Pitchfork

Indie fashionistas, shoe-gazers, and just plain mopey readers of this website know it well: the Converse shoe, footwear item of choice for you and your cousin and that guy standing next to you at the show and that cute emo girl on her bike over there. And guess what? The Converse brand turns a full century old this year.

But you knew that already, right? Remember how Kurt, Ian, Karen, Maya, and Hunter told you all about it? Well, you can add three more names to that list: Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, Pharrell Williams, and Santogold.

To commemorate the Converse centennial, the Nike-owned company has brought these three folks together to dream up a little birthday track produced by Pharrell. It's been confirmed that the jam will be available for free download somewhere on the interweb soon. There will also be a video. However, the song doesn't have a title yet.

Santi White (aka Santogold) spilled the beans to Gigwise last week, describing the song as "such a Pharrell track," adding, "Everybody on it does their own separate thing and we didn't do it together so it ends up being just this weird long song with sort of everybody with lots of their own personalities separate."

Pitchfork heard the track today, and we have to say that her description is quite spot-on. Over a bouncy rhythm indebted to old school soul, the three take turns singing verses that seem to have little to do with one another, and absolutely nothing to do with Converse or shoes in general.

It sounds like a less shiny, more downtown version of the Timbaland/Justin Timberlake/Nelly Furtado jam "Give It to Me", complete with silly disses of unidentified targets ("I find your approach so adolescent / I may look young, but your game is pre-pubescent," Santogold sings.) Pharrell makes the unfortunate decision to try to sing (that has never worked out well in the past), crooning come-ons like "now thank you for coming to my drive-thru." As usual, Julian sounds like he just woke up, making the line "if you wanna be like us you better work every night" kind of comical. There's also a part near the end where everybody sings about how they "just wanna dance."

All in all, it should sound just fine in a TV commercial.

In other news, both Santogold and Pharrell (as part of N.E.R.D.) have plenty of dates on the docket. Julian doesn't seem to be doing much.

N.E.R.D.:

05-20 Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre *#!
05-21 Toronto, Ontario - Molson Center *#!
05-22 Auburn Hills, MI - The Palace *#!
05-23 Chicago, IL - United Center *#!
05-24 Chicago, IL - United Center *#!
05-25 Fargo, ND - Fargodome *#!
05-26 Winnipeg, Manitoba - MTS Centre *#!
05-27 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - Credit Union Centre *#!
05-29 Edmonton, Alberta - Rexall Place *#!
05-30 Calgary, Alberta - Pengrowth Saddledome *#!
06-02 Vancouver, British Columbia - GM Place *#!
06-03 Portland, OR - Rose Garden *#!
06-05 Reno, NV - Reno Events Center *#!
06-06 San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion *#!
06-07 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center *#!
06-08 Phoenix, AZ - Jobing.com Arena *#!
06-09 Salt Lake City, UT - E Center *#!
06-11 Minneapolis, MN - Target Center *#!
06-12 Moline, IL - i Wireless Center *#!
06-13 Cincinnati, OH - U.S. Bank Arena *#!
07-10-13 Novi Sad, Serbia - EXIT Festival
09-26-28 Austin, TX - Zilker Park (Austin City Limits Music Festival)

* with Kanye West
# with Lupe Fiasco
! with Rihanna

Santogold:

05-20 Paris, France - Noveau Casino
05-21 Antwerp, Belgium - Trix
05-22 Berlin, Germany - Tape Club
05-24 Bristol, England - Thekla (Dot to Dot Festival)
05-25 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms (Dot to Dot Festival)
05-26 Birmingham, England - Bar Academy
05-28 Liverpool, England - Alma de Cuba (Sound City Festival)
05-30 Glasgow, Scotland - Sub Club
05-31 Salamanca, Spain - Castilla y León International Arts Festival
06-01 Dublin, Ireland - Crawdaddy
06-03 London, England - Scala
06-07 Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheater (Live 105's BFD)
08-01-03 Chicago, IL - Grant Park (Lollapalooza)