Not only am I powering through Springsteen this month—and this week is probably the peak, as you’ll see—I’m getting into John Fahey as well. I’m taking the advice of my friend Derek Webb, who has said several times, “If you want to get to know the music of someone you really like better, find out who they like.” At the time, he was talking about Wilco and Woody Guthrie’s influence on them, and for his fans, he could just as well be throwing them a bone in having them listen to The Beatles, who are definitely strongly influencing him right now. [I know, it sounds cliché, but it's working, folks.]

Anyhow, the Fahey comes from my love for M. Ward, who famously patterned Transfiguration of Vincent after Fahey’s The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death. I’m hoping to be blessed by this. On to the music:

• Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. No, I really don’t know how I made it to 2007 without owning this, either.
  
• John Fahey’s The Legend of Blind Joe Death, a re-master of his debut LP with sessions from the mid-1960’s.
  
• 21 Jul 1974 [San Francisco, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Eric Clapton.
• 12 Nov 1996 [Hollywood, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco.
• 16 Aug 2006 [Raleigh, NC, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy.
• 23 Aug 2006 [Raleigh, NC, USA] concert bootleg of Counting Crows. Kari, did Mike go to this show? If so, I’ll send him a copy of the show.
• 19 Oct 2006 [Washington, D.C., USA] concert bootleg of Wilco.

Last week turned out to be excellent:

• Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town was something that I just really, really enjoyed. Four stars.
  
• Over the Rhine’s Live from Nowhere, Volume Two was just as wonderful as the first. Four-and-a-half stars.
  
• 4 Feb 1985 [Milano, Italy] concert bootleg of U2. Two-and-a-half stars, partly because the sound is pretty meh, and partly because I don’t know older U2 that well.
• 4 Apr 1997 [Oslo, Norway] concert bootleg of Wilco. Pretty meh. Two-and-a-half stars.
• 25 Feb 2006 [Chicago, IL, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy. I was babbling about this show last night on Twitter [kicking off a long musical discussion with Baseball Prospectus's Will Carroll, concluding now with me giving in to his entreaties to give Drive By Truckers a shot], and … damn, it’s good. I don’t give five-star ratings to bootleg tracks often right now, but … this got a couple. Nels Cline, you rock my world, even on a banjo or a steel guitar. Four-and-a-half stars.
• 20 Oct 2006 [Latrobe, PA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. Really good recording, and a solid sound overall. Three-and-a-half stars.