This week, I get the new albums from two artists who mean a whole lot to me:

• Caedmon’s Call’s Overdressed. I should be in Houston today for the start of release week, but … no.
  
• Over the Rhine’s The Trumpet Child.
  
• 21 Oct 2000 [Atlanta, GA, USA] concert bootleg of Elliott Smith.
• 27 Jan 2006 [Chicago, IL, USA] concert bootleg of Feist.
• 9 Feb 2006 [San Francisco, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy.
  
• 17 Oct 2006 [Trussville, AL, USA] concert bootleg of Derek Webb.
  
• 3 Feb 2007 [Dublin, Ireland] concert bootleg of The Decemberists.
  

Last week just wasn’t good at all from the bootleg perspective:

• Rush’s 2112. There are some really amazing things going on here. I shouldn’t even begin to base my opinions on this on just a week of listening. Four stars.
  
• 26 Mar 2000 [New Haven, CT, USA] concert bootleg of Feist. You get a sense of the goodness that is to come, but it’s sonically not too much to listen two. Two-and-a-half stars.
• 5 Oct 2000 [London, England] concert bootleg of Elliott Smith. This sounds like the mic setup wasn’t optimal to the room—probably like some of my own recordings, really. [Haven't invested in cardiods yet.] Despite the fact that it’s omnis and echo-y, it’s still decent. Three stars.
• 5 Dec 2001 [Los Angeles, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. Man, Jeff sounds horrible. No way that they should have been playing a show that night. The recording is also distant-sounding—it’s hollow and sorta muddy. Two-and-a-half stars.
  
• 8 Feb 2006 [San Francisco, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy. This was the last bootleg I listened to this week, and I said, “It’s Tweedy at The Fillmore. Someone’s gonna have a great setup.” Unfortunately, no … but it’s good. Too much crowd for my tastes—I like hearing them, but they could have been compressed more to give Jeff more volume. Three stars.
  
• 18 Oct 2006 [Portland, OR, USA] concert bootleg of The Decemberists. This recording has a bit more depth than last week’s did [and it's the same band in the same venue on the next night, so they're good comparisons], but … still not up to the quality of some of the better Wilco recordings I have. But very good nonetheless. Three-and-a-half stars.
• 20 Apr 2007 [Louisville, KY, USA] concert bootleg of Son Volt. I didn’t realize that the breakup of Uncle Tupelo doomed Son Volt to generally have broke-ass tapers without good microphones. Most Wilco shows get at least one quality recording these days, but Son Volt seems to be doomed to get rank amateurs like me. Two stars.