songs:illinois

Posts Tagged ‘Joe Pug’

Georgia’s Horse – “The Mammoth Sessions” (Fire Records, June 9)

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

I can’t describe the mysterious and eerie music of Texas’ Georgia’s Horse any better than the flowing language of their bio:

Texas is a graveyard and The Lone Star State is full of ghosts. Once the home of many thousands of military personnel, old bases now stand empty. The only tenants are lizards and snakes. Even the rusted and rotted hulks of planes have been carted off by junk men and souvenir hunters. The roar of the war effort has been replaced by the whisper of the wind. A gentle absence of action. The haunted Americana of Georgia’s Horse sounds like it could have come from any of these ghostly deserts.

The band’s debut record The Mammoth Sessions is out June 9. “Bloom” has all the trappings of a somewhat typical americana song but Teresa Maldonado’s ghostly voice and the reverb soaked music set it apart from more standard fare. More info via their European label Fire Records here.

Bloom

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I heard about this at the time and thought it sounded hectic/impossible. Joe Pug did 6 shows in 6 hours in homes throughout Chicago. Turns out a film crew followed him around and produced a short film. It’s a great way to sample his music (including some new songs/sounds) and get excited about his two upcoming shows at Schubas on May 1 and 2.

Tags: Georgia's Horse, Joe Pug
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Best of 2008 Repost Series – Joe Pug “Nation of Heat” EP

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

No 2008 “best of” wrap-up would be complete without mention of Joe Pug. His debut EP from out of nowhere impressed this writer and many more influential blogs. But its best selling point are the rave reviews from ordinary folks up at the Cd Baby page for the EP. Read them here and buy the disc as well while you’re there.

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)

Tags: Joe Pug
Posted in Folk, Joe Pug, Singer-Songwriter, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Songs:Illinois House Concert (w/Rachel Ries, Anais Mitchell and Hayward Williams) (plus Joe Pug On MOKB live)

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Just a quick note to say the semi-bi-annual quarterly Songs:Illinois house concert is this Sunday night somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago. The lineup is a Guaranteed good time. I can say that because we’ve had the honor of having Rachel Ries and Anais Mitchell play for us a year or so ago. It was really a magical night and I’m expecting the same or better since they are touring behind a joint ep they issued on Righteous Babe called simply the country ep.

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.