Confucius said, "A craftsman, if he wishes to do good work, must first sharpen his tools." That being said, SLY JOE's music is honed like an acupuncture needle. It slips under your skin, stimulates your vitality, then leaves you feeling good all over.

Sharpening his skills on the global stage for most of his life, Sly Joe has shared audiences with TRAIN, BON JOVI, T.S. MONK, JACKSON BROWNE, GILLIAN WELCH, EMMYLOU HARRIS, & JOHN PRINE in venues such as HARD ROCK CAFÉ-(Beijing), SUMMERFEST (Milwaukee), LAMBEAU FIELD-(Green Bay), WAMI AWARDS SHOW-(Milwaukee), LEACH AMPITHEATER-(Oshkosh), and numerous festivals, halls, and coffeeshops from coast to coast.

After a tragic car accident in high school left him hospitalized and took a friend's life, Joe began approaching songwriting more seriously and more sensitively, with a renewed priority to make the best of what we have today.

"Music is what feelings sound like, and I tend to write a lot about love and positivity.

Earthy Soul with a Funky Stroll

Some music is so uplifting that people will get up and dance barefoot on a tropical beach when they hear it. Some music can inspire people to sing out loud, even when they’re not in their cars or showers. Some music can translate positive energy into the smiling faces of any nation. This is the music Sly Joe has been writing and playing internationally for over 20 years, and those were just a few of the reactions.

Born and raised in central Wisconsin, he discovered a love for music early on. As a toddler, he mimicked his mother and grandmother’s piano playing as soon as he could reach the keys. He quickly developed into an accomplished performer, winning the highest award for classical piano performance from the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association at age 11. At 17, he was chosen to play guitar for the Wisconsin State Honors Jazz Ensemble. His unique style has complimented several bands and projects through the years (most notably Something Phonic) and he’s shared audiences with Train, the Big Wu, and T.S. Monk; in venues such as Hard Rock Café-Beijing, Leach Amphitheater, and the WAMI awards show. He has also held musical residencies in Thailand, San Francisco, and throughout the Fox Valley.

His first attempts at songwriting began in high school as he tapped into childhood influences ranging from the creative harmonies of the Beatles to the soulful rhythms of Motown. Beaming with positivity, Sly Joe’s tunes have won awards from the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and Garageband.com “Song of the Week”. Well over 100 college and mainstream radio stations, several independent films, and Podcasts across the globe have found his songs to be a perfect fit. He engineered the recording and played over a dozen instruments on his first solo album, ‘Other Side of the Bridge’ [2006], and today his playing and songwriting can be heard on over a dozen released albums.

Currently, Sly Joe is promoting his upcoming album, “Your Lively Love”. Mastered by Michael Hateley (Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Spongebob Squarepants) at Warner Bros. Records, “Your Lively Love” features songs about love that can transcend long distances, past failures, and even death. That’s a whole lotta love, but Sly Joe wouldn’t have it any other way. “All around the world I’ve found proof positive…LOVE is the still the universal language. MUSIC is the translator. I try to communicate that idea in my songs.”

Winds of Change

There was a fever of excitement burning through the crowd as Sly Joe led his dynamite funk-rock band Something Phonic into local history. This was their farewell show, and a sea of devoted fans quickly filled the historic Algoma Club to capacity to witness the last bittersweet notes. All night long the groove was unstoppable and the room was reaching a climactic state when suddenly— the power went out.

What could have been a tragic ending for a band that reached international acclaim through seven years of touring and thousands of independent album sales, turned instead into a shining moment that would live on through countless memories and recollections.

The drums, unaffected by the power outage, kept pounding out the rhythm to the song. The crowd, now submerged in darkness, instantly took hold of the situation. They began singing the lyrics even more energetically than before, advancing the song with intensity no sound system could match. It was a magical moment that lasted only a few minutes before electricity was restored, but one that serves as a constant reminder to the unifying power of a song.

“I love it when a song can affect me that way, really get in deep and stir my soul,” Joe reflects. “It's those chills down the spine that inspire me to keep writing and playing music.” On this occasion, the crowd was singing a song Joe had written just a few months earlier titled appropriately, “Winds of Change”. The winds of change were indeed blowing, and Sly Joe’s musical career was about to soar to new heights.

In 2005 when Something Phonic was parting ways, he joined some old friends in the band “The River Beneath” as they embarked on a tour of Asia. They played clubs, schools, and most notably the Hard Rock Café – Beijing. As the tour was winding down, they landed on the tropical island of Koh Tao to unwind for a week. Within 24 hours, Joe was given a permanent invitation to be the house musician at The Lotus, which he gladly accepted. Although this was a very prolific period in Joe’s songwriting, it would be short-lived. The girl he would eventually marry was waiting for him back in the US of A.

After reuniting, the two lovebirds flew to Hawaii to work on an organic coffee farm. New songs were pouring out very quickly now, and like the Kona coffee he was growing, these songs were much more potent than any Joe ever had before.

Within the first few months of his return home to Wisconsin in 2006, Sly Joe had finished writing and recording his first solo album, “Other Side of the Bridge”. Critics were impressed by the young songwriter’s creative arrangements, passionate vocals, and fresh melodies. It was called a “musical gumbo stew with generous chunks of funk-laced Americana, jazzified Rock ‘n’ Roll, and R&B,” by BuddyHollywood.com, and many took note of the fact that Joe played all the instruments on the album, and engineered the recording in his home studio.

Today, Sly Joe is putting the finishing touches on a new CD single called, “Your Lively Love”. It was mastered by Michael Hateley (Eric Clapton, Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Tom Petty) at Warner Bros. Records, and a buzz of anticipation has been building around its release in spring 2007. The songs focus on love that can transcend long distances, past failures, and even death. That’s a whole lotta love, but Joe wouldn’t have it any other way. “All around the world I’ve found love is the common language. Music is the translator. I try to communicate that idea in my songs.”

A Little Background

Born and raised in central Wisconsin where the heartland meets the great northwoods, Sly Joe began his musical journey early in life. Hearing his grandmother and mother’s piano playing sparked the curiosity of the toddler to join in as soon as he could reach the keys. Meanwhile, an old turntable filled the house with the creative harmonies of the Beatles and soulful rhythms of Motown, styles that still show up in Joe’s songs today.

By first grade, he started piano lessons and was soon performing for his classmates and teachers. It was very clear that music could bring happiness to others, and this encouragement fueled his musical development. Soon he was studying classical composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. At age 11, he received the highest award for piano performance from the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association (WMTA). A few years later he was selected for the Wisconsin State Honors Jazz Ensemble.

Around this time, Joe was starting to learn the ins and outs of live music. He played at piano recitals, mall food courts, and ice cream socials where his classmates would sing along with his renditions of Journey or Queen songs. At age 13, his new rock band 'Vital Influence' received a frenzied standing ovation from an audience of 1,200 excited students and faculty for performing the epic ballade, “November Rain”. That would prove to be the first in a long line of euphoric live shows. Joe’s bands went on to share audiences with Train, The Big Wu and T.S. Monk, playing in Amphitheaters, Festivals, Music Industry Events, Concert Halls, & Clubs.

In his teens, Joe began to experiment with writing and recording songs. By hanging a radio-shack microphone from the ceiling fan, he could record songs onto a cassette boombox. Then he would play along with that tape while another cassette was recording, effectively overdubbing multiple tracks. A few years later, Joe would leave for college to study recording technology (receiving a Bachelor’s Degree) and start to focus more on composing music. He found new inspiration in the sounds of Monk, Gershwin, and Stevie Wonder, which infused his new songs with soulful jazz. One of these new songs, a piano piece called “Valentine” won an award from the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

In 2003, Joe moved to San Francisco to start internships at various recording studios. California was a beautiful place full of inspiration, but also an expensive one for an unpaid intern. One could often find Joe singing and strumming in the subway stations, trying to earn enough change to keep the utilities running at the shared house he was living in. That was his end of the bargain for sleeping on the living room floor. During this time he also hosted an open mic in Haight-Ashbury, and wrote several songs in Golden Gate Park that would end up on his first solo album three years later.

Joe’s playing and songwriting can be heard on over a dozen albums. He is in constant collaboration with today’s top musicians, and takes frequent calls for studio work. On his first home-studio album, “Other Side of the Bridge” (2006), he sang and played piano, guitar, ukulele, mandolin, accordion, drums, bass, synth, sax, and kalimba.

Radio/TV/Film

Several Songs have been featured on:

RADIO:

KFAI (Minneapolis, MN)
KTUH (Honolulu, HI)
WGTV (Washington, DC)
WHCS (New York, NY)
WPUB (New York, NY)
WSVA (New York, NY)
WRBB (Boston, MA)
WIIT (Chicago, IL)
WXAV (Chicago, IL)
KAMP (Tucson, AZ)
KVDU (Denver, CO)
WLOY (Baltimore, MD)
WPTS (Pittsburgh, PA)
KYMC (St. Louis, MO)
KRUA (Anchorage, AK)
WSND (Notre Dame, IN)
WSUM (Madison, WI)
KZMU (Moab, UT)
WWWX (Oshkosh, WI)
WRST (Oshkosh, WI)
WOCT (Oshkosh, WI)
WAPL (Appleton, WI)
WZOR (Appleton, WI)
KAOS (Olympia, WA)
KAUR (Sioux Falls, SD)
KBHU (Spearfish, SD)
KBVR (Corvallis, OR)
KCCR (Tacoma, WA)
KDWG (Dillon, MT)
KEOL (La Grande, OR)
KGRG (Auburn, WA)
KHNS (Haines, AK)
KISL (Avalon, CA)
KKCR (Hanalei, HI)
KLPI (Ruston, LA)
KMSA (Grand Junction, CO)
KMSC (Sioux City, IA)
KMSU (Mankato, MN)
KNDS (Fargo, ND)
KNSU (Thibodaux, LA)
KOUG (Vancouver, WA)
KQAL (Winona, MN)
KRFP (Moscow, ID)
KRUX (Las Cruses, NM)
KSCL (Shreveport, LA)
KSLU (Hammond, LA)
KSMR (Winona, MN)
KTRM (Kirksville, MO)
KUCO (Edmond, OK)
KULT (Cedar Falls, IA)
KUMM (Morris, MN)
KURA (Ourey, CO)
KURE (Ames, IA)
KVNF (Paonia, CO)
KXUA (Fayetteville, AR)
M3 Radio (New York, NY)
SFR (Boston, MA)
WARG (Summit, IL)
WARY (Valhalla, NY)
WBKE (North Manchester, IN)
WBRS (Waltham, MA)
WBWC (Berea, OH)
WCCH (Holyoke, MA)
WCCM (Randolph, NJ)
WCCS (Norton, MA)
WCLH (Wilkes-Barre, PA)
WCMR (Dallas, PA)
WCWM (Williamsburg, VA)
WDBM (East Lansing, MI)
WDWN (Auburn, NY)
WEOS (Geneva, NY)
WGFR (Queensburg, NY)
WGMU (Fairfax, VA)
WGRE (Greencastle, IN)
WHSN (Bangor, ME)
WICB (Ithaca, NY)
WIDB (Carbondale, IL)
WIDR (Kalamazoo, MI)
106 VIC (Ithaca, NV)
BearCast (Cincinnati, OH)
WIPZ (Kenosha, WI)
WITR (Rochester, NY)
WKKL (West Barnstable, MA)
WLUR (Lexington, VA)
WMHB (Waterville, ME)
WMHD (Terre Haute, IN)
WMPG (Portland, ME)
WMUH (Allentown, PA)
WMUL (Hungtington, WV)
WNCW (Spindale, NC)
WNMC (Traverse City, MI)
WNSU (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
WNTI (Hackettstown, NY)
WOBN (Westerville, OH)
WOSP (Jacksonville, FL)
WOWL (Boca Raton, FL)
WPMD (Norwalk, CA)
WPNR (Utica, NY)
WQFS (Greensboro, NC)
WRFT (Ambler, PA)
WRIR (Richmond, VA)
WRUB (Amheast, NY)
WSIA (Staten Island, NY)
WSKB (Westfield, MA)
WTTU (Cookeville, TN)
WUDR (Dayton, OH)
WUSR (Scranton, PA)
WUTS (Sewanee, TN)
WVFS (Tallahassee, FL)
WVUA (Tuscaloosa, AL)
WVUD (Newark, DE)
WWHR (Bowling Green, KY)
WWSP (Stevens Point, WI)
WXLV (Schneckville, PA)
WYBF (Radnor, PA)
WZLY (Wellesley, MA)

PODSHOWS/STREAMING:

Clickklieak (South Africa)
Sheep Guarding Llama (NY)
Audio Attitude (MI)
The Red Light Zone (UK)
Phedippidations (Netherlands)
Taka No Iyasinbo (Japan)
Daily Breakfast (Netherlands)
RobKast Radio (Netherlands)
NORML Daily Audio Stash (NM)
Clarence Cast (Netherlands)
MvyRadio
Celebrate Radio
Moozikoo Radio
Desert Highway Radio
Radio Fly
Pancake Wednesday Longtown Sound 8
Mothpod
Daily Pod (Germany)
Ziggys Pop


ALBUMS:

Only Love Survives - (single)
Other Side of the Bridge - (Solo Full Length Album)
Ride On - (JOJA EP)
Organic - (Something Phonic Album)
Winds of Change - (Something Phonic EP)
Trouble no More - (Something Phonic EP)
Sopho King Groovy - (Something Phonic Live Album)
Tales from the Magic Shoppe - (Something Phonic EP)
Color by Numbers - (Something Phonic EP)
Something Phonic - (Something Phonic EP)
Ex Post Facto - (Ex Post Facto Cassette)
Mind Games for the Listener - (Spanky's Wagon Album)

FILM:

The Third Wheel
People Watching