Open up your eyes and let the child learn

March 10, 2018 1:37 PM

Rusted Root's first major label album, When I Woke, combined world rhythms and folk rock to become a platinum-selling album [YT playlist, ~1h] in 1994. Cassette Side A: Drum Trip [which on the album leads into], Ecstasy [video], Send Me On My Way [video], Cruel Sun, Cat Turned Blue, Beautiful People

Cassette Side B: Martyr, Rain, Food & Creative Love, Lost In A Crowd, Laugh As The Sun [which on the album leads into], Infinite Tamboura, Back To The Earth

posted by hippybear (21 comments total)

In my mind rusted root is the apotheosis of white people drum circle music.
posted by Ferreous at 1:39 PM on March 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

I have this album.Coolest sound to come out of Pittsburgh in my time.
posted by irisclara at 2:03 PM on March 10, 2018

Pittsburgh's most successful rock band, which not to disparage Rusted Root, doesn't say that much. For whatever reason, not too many bands have made it out of here.

Since there are never more than two degrees of separation in Pittsburgh, I have a bunch of personal connections to the band. My son runs the lights in Liz Berlin's club and my coworker was the band's first guitar player. Also one of the drummers came and taught drumming at our UU church once.
posted by octothorpe at 2:17 PM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

For whatever reason, not too many bands have made it out of here.

Alas for the Affordable Floors ;__;

I don't think it's possible to live in Pittsburgh and not have at least a few degrees of separation from Rusted Root. I think I saw them at Metropol actual eons ago.
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:36 PM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pittsburgh's most successful rock band, which not to disparage Rusted Root, doesn't say that much. For whatever reason, not too many bands have made it out of here.

There must have been a punk band named The Pittsburgh Toilets
posted by thelonius at 2:57 PM on March 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

...always mixed them up with Busted Flush.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:26 PM on March 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Saw them two New Year's Eves in a row, then senior year in college. I was on the concert committee, so I had to help set up and take down the stage. I got a free shirt!
posted by dirigibleman at 5:12 PM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love these guys, and this album was my CD on repeat during my college days in the 90's.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 5:50 PM on March 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

seemoobadeeyah
posted by Molten Berle at 6:41 PM on March 10, 2018

octothorpe: "Pittsburgh's most successful rock band"

Hello, what about Donnie Iris?!?

Anyway, I was at Penn State in 1994, and this album was freaking inescapable.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:50 PM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Whenever I mention this band, almost nobody has any idea what I'm talking about. I'm glad I didn't hallucinate them entirely.
posted by Foosnark at 7:44 AM on March 11, 2018

When I moved here I had a conversation with a co-worker* who thought Donnie Iris was as big as Springsteen and was shocked that I'd only barely heard of him before I moved here. He refused to believe me that Donnie wasn't a huge deal everywhere. Nothing against Mr. Iris, he seems like a good guy and props to him for still getting out there and playing at the age of 75.

*He'd named his daughter Leah after Dawnie's song
posted by octothorpe at 7:45 AM on March 11, 2018

He thought Donnie Iris was the Bob Seger of Pittsburgh, but Donnie Iris is, like, the Michael Stanley of Pittsburgh.
posted by box at 8:31 AM on March 11, 2018

Never heard of Michael Stanley so that probably proves your point.
posted by octothorpe at 9:13 AM on March 11, 2018

In the '70s and '80s, he was responsible for sort-of hits like 'He Can't Love You' and 'My Town.'

Or, to put it another way, he's the Donnie Iris of Cleveland.
posted by box at 9:30 AM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I saw them open for Toad the Wet Sprocket in Knoxville, TN lo these many years ago. They were touring this album, and their live show was AMAZEBALLS. Better than Toad, tbh.
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:30 AM on March 11, 2018

box: "In the '70s and '80s, he was responsible for sort-of hits like 'He Can't Love You' and 'My Town.'

Or, to put it another way, he's the Donnie Iris of Cleveland."

Oh, I totally know those songs. Probably from those years of listening to unending rawk radio when I was working in construction.
posted by octothorpe at 9:33 AM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Simeon the whale! Simeon my whale! (I loved this album in college and it's still a great driving album for road trips.)
posted by merriment at 11:59 AM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I saw them open for Toad the Wet Sprocket

Oh, that is a time capsule in one phrase.

I saw them in Albany, NY, in early 1995. I got an amazing contact high and I remember mostly how many girls in cotton Indian-print skirts would just twirl, and twirl, and twirl to each of the songs.
posted by sobell at 8:22 PM on March 11, 2018

I think that the only time that I saw them was in '94 at the Blue Heron Festival in Jamestown New York.
posted by octothorpe at 8:33 PM on March 11, 2018

I saw them open for Toad the Wet Sprocket in Knoxville, TN lo these many years ago. They were touring this album, and their live show was AMAZEBALLS. Better than Toad, tbh.

I had the same experience with Carbon Leaf. Toad? Meh. Carbon Leaf? Pretty good! Bought a CD.

A friend of mine got me the RR album and asked me what I thought. I said, "It sounds like a combination of the Dead and Talking Heads." I love this one and their second album. I never got into the third.
posted by corvikate at 12:13 PM on March 12, 2018