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You'll just have to trust us that Kurt Vile is under that big pile of shaggy hair. (Kyle Gustafson / www.photokyle.com)
Every so often a songwriter emerges who captures something about the city he calls home. Elliot Smith was as Portland as fixies and strollers. There is something free and unmistakably flyover about Omaha, Nebraska's Conor Oberst. Kurt Vile -- who finished a tour to support his latest record (and first release on Matador Records), Childish Prodigy, at the Black Cat on Thursday -- is making his claim as a lo-fi laureate of Philadelphia.
Mr. Vile -- who boasts one of the greatest names in rock -- played two shows, in a sense. For the majority of an extended set for the packed backstage, Vile was joined by two members of his better-known band, The War on Drugs, as well as guitar-wizard Jesse Turbo. Much like The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile and the Violators is distinguished by a folk-drone sound, heavy on repetitive guitar rhythms drenched in chorus pedal. For both the Violators and The War on Drugs, drummer Kyle Lloyd drives the heavy rhythm on his distinctive kit, leaning heavily on the toms primarily using a pair of hefty mallets. (Lloyd doesn't use a high-hat at all.) Playing with the Violators, Kurt Vile strays into sonic guitar-tech territory, with Adam Granduciel lending rhythm and Jesse Turbo on hand for stray sounds, pedal effects, held notes, and other Sonic Youth-y touches. "Could I get more echo on my harmonica?" Turbo asked toward the end of the set.
That's the Kurt Vile from the new record. If there's a complaint to be made about it, it's that Vile has strayed from the bedroom-recording aesthetic of his prior efforts, Constant Hitmaker and God Is Saying This to You. Playing sans Violators on several songs during the set, Vile's unembellished acoustic guitar shined. His mumbled drawl is more successful paired with his clean yet occasionally discordant picking. Though his draped locks never left his face during the show -- to the vocal frustration of a few fan-girls in the audience -- lyrics like, "I came across a girl/ She was a tomboy/ And I was a peepin' Tom," rose above the fray on his solo numbers.
The Dylan-esque couplets are easy to pick out: "You tell me a good man is hard to find/ Well, what are you, blind?" Yet on "Freak Train," easily the crowd favorite, Vile's growl sounded more like another Kurt whose sound defined a city. The lyrics occasionally venture into grunge territory, too. A sample chorus: "I don't care/ I don't care/ I don't care/ I don't care."
Vile and the Violators lean heavily on droning rhythm guitar and long verses and choruses, for the most part dispensing with the rock-n-roll bridge altogether -- not unlike their more cosmopolitan counterparts, TV on the Radio. (Also not unlike San Francisco's Girls, who are members of the same freshman class at Matador.) Vile (with or without the Violators) is enormously attentive to the overall sound -- but maybe less so to the performance at hand. He comes across as meaning a lot but caring not so much, choosing specifically the moments when he'd really play, but otherwise letting the sound carry him. Maybe that's obvious for an artist whose lyrics so determinedly explore ambivalence. There is something of a Philly charm to that.
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I'm pretty sure the drummer was Mike Zanghi, not Kyle Lloyd
I had the same sort of reaction to the show as you did on this blog.
http://flockalone.blogspot.com/2009/11/kurt-vile-and-violators-dc-black-cat.html
Check it out make a comment. There is a very cool video of thats peeping tom song. Great review. Thanks.