When touring musicians book gigs and fans look for Chicago-area shows, the south suburbs may not be the first place they look.
Trail Mix Productions, which aims to change that by bringing more live music to the Southland, presents Joe Pug with Andrew Robert Palmer & the Heavy Hors D’Ouvres June 16 at Thornton Distilling Co.’s Cooper’s Hall.
“I’ve never played Thornton before. When you’re looking to play a newish market like that you need a good promoter to bring you in who knows the ropes, who knows the area, who knows the type of folks listening,” said Pug, who broke into the Chicago music scene approximately 15 years ago.
“It’s my understanding that they bring in a lot of music that is similar in genre to (me). That’s really important. When a promoter puts together a concert series they’re not only curating the artist; they’re also curating the audience that gets used to coming to these (shows).”
The singer-songwriter, who previously lived in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood and Portage Park community, is promoting “Sketch of a Promised Departure,”which was released in March.
“(After) a really long time spending years on the road becoming friends with world-class musicians, I was really able to have the pick of the litter as far as I’m concerned as far as musicians to play on the album,” said Pug, 40, who now lives in Maryland.
“This is an album that took me 15 or 20 years of building up different skills and different relationships to make it.”
The 10-track “Sketch of a Promised Departure” includes collaborations with JT Bates (who has worked with Big Red Machine, Taylor Swift and Trampled by Turtles), Robert Ellis, Zack Hickman (who has worked with Josh Ritter and Ray LaMontagne) and Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse.
Pug’s solo set for Trail Mix Productions will be nearly all original songs.
“It’s always a pleasure to play the new songs,” said Pug, who performs vocals and acoustic guitar.
“I very much look forward to playing these new songs. Some of the songs in the set I still have to play but I’ve been playing them for 15 years so a little bit of novelty wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Pug, an East Coast native, is a long way from his first band, Lotus, which played grunge when he was in sixth grade.
After dropping out of college and moving to the Windy City, he worked as a carpenter while building buzz by playing open mics he found in the Chicago Reader.
“I was lucky enough to get on the circuit of clubs all around the country. That’s what I do for a living now,” said Pug, creator and host of “The Working Songwriter” podcast, which launched in 2016 and has more than 250 episodes featuring guests such as actor Josh Radnor.
Pug, who has toured with artists including his mentor Steve Earle, returns to the area regularly, most recently recording a live album in April at Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.
He also is booked July 6 in Berwyn for American Music Festival at FitzGerald’s.
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Joe Pug
When: 6 p.m. June 16
Where: Thornton Distilling Co.’s Cooper’s Hall, 400 E. Margaret St., Thornton
Tickets: $25
Information: 708-297-0102; trailmixmusic.org
