The day before his senior year as a playwriting student at the University of North Carolina, Joe Pug packed up his belongings and drove the long way to Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day and recording songs fast and fervently at night, Joe didn't need more than a guitar and a microphone. This 25-year-old's music evokes the young Dylan, and he's also mentioned John Prine, Warren Zevon, Beck, and the late alt-country songwriting master Walter Hyatt as influences. He's been getting startling raves like this one from 3Hive: "In Pug's hard plucking, exaggerated choruses, and lyrical vignettes you can draw a pretty straight line from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen to Steve Earle to Josh Ritter. Like all of them, Pug is a populist at heart, a singer who can't help but talk about all of us when he sings about himself and can't help but sing about himself when he's talking about all of us." A spotlight artist on the 2009 Ann Arbor Folk Festival bill, Joe has recently released his full-length debut album, "Messenger."