Philville Records is thrilled to have the Eau Claire, WI. based multi-genre artist, Joe Thielen, join our ever increasing roster!

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Joe was born and raised in Minnesota, although he also served two nonconsecutive year-long sentences in North Dakota (one in first grade and one as a freshman at NDSU).

 

After college, the winds took Joe and his guitar to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Here, Joe settled into a wonderful community, started a family, and decided that life as a musician in a music town was more than enough to fill his musical cup. Over the years, Joe has played guitar on two albums with Yam Cannon, produced a solo acoustic EP called The Gospel of Marx, and written material for The Sliced Bread Jug Band, Bugbear, Grodge, and Sunlimit. 

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Joe's self titled solo debut on Philville Records is a perfect representation of his varied tastes and styles -- from songs like Lazy South Dakota that evoke feelings of listening to a 1920's jazz ensemble performing on the deck of a stern-wheeler in the Mississippi, to psychedelic mental musings about building a kit-car from a Fiero chassis in Fiero -- Thielen's songwriting is hard to pin down.  Much like his omnivorous musical projects in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin, Joe can easily jump from stringband & jugband sounds all the way into early 60's garage rock without missing a beat. Tracks like the opening overture of the album,  Driving Down Dusty Roads, sound akin to an instrumental anthem penned by Robbie Robertson but with a fuzzed out guitar thrown in along side mandolin.  Joe's got gospel tunes on this record, self-effacing songs about the day to day grind of fatherhood, tongue in cheek tunes about having Chat GPT write your obituary, and Golden Shores, which is a beautiful and heartfelt farewell to an old friend who's passing inspired the cover art as well as the song. 

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Joe's backed up by the Phiville session players (Matthew R. Sayles, Jerod Kaszynski, & Ben Nelson) on the album, as well as Lucas Fischer on baritone guitar, and Olaf Lind on fiddle. 

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Joe is a one of those rare folks in a music scene that help connect everyone together -- in a modern culture inundated with short attention spans and big egos,  he's got a huge heart, a hell of a lot of talent, and a unique message and perspective that's carved right out of the northwoods and prairies of his upbringing.