Brooklyn Bound: An Exclusive Download From Kurt Vile’s Converse Rubber Tracks Performance

Photographer Emily Berl
February 17, 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.

Just after we'd finished interviewing Kurt Vile in the Record Grouch basement, an accomplice of Vile's appeared in jacket he'd tell Vile he just purchased, a very dynamic if not handsome buffalo plaid waistcoat. "It looks like shit," Vile deadpanned. We'll infer that the humor lies in some puckish envy, but the quip's recipient was no worse for the wear. "Smoke Ring For My Halo," the title track of Vile's 4th album is nearly a year old retail-wise, Vile probably having had to perform it hundreds of times by now. It's easy to wonder what he's really saying when he sings about angels and demons and maidens, but the reality is that it's probably just what was on his mind at the time. Download a live version of "Smoke Ring For My Halo," from Vile's performance at Converse Rubber Tracks, below.

Download: Kurt Vile, "Smoke Ring for My Halo (Live at Converse Rubber Tracks)"



Brooklyn Bound: An Exclusive Download From Kurt Vile’s Converse Rubber Tracks Performance