Recorded during Rusted Root's Welcome to
My Party tour in 2003, this double-disc presents seven of that
album's 11 cuts, as well as 15 others in fine, raw,
loose-groove, spunky form. The material from the aforementioned
album comes off far better in this setting; the inherent
nocturnal funk slithers and pop and polyrhythmic invention and a
slippery, driving bass throb guiding the band into the backbone
slipping ether. In these songs, one segues into another -- or
gives the appearance of doing so -- as "Welcome to My Party"
cascades into Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," and
shapeshifts into "Cat Turned Blue" from 1994's When I Woke
seamlessly, funky insistence intact, then comes back to the
present with "Women Got My Money," that feels informed by Dr.
John's "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" in concert, while pumping
the gritty soul of "Weave" into the cover of Neil Young's "Powderfinger."
This is a stunner; in the grain of Michael Glabicki's voice one
can hear the rambling ghost of the Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce
if he were backed by the souled-out excellence of RR's Liz
Berlin and Jenn Wertz. Disc two kicks off with a beautiful
reading of "Send Me on My Way," that is followed with the
massive percussion workout "Ecstatic Drums," which segues into a
stunning version of "Ecstasy." In other words, there's no let up
in quality. There's the nocturnal voodoo crawl of "Food &
Creative Love," the raucous, celebratory "Cruel Sun," the moving
acoustic guitar shimmer in "Scattered," and the trance-like
snake dance orgy of "Back to the Earth" that closes the set,
just to name a few. Rusted Root takes a lot of unnecessary
critical crap for their alterna-tribe appearance, but the bottom
line is that this band throws down musically and has continued
to grow and explore. The evidence of that is right here. Thom
Jurek
*Jodie Foster asked RR to do a
rendition of Santana's Evil Ways for her film Home for the
Holidays - (good movie for this time of year if you haven't seen
it).
best intent,
mosshead7
