Kokomo, Indiana's Harley Poe get wretched, filthy, and ugly

Kokomo, Indiana's acoustic punk and horror trash band Harley Poe have recently joined up with Chain Smoking Records to release their latest full-length album -- "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." All considered, "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." holds true to its title, as its ten songs, though all catchy, high-energy acoustic compositions, possess lyrical content that tends to focus on the perverse and horrific. The album also seems to begin where the band's earlier recordings left off, moving on from songs about Syphilis, transvestite cannibals, death, depravity, acts of arson, and all manner of monsters to a wide variety of equally disturbing subject matter.

Quite simply, Harley Poe is a four-piece band of musicians that have combined a selection of the wonderfully demented and altogether unwholesome, the sick and twisted elements of planet Earth's sweaty, hairy underbelly, together with B-movie horror themes and the darkest of personal issues, and attached them to a signature sound of acoustic guitar, keyboards, acoustic bass, harmonica, and cocktail set percussion. What makes the songs all the more listenable is that the lyrical content is approached with a devilish grin and an abundance of good humor, sort of the way bands like Arizona's Andrew Jackson Jihad and Philadelpha's The Dead Milkmen have been known to do it over the years.

Joe Whiteford, the singer/guitarist and songsmith behind Harley Poe, has a singing voice similar to that of the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano, together with the tremulous, from-the-gut vocal delivery of Conor Oberst, which he unrestrainedly wails forth while strumming furiously on his acoustic guitar. Gregg Manfredi's adept fingers work keyboards that occasionally sound like church organs gone slightly wrong, all the while providing backing vocals to Whiteford's busy lines of clever wordplay. On the acoustic bass, the perfectly bearded Kevin Phillips presides over the slightly twangy low-end of Harley Poe's sound. And big man Christian Riquelme keeps the beat while standing behind the very unconventional cocktail kit, much like Slim Jim Phantom of The Stray Cats or the Femmes' Victor DeLorenzo.

Wretched, filthy, and ugly. Never have three adjectives been employed to describe a band's songs as adequately as they have those of Harley Poe. Harley Poe's songs, while fun, infectious and lively, are often home to some rather perverse and messed-up lyrics. As such, there is an obvious and drastic contrast between the band's music and Whiteford's lyrical content. An unlikely relationship, to be sure, but one that works surprisingly well nonetheless. When listening to "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." one takes note of songs about the observations, experiences and thoughts of a lone survivor during a zombie apocalypse; a tale of rape and murder, and the resulting case of supernatural revenge; an arrogant user of a man who picks up the wrong girl to take advantage of, since she turns out to be a vampire; a man whose girlfriend is a werewolf, and how he must employ caution when a full moon rises, or when, as Whiteford sings, it's that time of the month; and a demon-possessed young woman named Maria and how her life and the life of her husband become an Exorcist movie. "Terrible" the second track and cover of the Tiger Lillies' selfsame song, is the only song on the album Whiteford didn't write himself. Though not a Harley Poe song, "Terrible" is as fitting to "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." as a toe tag on a corpse in the city morgue, or as the questionable stains on a prostitute's undergarments after a long night of "work." And lastly, we have a musical composition surrounded by disillusionment and general discontent at the established order, raising a middle finger to societal norms and the status quo, at the heart of which Whiteford sings of sticking it in the man, rather than sticking it to the man.

Before Whiteford formed Harley Poe, he was in another acoustic folk band called Calibretto 13. Calibretto 13 was rather successful in terms of underground music achievements, with writing, working things out in the studio, being picked up by Tooth & Nail Records, touring, and so forth. Later, after the band dropped the 13 from their moniker, simply becoming Calibretto instead, they were given the boot from Tooth & Nail Records because of their lyrical content, since Tooth & Nail is first and foremost a Christian label. Standard Recording Company became their next label, on which they released an EP titled "Dead by Dawn," a 7" record titled "Don't Go in the Woods," a split with Philadelphia-based trio Mercury Radio Theater, and a full-length album, "In the Dark," which the band ultimately opted to release under the Harley Poe moniker. Since "In the Dark," Harley Poe has released "The Dead & The Naked" and a split with Seattle's electro garage-punk and trash rock band Dead Vampires, both on Standard Recording Company. And now we have "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." -- Harley Poe's first release on Chain Smoking Records, and probably their best album to date.

In addition to a singer/songwriter, Joe Whiteford is also evidently quite the visual artist. Take the artwork on Harley Poe's "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." album, for example, which Whiteford supposedly prepared to accompany a poem he had written. That same poem later became "Gordon," the first song on the "Wretched. Filthy. Ugly." album.   

If you are a fan of Andrew Jackson Jihad, Jeffrey Lewis, the Violent Femmes, Fistful of Dynamite, Ghost Mice, or Joe Jack Talcum, you probably won't find it difficult to appreciate what Harley Poe have to offer. Truth be told, Harley Poe is one of those bands whose sound people either love completely or hate intensely. And that’s probably for the best. After all, who wants a bunch of neutrals sitting on the fence between the two extremes? Where’s the fun in that?