Brooklyn Bound: Kurt Vile Live at Converse Rubber Tracks

February 13, 2012



There’s a great American tradition of New York being a welcoming port and FADER teamed up with Converse’s new Rubber Tracks studio in Brooklyn to further it. Once a month, we’ll be welcoming touring artists to the neighborhood with a visit to a local Brooklyn institution, as well as making time for an intimate performance. Catch that exclusive show, interview and MP3s right here.

Kurt Vile is a lot like 2Pac. Not so much in that he's a mouthpiece for the conflicting sensibilities of impoverished black youth but in the way he eats a room with this kind of inescapable magnetism. A small heap of Kurt Vile fans gathered at Converse Rubber Tracks earlier this month and were able to drink and talk like people at concerts usually do, except that when Vile took the stage it all stopped. The bar runs and chit chat came to an abrupt halt just as Vile scurried up to the microphone, awkward in the way a young man might be before reading from the Torah at his own Bar Mitzvah. He slid into his guitar strap and not a minute later the world at large had washed away completely under the tide of his smoky serenade. Above you can watch Vile perform “I Wanted Everything” and below, “Smoke Ring for my Halo,” both emblematic of the shaggy singer's modest spell. Stay tuned for an interview with Vile at Williamsburg’s Record Grouch and an exclusive MP3 download from his performance coming soon.





Brooklyn Bound: Kurt Vile Live at Converse Rubber Tracks