The studio recordings are a smorgasboard, but the bootlegs are a salute to the Bay State. [Bleu is from Boston.]

• Feist’s Open Season.
  
• Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal.
  
• The Velvet Underground’s eponymous album.
  
• 15 Jun 2006 [Northampton, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. 2006-06-15: Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA, USA.
  
• 24 Jun 2007 [Northampton, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. 2007-06-24: Pines Theater, Northampton, MA, USA (disc 1) and 2007-06-24: Pines Theater, Northampton, MA, USA (disc 2).
  
• 29 Jun 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of Sandra McCracken, Derek Webb, and Bleu. 2008-06-29: 12th and Porter, Nashville, TN, USA (disc 1) and 2008-06-29: 12th and Porter, Nashville, TN, USA (disc 2).
  
• 6 Aug 2008 [Boston, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Gnarls Barkley. 2008-08-06: Wilbur Theater, Boston, MA, USA
  

Last week was uneven, but the good stuff was very good:

• Sandra McCracken’s Red Balloon. Predictably, I love it. There are a couple moments on the record that I don’t get, but all in all, I think this lives up to the hype that Derek has been giving it. Four stars.
  
• Nirvana’s In Utero. Sadly, it doesn’t have the punch that Nevermind did, probably understandable as a sophomore major-label release. That, plus a dalliance into noise rock that I didn’t enjoy, got it two-and-a-half stars from me. The goods are great! The bads are … meh.
  
• Jackopierce’s Promise of Summer. Quite, quite enjoyable. A four-star record for me, and I’ll be getting more JP records from the back catalog. [See? Giving stuff away for free works.]
  
• 3 Feb 2006 [Las Vegas, NV, USA] concert bootleg of Coldplay. So meh. A distant recording from the audience, and … eh. Two-and-a-half stars.
  
• 26 Oct 2007 [New York, NY, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. Fan-fucking-tastic. Four-and-a-half stars. If you love OtR, get it. Go. Now. You. NOW.
  
• 17 Jul 2008 [London, England] concert bootleg of Death Cab for Cutie. Also kinda distant, but with a better base to start with. Three stars.
  
• 26 Jul 2008 [Anchorage, AK, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. No, I didn’t pick this in honor of Sarah Palin. This is the band whose debut release was titled A.M.; sadly, it sounds like it was recorded from an AM broadcast: over-compressed, tinny, and muddled. An example: when the band does their Wall of Noise trick in the opening cut, “Via Chicago”, everything is … the same sound level. Jeff is clearly heard. This … just isn’t the way it ought to be at all. Having looked at the mic used in the recording, I’m guessing that this is the sound guy’s fault, or perhaps just crappy mains. But, you know, if I lived in Anchorage, I really wouldn’t give a shit, because Wilco rocks. The good thing is that we get two new songs out of it, and new songs? Always good. The rating is two stars.
  

This week is a mix of old and new: old studio releases [all at least a decade old], and new bootlegs [all from 2008].

• R.E.M.’s Murmur.
  
• George Strait’s Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind.
  
• The Cardigans’ Emmerdale.
  
• 25 Apr 2008 [Dayton, OH, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. 2008-04-25: Canal Street Tavern, Dayton, OH, USA (disc 1) and 2008-04-25: Canal Street Tavern, Dayton, OH, USA (disc 2).
  
• 28 Apr 2008 [Los Angeles, CA, USA] concert bootleg of She & Him. 2008-04-28: Vista Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
  
• 16 May 2008 [St. Louis, MO, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. 2008-05-16: The Pageant, St. Louis, MO, USA (disc 1) and 2008-05-16: The Pageant, St. Louis, MO, USA (disc 2).
  
• 25 Jul 2008 [Santa Monica, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Gnarls Barkley. 2008-07-25: Morning Becomes Eclectic, KCRW-FM, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
  

Last week:

• Iron and Wine’s The Shepherd’s Dog. I hadn’t really, really loved any of Sam Beam’s previous work; this, however, sparkles. Four-and-a-half stars.
  
• Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple. Fan-damn-tastic. Four stars.
  
• Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Three stars. [I blame listening to Girl Talk on getting this.]
  
• 8 Nov 1992 [Chicago, IL, USA] concert bootleg of Uncle Tupelo. A surprisingly good recording, given the age. Three-and-a-half stars.
  
• 16 Mar 2007 [Dayton, OH, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. Your standard kick-ass OtR@CST show. Four stars.
  
• 15 May 2008 [St. Louis, MO, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. Three stars. Solid but unspectacular.
  
• 3 Jun 2008 [Paris, France] concert bootleg of Feist. It’s a bit treble-y and feels weak, but it has good crowd capture, which to me is something that you want [because, otherwise, it's a one-off rendition of songs you've heard before; this is why I'm not the biggest fan of soundboards]. Two-and-a-half stars.
  

Hallelujah and praise the Lord! I’m on vacation!

• Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism.
  
• Paper Route’s Are We All Forgotten, on the suggestion of Jeff.
  
• Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere. Yes, I am slow to the GB party, but Stephen got me there.
  
• 16 Aug 2001 [Jersey City, NJ, USA] concert bootleg of Radiohead. 2001-08-16: Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, USA (disc 1) and 2001-08-16: Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, USA (disc 2).
  
• 17 Nov 2006 [Dayton, OH, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. 2006-11-17: Canal Street Tavern, Dayton, OH, USA (disc 1) and 2006-11-17: Canal Street Tavern, Dayton, OH, USA (disc 2).
  
• 13 Oct 2007 [Kansas City, MO, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. 2007-10-13: The Crossroads at KC, Kansas City, MO, USA (disc 1) and 2007-10-13: The Crossroads at KC, Kansas City, MO, USA (disc 2).
  
• 12 Apr 2008 [Norfolk, VA, USA] concert bootleg of Spoon. 2008-04-12: The Norva, Norfolk, VA, USA (disc 1) and 2008-04-12: The Norva, Norfolk, VA, USA (disc 2).
  

Last week was pretty disappointing.:

• Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. Okay, so the Led Zeppelin that I love is the rockin’, bluesy stuff. And to quote Wikipedia on Houses of the Holy, “This album was a stylistic turning point in the lifespan of Led Zeppelin.” And, well, on “The Song Remains the Same”, I was confused for a minute, thinking that maybe Geddy Lee had replaced Robert Plant or something. [I'm sure that several people broke things after reading that sentence.] Admittedly, it gets back to sounding a little more like Led Zeppelin as the album progresses, and I am the person that did say, just two weeks ago, “I’m a firm believer that bands have to experiment lest they [and/or their fans] become totally bored with the thing.” But that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. So, yes, I should rate this now, right? Three stars, mainly on the strength of “Dancing Days” and “D’yer Mak’er”.
  
• The Cardigans’ Super Extra Gravity. The phrase that I was going to use for this album was “solid, but boring” until I got to “I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer”. I have a lot of friends who are excellent singer/songwriters, so I say this with a bit of trepidation, but … man, The Cardigans rock way too damn much to try to do the singer/songwriter+backing band thing. Sadly, that and a fusion of quasi-country stuff [although it felt like Nina Persson was channeling Sixpence's Leigh Nash for the first few tracks] made for a boring start. But it picks up in the second half of the record, which is good. Three-and-a-half stars.
  
• Coldplay’s Viva La Vida. Egad. Jacob said this about Coldplay on a forum I run: “The best way I can put it is that I like simpler Coldplay. It just feels like they’re trying to be something that they’re not right now. The indie-rock/prog-rock (good call Adriene) feel just doesn’t fit what Coldplay was. Sure that sounds like the old fan wishing their band hadn’t grown up and changed their sound…I’ll cop to that. But some of their earlier songs made me want to cry. Now their new stuff does that but for different reasons.” I can’t say it any frickin’ better. One-and-a-half stars, and if any of my friends wants it, I’ll give it to them. I don’t want it back. One-and-a-half stars. I haven’t bought an album that I’ve actively hated in quite some time, but … this is it. Gah.
  
• 25 Oct 1997 [Utica, NY, USA] concert bootleg of Blues Traveler. I’m surprised that a SBD sounds this poorly-mixed, but then I probably shouldn’t be. Sound board operators don’t have time to give tapers jacking into their boards the time to give perfectly-mixed feeds. The mix is very definitely pushed towards the treble and towards John’s voice standing out above all others. For people that crap on me wanting to do SBD/AUD matrices, well, suck on this. Two stars. [Sad, because Bob Sheehan was really on this night. And before Chris Smith says crap to me ... suck on it, LC.]
  
• 1 Sep 2007 [Denver, CO, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. Gah. Another week of getting burnt by a stealth rig. Venues that don’t allow tapers suck. This sounds pretty good despite being stealthily done. Two-and-a-half stars.
  
• 26 Apr 2008 [Dayton, OH, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. It’s a rare case when I’m disappointed by a matrix [well, other than my own, heh], but I am by this one. Karin’s vocals are too hot in the mix, but I fear that’s probably a fault of the sound board op [which shocks me, because this typically isn't the case with CST shows] than the taper. [After all, if she's too hot in the SBD feed, she's probably too hot in the mains, and you can't compensate with the AUD part of the feed to get more of the band.] I mean, it’s still a decent recording, but I only give it three stars. I expected four-plus.
  
• 27 May 2008 [Milan, Italy] concert bootleg of Feist. Feist bootlegs are hard to come by, so I was willing to chance it on a recording made by a Zoom H2’s internal mics. [Hey, I own and use a Tascam DR-1, so I'm understanding. It's just that internal mics aren't going to get a big band's sound, especially not in a room like that.] So it’s not terribly surprising that the recording is muddy and distant, but hey, it’s free, right? Two-and-a-half stars.