly twisting his face into a series of demented contortions and letting loose a maniacal laugh, “or I’m nuts.”