{"id":661869,"date":"2026-10-30T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661869\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:00:08","slug":"kurt-vile-talks-the-roots-charli-xcx-and-john-prine-for-song-shuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661869\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Vile Talks the Roots, Charli XCX, and John Prine for Song Shuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPhilly indie icon Kurt Vile<\/a> is a self-proclaimed Luddite in his music-listening habits, even still making CD mixes at home.\u00a0 But he\u2019s not totally averse to streaming, and he randomly played tracks from one of the playlists on his phone for Rolling Stone\u2018s Leah Lu in the latest episode of our Song Shuffle<\/a> series<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst came \u201cThe Handshake,\u201d a deep cut by his friend Steve Gunn, who played guitar in Vile\u2019s band, the Violators, on a 2013 tour. \u201cIt\u2019s like a bridge between modern times and Velvet Underground meets psych rock,\u201d Vile says. \u201cHe could be in the Seventies or he could be now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNext up was \u201cGoddess on a Hiway,\u201d from Mercury Rev\u2019s 1998 album Deserter\u2019s Songs. Vile\u2019s favorite part comes at the very end. \u201cIt seems like the keyboardist is waiting around for it,\u201d he says. \u201cJust at the last minute, he plays this really cool Hammond organ lick, and then it fades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen came \u201cThe Moors\u201d by June Tyson, a singer in the Arkestra, the band led by the late avant-garde jazz pioneer Sun Ra. Vile lives near the Philly house that Sun Ra and the band called home, where 102-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen still lives. \u201cI\u2019ve pilgrimaged over there quite a bit,\u201d Vile says. Sun Ra\u2019s music sounded \u201cnoisy\u201d to him at first, but he got into it during the pandemic, he explains: \u201cOnce you get deep into that story, for a while, no one else is gonna do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn Prine<\/a>\u2018s \u201cIt\u2019s Happening to You\u201d followed. \u201cJohn Prine\u2019s one of the few people that make a mustache look really cool,\u201d Vile says. He recalled getting to record with Prine before his death. \u201cHe was telling me stories, and I could hardly hear him \u2019cause I was just like, \u2018I can\u2019t believe he\u2019s here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Next was \u201cRight On\u201d by the Roots, Philly natives like Vile. The song samples Joanna Newsom, though Vile initially assumed she played on the song. \u201cI was like, man, she probably rolled up with all her homies to the studio,\u201d he says. \u201cThen somebody told me, \u2018No, that\u2019s a sample.\u2019 That song really slaps.\u201d When Newsom\u2019s 2015 album Divers first came out, he adds, \u201cthat CD never left the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Lu asked which song people should add to their playlists, Vile went with one of his own: \u201cZoom 97,\u201d the opener of his latest album, May\u2019s Philadelphia\u2019s Been Good to Me. He also recommended two Philly acts: One is Florry, a band with \u201cclassic-rock roots.\u201d and guitarist Emily Robb, an old friend who\u2019s \u201ckilling it in the punk scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVile also talked about his Charli XCX<\/a> fandom. \u201cMost of the pop music I was hearing, they got one amazing banger and some other good songs,\u201d he says. \u201cWhereas Charli, every song is a banger.\u201d Would he want to work with her? \u201cI\u2019m gonna sit back,\u201d he says, \u201c\u2019cause I\u2019m a little previous generation. But she knows I\u2019m here if she ever needs me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philly indie icon Kurt Vile is a self-proclaimed Luddite in his music-listening habits, even still making CD mixes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8232,56512,146,85,46,297966,214819,409,270451],"class_list":["post-661869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-charli-xcx","tag-direct","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-john-prine","tag-kurt-vile","tag-music","tag-song-shuffle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}