This week begins a month full of M. Ward. After falling in love with his music earlier this winter, I took some Christmas money and bought the rest of his discography after Christmas. It arrived earlier this week, and I’m going to spread it out over the course of the month so I can come to appreciate it all a bit better. I’m going to try to do that more this year and be a bit more intentional about things. Also, I look to try and work down the bootleg backlog a bit harder. Why? Well, it’s also a goal of mine to hit 25 concerts this year, and that means a lot of recording. I already hit my first last night.

Here’s the new stuff:

• M. Ward’s Post-War.
  
• 30 Jul 2005 [Denver, CO, USA] concert bootleg of Sufjan Stevens.
• 13 Oct 2006 [Portland, OR, USA] concert bootleg of Sufjan Stevens.

After a really awesome two-week period, last week was a yawner.

• 24 May 1999 [West Hollywood, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. It’s just not that good of a recording, and the band sounds tired and flat. I don’t know if perhaps trying to salvage a bad taping is what makes this so flat; I could see that, though. Two stars.
• 24 Feb 2005 [Washington, DC, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. There are some good performances here, but … I’ve come to not like soundboard patches so much, as most soundboard patches don’t come with any crowd mics at all. A great live recording captures the reaction of the audience to the concert as it’s happening, and … this just doesn’t. Two-and-a-half stars.
• 30 Seconds to Mars’s A Beaufitul Lie. Nothing about this grabbed me at all. It made me feel like I was listening to terrestrial radio. :yawn: Two stars.