Music

Kurt Vile's been good to Philadelphia

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Published July 1, 2026 at 11:22 AM MDT

When you take the El — that's the elevated rail line — into Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood, you'll pass a giant Kurt Vile mural. It was used as the cover of his 2013 album, Wakin on a Pretty Daze.

And then, it just stayed up there. It's still there now: Kurt Vile, in giant block letters, a tribute to an artist who loves the city just as much as it loves him.

And Kurt Vile really loves Philadelphia. His new album, called Philadelphia's Been Good to Me, was mostly recorded in his basement home studio. In today's session, for our Sense of Place: Philadelphia series, Vile performs songs from the record and talks about growing up in the area and playing music there for decades. We also get to Kurt's tips for driving in Philadelphia.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Music

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod

Kurt Vile's been good to Philadelphia

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