joepress2Just the other day I was thinking to myself, “I want to listen to some Dylan”. Then I happened upon Joe Pug.

Talk about serendipity.

While I’m sure no artist wants to be compared to another, Joe delivers much of what I was seeking from Dylan: a unique voice, passionate delivery and lyrics that drip with life, poetry, soul and social conscience.

He’s even got an intriguing story about how he came to play music:

“The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, Joe Pug sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest.

Pug packed up his belongings and drove the longest route possible to Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23 year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn’t picked up since his teenage years. Using ideas originally slated for a play he was writing called “Austin Fish,” Pug began creating the sublime lyrical masterpiece that would become the Nation of Heat EP.

The songs were recorded fast and fervently at a Chicago studio where a friend snuck him in to late night slots other musicians had canceled. He was short on money, but his bare-boned sincerity didn’t require much more than a microphone and it dripped off of each note he sang.”

What does Joe Pug sound like?

You can listen to full versions of Joe’s songs HERE.

Or start with this sample:

Hope you enjoy as much as I have.

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