Kurt Vile Gets the Feeling
Most years, Kurt Vile, the recording artist, plays months’ worth of gigs, either with his band, the Violators, or with various friends and idols, so he’s on the road a ton. But home is Philadelphia, as it’s been for all but a couple of his forty-six years. The name of his latest album, his tenth, is “Philadelphia’s Been Good to Me.”
One of the ways Philadelphia’s been good to him is by being close to New York. “I benefit from coming here and not having to pay the rent,” he said recently. He was sitting in a corner of Old Rabbit Club, a bar on MacDougal Street, drinking a non-alcoholic beer. He had on a Waylon Jennings T-shirt under a red plaid shirt, and an MF Doom baseball cap that contained a cascade of curly hair that Vile has a tendency to hide behind. A beer-menu lamplight suggested that the color of his Chuck Taylors was lavender. He was hanging out late (a) to make the trip down the turnpike at midnight (“Musicians know, it’s an easy shot late at night—it’s like teleportation”) and (b) to catch another band’s gig at Le Poisson Rouge. “In some ways, I like to go to shows more than play. I get the feeling. I’m a fanboy first.
“I can tell you every show I’ve been to,” he said. “My first show, which is a little embarrassing, was on my fourteenth birthday-ish, the Counting Crows at the Tower Theatre. But it was on the day of that show that me and my brother, the one just under me”—Vile has nine siblings—“first heard ‘Loser’ on the radio. I called in—it was WDRE, the alternative station—and said, ‘Can I hear that ‘Loser’ song again?’ The guy was, like, ‘Beck! You want to hear Beck!’ ” That summer, Vile saw Beck perform, on the Lollapalooza tour, along with Pavement, Hole, Sonic Youth, and Cypress Hill, whose music he’d been listening to on a Walkman while skateboarding. He was hooked.
“Before the pandemic, I was so busy with the family”—he and his wife have two teen-age daughters and live in the neighborhood of Mt. Airy—“I didn’t know how to leave the house. But the pandemic taught me how important shows are. There are so many people putting out records and touring. It’s competitive.” He maintains a wall calendar with upcoming concerts and reckons that, if he writes one in, “ninety-nine per cent I’m going.” That’s a strong N.F.A. (Non-Flake Average) for a middle-aged dad. “As long as there’s something up ahead, I won’t go insane,” he said.
He made his way over to Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleecker Street. The act tonight was the Messthetics, a punk-prog-jazz outfit, featuring the drummer and the bassist from Fugazi (Brendan Canty and Joe Lally), a guitar wizard (Anthony Pirog), and a sax man (James Brandon Lewis). Vile greeted Canty and Lally at the merch table and then found a spot at the back.
“I think last time I was here was fourteen years ago. J Mascis and Mike Watt were doing a Stooges thing. I got up and sang that song ‘No Fun.’ When I was done, Watt hollered into the mike, ‘No buns, Kurt Vile! No buns!’ ” They were busting on his skinny ass.
The Messthetics came on. “All right, we’re going to play,” the drummer said.
Vile popped in a pair of earplugs. After ten minutes, he darted off, then reappeared. “Come this way,” he said. “Guitar sounds better over there.” He was correct. When Pirog played a flashy line, which was often, Vile let out a cackle, an impish, cowpoke whoopee ti-yi-yo. “This guy sends you to the clouds!” he said. As Pirog’s guitar let out an atonal howl, Vile held up his phone to record it: “Always roll tape.”
The Messthetics went at it for ninety minutes. No one seemed to notice Vile. Afterward, he gave his compliments to the band but didn’t hang out, as he typically would. He said that certain acts made him tear up (he cited a recent Adam Sandler gig), but the Messthetics wasn’t that vibe. “This was more like transporting noise. I get chills, but it doesn’t make me cry.”
Outside, he met up with his guitar tech, who was doubling as his driver. There was stuff up ahead—the calendar entries, and rehearsals with the Violators, in preparation for a tour. (“I was anxious about playing the new stuff, but this record is bonehead simple,” Vile said.) Also, the next evening, a can’t-flake performance of “Chicago,” with his daughter Awilda in the ensemble. He recalled a night in Nashville, years ago, with John Prine and Billy Ray Cyrus, who told Vile, about Awilda, “Listen, man. I’ve got bad news. That one’s got charisma. You’re in trouble.”
Home before daylight: Vile and the guitar tech commenced turnpike teleportation protocol. ♦