KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS Purling Hiss, Metal Mountains December 3, 2010

“Kurt Vile (real name, no gimmicks) has seemingly absorbed a lifetime’s worth of FM rock, and the ghosts of Springsteen, Seger, and others glimmer under the surface of his woozy, homemade bedroom pop.” –Pitchfork

There's a bunch of clowns all over the USA, all around around the world, cluttering up the rock n' roll stage with studied talent and recycled tunes. Hobbyists and hacks with guitars, eager to churn out a limp performance to kill a night and earn a couple free drinks. And then there's Kurt Vile (the handle his mother gave him) out of Philadelphia. A wild-eyed, baby-faced long-hair who's spent the last 12 years climbing up the stage or setting up in the back of a bookstore to stand, hunched over and giving breathless crowds from 5 to 500+ a string of bona-fide HITS that transcend genre or some passing aesthetic ghetto. He's remained a step outside any scene that's tried to claim him. Whether performing solo or backed by a first class American rock band called the Violators, he's dextrous and confident on the neck of an acoustic or electric, both relaxed and full of life at the microphone.

Let the lazy scribes speculate on Kurt's influences. Bruce, Suicide, Neil, Spacemen, Patton, Velvets, dozens of under-sung loners with guitars, whoever. But KV doesn't so much borrow the moves of his elders as he does swallow them up and spit them back as if they were his all along. Listen to him lead the Violators through "Monkey" by the Dim Stars for proof. Each one of these tunes sounded classic the day it was committed to tape. Classic.

Rock music has a new hitmaker to deal with. Here he is, freaks, your Childish Prodigy.

--Richie Charles (testostertunes.blogspot.com)

Official Website: http://bk.knittingfactory.com/event-details/?tfly_event_id=17583