I’ve worked through a lot of the music backlog, so I’m gonna drop back to two-and-five this week…

• The Velvet Underground’s VU.
  
• George Strait’s Strait Country.
  
• 6 Dec 2002 [Long Beach, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Iron & Wine. 2006-12-06: Fingerprints Music Store, Long Beach, CA, USA
  
• 1 Sep 2007 [Lexington, KY, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. 2007-09-01; The Dame, Lexington, KY, USA (disc 1) and 2007-09-01: The Dame, Lexington, KY, USA (disc 2).
  
• 9 Oct 2007 [Milwaukee, WI, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. 2007-10-09: Eagle's Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI, USA (disc 1) and 2007-10-09: Eagle's Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI, USA (disc 2).
  
• 19 Dec 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of Ben Folds. 2007-12-19: Exit/In, Nashville, TN, USA (disc 1) and 2007-12-19: Exit/In, Nashville, TN, USA (disc 2).
  
• 24 Aug 2008 [Hollywood, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Radiohead. 2008-08-24: Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA, USA (disc 1) and 2008-08-24: Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA, USA (disc 2).
  

Last week:

• Feist’s Open Season. I’m a sucker for remixes because they are new ways to hear familiar tracks. Plus, a couple of these are stripped-down, acoustic affairs, which show of Leslie Feist’s greatest asset—her voice. Four stars.
  
• Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal. I think I’m beginning to see what all the fuss is about … I like it a lot. This is a big sounding record, solidly out of a roots rock tradition but with a pleasing amount of crunchiness to catch the ear of a more modern listener. Four stars.
  
• The Velvet Underground’s eponymous album. A solid little record. It’s clear what era that VU records come from, but they’re great representatives of that time. Three stars.
  
• 15 Jun 2006 [Northampton, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. Another fine OtR show. Four stars.
  
• 24 Jun 2007 [Northampton, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. It’s kinda hard to tell that this is a bootleg, which I guess is a credit to the mics. Would that I had the bones to drop on those. The recording is quite clear, to the point that you’d have no idea that you were at an outdoor concert. If I have any complaint, it’s that there’s not much bass, but I bet that’s probably a function of the capsule set. Four stars.
  
• 29 Jun 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of Sandra McCracken, Derek Webb, and Bleu. Not my best recording, to be sure, but I was using my backup recording device. Three stars, but only because of the musicianship and the fact that Sandra played two songs off of Red Balloon.
  
• 6 Aug 2008 [Boston, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Gnarls Barkley. I am of two minds about using binaural mics for bootleg recordings: I don’t think they’re generally up to it, but sometimes, they’re the only thing that you can get past security. I just find that they make the whole thing sound too flat. As such, this gets just three stars.