Destination Unknown : Ex-Alarm Guitarist Doing Some Hard Travelin’ Along Folk Path

As lead guitarist of the Alarm, Dave Sharp spent the 1980s on the march, helping to pump upthe British band’s decidedly anthemic sound.

Now, with the Alarm on hold indefinitely, Sharp has taken a far different tack--that of the lone, itinerant, issues-oriented folkie wandering in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie and the early Bob Dylan.

His travels over the past 18 months have taken him back and forth between Britain and the United States, carrying an acoustic guitar and following a deliberately open agenda. Last December, he stopped moving long enough to spend a week recording his first solo album, “Hard Travellin,’ ” using a former Dylan record producer, Bob Johnston, and a band of pickup players Sharp had run across in a bar in New Jersey.

Sharp, who plays tonight at Bogart’s, landed most recently in San Diego, where he has spent the past few months staying with friends and toting his guitar around to bars and cafes for impromptu “open mike” performances reminiscent of the old “hootenanny” song-swaps of the ‘50s and ‘60s folk boom.

“I’ve been doing two or three open mikes a week here in San Diego,” he said in a phone interview. “I’ve been preparing a new set of songs and testing them out on the unsuspecting public.”

He will bring an “open mike” with him to Bogart’s: Instead of an opening act, he’ll throw the stage open to all comers who want to get up and play an acoustic song. Consequently, listeners are invited to bring a guitar.

“I’ve seen how important it is for there to be an opportunity for new singers and songwriters to go up and do their bit,” Sharp said.

It’s not the usual rock ‘n’ roll way of organizing a show--even a low-key solo acoustic show. But Sharp, 30, says his aim has been to turn away from the usual rock way of doing things.

“It seems like there’s a need for a new breed of singers and songwriters, people not so hung up about the market forces of rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “I’ve found a new sense of awareness in singers and songwriters, getting up and singing about what’s going on without any idea of record companies or anything like that.”

As for himself, “I don’t want to have any plans at all. I just want to move from one thing to another. I’ve got no scheme or master plan, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for musicians to have that.”

When the Alarm went on a break in early 1990, Sharp came to New York City with no particular plan, but with some admittedly “romantic naive idealism” about finding new experiences.

Within a few hours of his arrival, he recalls, he had been approached by a pre-pubescent crack salesman. And within a few days, an unplanned sequence of events found him playing at a mass Earth Day environmental rally in Central Park. Those encounters, he said, “became a catalyst for songwriting ideas”: He began writing folk-flavored songs about hard times and social injustices, and singing them at a series of benefit concerts for food banks and anti-censorship causes.

The Alarm’s label, I.R.S. Records, asked him to record his new material, but Sharp said he was reluctant to take time off from playing benefits and moving about. He turned to Bob Johnston, producer of some of Dylan’s greatest albums, including “Blonde on Blonde,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” and “John Wesley Harding.”

“Bob said you can make an album in two days if you want, so in we went, with the intention of putting down the songs as quick as possible, with as little fuss as possible.” For backup, he used the Barnstormers, the trio he had come across in the New Jersey bar, along with Al Kooper, the former Dylan sideman who played the famous organ parts on “Like a Rolling Stone.”

Released in August, “Hard Travellin,’ ” is divided between an opening electric side and a closing sequence of solo and duo acoustic folk performances. On the electric songs, Sharp’s burry voice is surrounded by production closely echoing the loose, earthy sound of vintage Dylan.

Lyrically, Sharp focused on the American scene he had been roving. The songs reflect on injustice, poverty, social strife and the search for respite and shelter from what Sharp sees as a threatening storm.

It’s not a gloomy album, though. Songs like “Big Road Blue,” “Hard Travellin’ ” and “Homeless Child” warmly evoke a comradeship of the road that stems back to Guthrie. For the solo Sharp, the marching idealism inherent in the Alarm’s music is translated into a wandering-bootheel idealism born of the folk tradition.

He said he has found many other musicians focusing on similar issues. “It’s time to be singing about what’s going on,” he added. “These are hard times we’re living in, and it needs some hard-hitting songs to meet those times. I don’t know if it’s naive or idealistic, but I think it’s going to help us deal with the times we find ourselves in.”

Sharp, who got the traveling habit when he dropped out of school at 16 to begin a four-year sojourn in the British merchant marine, said the only plan he has for now is to play his way back across the United States early next year.

The Alarm’s future is uncertain. The band’s lead singer, Mike Peters, announced last summer that he was leaving to start a career of his own. Sharp thinks Peters may have acted out of “emotion” and could reconsider.

“Everybody’s on reasonably good terms. We’re taking a break to reassess where we’re at,” Sharp said. “I’m pretty sure there will be another Alarm album. When, and what form it will take, I don’t know.”

* Dave Sharp plays tonight at 9:30 at Bogart’s in the Marina Pacifica Mall, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach. The show will start with an “open mike” session. Tickets: $8. Information: (310) 594-8975.