Joe Harvard caught a glimpse once of what could have been. He has been chasing that glimpse, sort of, ever since.

"I was talking to (singer-songwriter) Jonathan Richman, and he told me a story about playing putt-putt with Graham Parsons right before he died," Harvard said recently. "Gram had talked to Jonathan about playing on the first Modern Lovers album. Can you imagine that? I thought to myself 'Man, that's the band I want; that's the sound I want- kind of like if the Velvet Underground's and Merle Haggard's buses collided and the band members got mixed up. That's the sound in my head.'" The Joe Harvard Band translates that sound into rock 'n roll with a decidely country slant. Or is it punk? Or bluegrass? Or Cajun fiddle music? Or honky-tonk?

"About four or five years ago I started writing songs, and it turned out they were country songs- which was as much a surprise to me as anyone," Harvard said, "since I'd never really listened to country music." Of course, anyone who grew up listening to mid-period Rolling Stones heard country music, at least as it was filtered through the Stones' sensibilities. "I had heard Gram Parsons even before I'd heard of Gram Parsons when I listened to the Rolling Stones," Harvard said with a laugh. "You can't help but hear American music just by listening to rock 'n roll."

The Joe Harvard Band's unreleased album features hard-driving honky tonk, straight-ahead rock 'n roll and a handful of gorgeous ballads sung by either Harvard or Catherine Boone. (The other band members are bassist Eric Armstrong and interim drummer James Castoe.) Whatever style Harvard is exploring, his songs are marked by insinuating melodies and sharp, often humorous lyrics: "So much love in such a little seed," he sings on Meigs County Weed. His lyrics have a candid side, too, even when he's writing tongue-in-cheek about a 24 Hour Divorce: "Bein' poor don't help much, when you're young and immature/ And bein' young an' immature/ Sure don't help much when you're poor."

"The song is the thing. The vocal is central," Harvard said. "I think the best songs are the best stories. I mean, people don't generally hear a song for the first time and say 'Wow, that's a great guitar part.' They hear the melody and the words."

Although he toils in relative obscurity in central Ohio, the 1982 Harvard University graduate used to be somebody in his hometown of Boston. His real name is Joe Incagnoli; he founded the legendary Fort Apache Studio and had a hand in recording bands as diverse as the Pixies, Throwing Muses, Natalie Merchant, Syd Straw, the Either/Orchestra, Barrence Whitfield and the Cave Dogs. He moved to Columbus in 1991.

"I had gotten lazy. I was so used to being the 'local hero', playing the role of the phony rock star. I was schmoozing my way through evey day and feeling less and less vital about what I wanted to do." "So I came to where nobody really knew me, somewhere I'd have to work hard. There are days when I've really regretted coming to Columbus. But I'm glad I came."

Another of Harvard's big regrets is how quickly Fort Apache became big business.

"Initially, it was a studio run by and for musicians, with absolutely no consideration for the status quo. The nuts were running the nuthouse, because they deserved to run the nuthouse. But eventually we couldn't do smaller projects, the stuff I most loved recording, the stuff that didn't make any money for us. You rode Fort Apache more than you ran it. You could push it in a certain direction, but it was an unwieldy beast."

Since he has been in Columbus, Harvard has produced songs for the Haynes Boys, Los Clementes, Eric's Mother, Snooky Puss, the Econothugs, and, when they were passing through town, Madder Rose. He dubbed his new studio venture Little Big Horn and did most of the recording out of his last apartment. He has since moved and started to seek an investor for "a modest recording studio."

"I've had to get back to the guerilla aspects of recording- setting up whenever and wherever you have to to get results." Harvard approaches recording albums in much the same way he does songwriting: Simple is better; direct is better. "There are groups that won't record an album that doesn't have 'that four-track sound'- which is silly. But there are other groups that want to do way too much.

"Good recording comes down to realizing you don't have to sink the Bismarck every time out."

The Joe Harvard Band will open for Freedy Johnston on Nov. 21st at Stache's. The band performs regularly at N. High Street clubs.