Here’s my favorite rave review from Cd Baby courtesy of Stuart McClure:

Dylan comparisons aside, Joe Pug is Malcolm Holcombe’s son, Danny Schmidt’s half brother.

Here’s my original post from April:
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It would almost be impossible for me not to post the music of Joe Pug. He fits the Songs:Illinois demographic so well it’s like some computer program spat him out. He’s young, he’s just releasing his debut, he writes poetic songs, he lives in Chicago (for goodness sake), is clearly influenced by Dylan/
Young/Springsteen and has a record release show coming up at Schubas.

His debut EP is called Nation Of Heat and is being released on May 13. I’m sure you can pick one up at the Schubas show on the 3rd however.

On both the songs below Joe eschews verse/chorus/verse and instead lets loose a barrage of stream of consciousness that somehow is devoid of pretension and cliche.

Hymn 101

Bonus

First Time I saw You (recorded live for Hear Ya’s blog)
Bury Me Far From My Uniform (via MOKB’s Laundro Matinee)

As of 5 minutes ago I’ve also added Hayward Williams as the opener. I’ve tried to get him to play before but never could put it together. This time the stars aligned so he’s going to open the show up. Hayward’s debut record, Another Sailors Dream, was produced by the great Peter Mulvey. Critics have called that record “fantastic”, “a masterpiece” and “the first major score for 2007″.

Hit me up here (cbonnell @ gmail.com) for an invite and directions.

Problems With Hemingway

Rachel Ries and Anais Mitchell

Waiting to Fall

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Speaking of house concerts: one of our most memorable (and shortest) was by singer songwriter Joe Pug. At the time he was a relatively unknown commodity so we gave him a shot at a doing a couple songs opening for Michael Fracasso. Now he’s practically a made man and I wish he would have just played and played.

My Old Kentucky Blog has a new video series called Laundro Matinee and this week he’s featured on it (along with a noisy cricket). Here’s two unreleased songs plus a video of Joe doing his signature song “Hymn 101″ from his new EP.

Not So Sure

Bury Me Far From My Uniform

Joe Pug – Hymn 101 from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.