Joe Pug makes me cry.
Maybe it's my roots, which are firmly swamped in the Sangamon River and pesticide-saturated fields of corn. There's no doubt that Pug (who's name rocks) has a blue-collar, straight-shooter feel to all his cuts-- they're down to earth, and like all down to earth things they dig deep, sometimes deep enough to strike remains (not treasure--his songs aren't golddiggers-- but the sorts of things found in your backyard, plastic toys and broken bricks and sometimes stuff you forgot you lost). He's a gee-tar/harmonica kind of fellow, and it's difficult to imagine him with a more complex set-up. It's simple but it's all his songs need, and in his own words "the more I buy the more I'm bought/and the more I'm bought the less I cost." The lyrics here are the things that cut you. The lyricshere are the things that leave you breathless--whether breathless from a beating, or breathless from a run, or breathless from laughing or crying enough to leave your lungs oxygen-deprived. Most of all, they are honest and that adjective is Joe Pug's greatest skill. He needs just two lines to say what you didn't even know needed to be said-- until finally you heard it, tucked into a C-chord.
Here are a couple tracks, fresh-squeezed from Daytrotter. His EP, Nation of Heat, can be found on iTunes and Amazon-- also, he's coming to Chicago's Park West on March 14 (more info on that as it arrives).
Joe Pug-- "Bury Me Far"
Joe Pug-- "Unsophisticated Heart"
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