Album of the Week: When I Woke

The Oscars are tonight! You can see all the recent coverage on PoYB if you click on our new "Oscars" tag. As far as I can tell, there are no Record Club alumni nominated tonight. However, Sturgill Simpson and Jack White were in Killers of the Flower Moon, so they might be in attendance. And I'm told that Bad Bunny is a presenter. Otherwise, this is the one night a year when I pretend that it is movies, not music, that are the most important art form. So enjoy. I'll see you back in this space when Nickelodeon announces the date of the 2024 Kids' Choice Awards.

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WEEK 267 — March 10-16, 2024

When I Woke

by Rusted Root

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY A POLL

JOE'S COMMENTS: We had a couple weeks to kill before the big team competition happens, so I figured I'd drop a link to a Google Docs poll and see if anyone would respond. There were eight choices, and six of them tied for last (I am very sorry to report that Donny Most, the famous non-virginal actor who portrayed Ralph Malph on the critically-acclaimed hit TV sitcom Happy Days, was one of those losers). When I Woke had one more vote than the losers, so here we are. (Kacey Musgraves' new album Deeper Well got the most votes, but we can't do that one first, since it's not out until Friday.) Thanks to all those who saw that there was a new RC poll and said "send me on my way." There was one person who only voted for Rusted Root, so maybe that person will write a review; the poll was anonymous so I guess we'll never know.

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: folk rock, acoustic rock, worldbeat

RELEASED: August 23, 1994

LENGTH: 58:45

TRACKLIST:

1. Drum Trip
2. Ecstasy
3. Send Me on My Way
4. Cruel Sun
5. Cat Turned Blue
6. Beautiful People
7. Martyr
8. Rain
9. Food & Creative Love
10. Lost in a Crowd
11. Laugh as the Sun
12. Infinite Tamboura
13. Back to the Earth

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: frontman Michael Glabicki is he/him/his

ABOUT: Rusted Root formed as a band in 1990 in Pittsburgh, PA. Originally, they consisted of singer-guitarist Michael Glabicki, bassist Patrick Norman, and percussionist Liz Berlin, but those numbers soon expanded as they added more sounds to their music. Rusted Root was most commercially successful with When I Woke, as their single "Send Me on My Way" was featured in movies and commercials (you're either a Matilda person or an Ice Age person). The band has been on hiatus since 2015, though Glabicki currently fronts a band called Uprooted with some other former Rusted Roots members, and there is a continuation of the former band's established sound as well.

DISCOGRAPHY: When I Woke is the second of seven LPs, and by far their most commercially successful. The band's debut was 1992's Cruel Sun. Most recently, they released The Movement in 2012, an album whose creation was crowdfunded.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: A 2013 interview with Glabicki that promises "the story of 'Send Me on My Way'"

WATCHING SOME SHIT: Rusted Root playing "Send Me on My Way" at the infamous Woodstock '99

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Interesting! I was about to say "I ain't got shit this week" (mainly because the Matilda and Ice Age soundtracks only has one other song each, and we haven't covered albums by Danny DeVito or Ray Romano yet), but the Woodstock '99 thing gets us somewhere. U.S. Girls sang about the event, and Sunny wrote about it, and I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned it in this space before (but correct me if I'm wrong).

Here are the RC alumni that played the event, besides Rusted Root: Dave Matthews Band, Alanis Morissette, Guster, and the Roots (damn, well there's a phonetic connection right there—two bands with the word "root" in their name... there was also The Family Tree: The Roots, if we're over here talking about roots now instead of Woodstock).

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RC CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Every week from now on, we're giving a quick re-listen to the RC album we covered five years ago exactly. Check out the quick reevaluation every Friday morning, before the regular reviews. Reevaluation, reflection, something like that. We'll see.

WEEK 6: March 10-16, 2019

Keep It Clean by Innanet James

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!