We couldn’t hide our excitement and our plays on words when Tea Leaf Green announced that Reed Mathis would be taking over on bass for the foreseeable future. Personnel changes have a way of breathing new life into a band’s music, and Tea Leaf Green’s no exception. Mathis played his first two gigs with TLG this past weekend, and luckily a kind taper uploaded Saturday night’s show to the Live Music Archive within a few hours of the concert ending.

Tea Leaf Green 12/08/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]:

Photo by Chris O’Brien

I’m not a big Tea Leaf Green fluffer, so I consider myself pretty unbiased when it comes to analyzing their music. Most of the early reports about new bass player Reed Mathis’ have been overwhelming positive, but I wanted to hear it for myself. Now that I’ve heard him, color me impressed. Not only did the adapting band do a great job with the songs, they also hit some interesting peaks during the jams.

The jam of the night came towards the end of Piss It Away when Mathis led the boys down a dark path for a musical ass-kicking. Both Trevor and Josh came prepared, laying down some nice melodies over Reed’s probing bass lines. Ben Chambers was a solid bass player, but Reed Mathis pushed the members of TLG, rather than just playing along with them. Tea Leaf Green followed up Piss It Away with their Garden trilogy, starting with Part II before segueing into Part I and finally finishing with Part III. Clark earned a roar from the audience when he worked teases of Shakedown Street into the beginning of Garden Part II. Damn heady.

Other highlights from this show include Reed’s bass solo during Hot Dog, and everyone’s playing during what used to be Chambers’ signature song, Franz Hanzerbeak. Supposedly the new incarnation of Tea Leaf Green only had one day of practice as a band before taking the stage on Friday night. If that’s true we can’t even imagine how good this ensemble will be if they stay together for a while. While this audience tape sounds great, treat yourself to the official recording over at livedownloads to hear Tea Leaf Green 2.0. Read on for more GTA…

The Police 12/08/2007 SBD [FLAC, MP3]

The Police have been on tour for more than six months, and up until this week no soundboards from the reunion have leaked. Now thanks to broadcasts from Buenos Aires and Rio De Janeiro, we’ve got two pristine recordings from the South American leg of the tour. When it rains, it pours.

We first told you about the Buenos Aires recording in our last edition of MP3 Boot Camp, but that recording is riddled with extremely annoying announcements from two Spanish speaking commentators. Conversely, the tapes from Rio are full of unadulterated Police goodness.

The Police don’t waste any time hitting their stride on this night. From the moment Stewart Copeland kicks off Message In A Bottle through Andy Summers’ final flurry of notes in Next To You, the boys keep the level of energy and cohesiveness high. Hole In My Life and the Voices Inside My Head > When The World Is Running Down segment both continue to steal the spotlight on a nightly basis. Other standout tunes include So Lonely and a rare flawless De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. If you only download one bootleg from The Police’s reunion tour, make sure you pick up this outstanding recording.

Amy Winehouse 06/26/2007 FM [FLAC, MP3]

Oh, to look back on the long last days of June. Things were much simpler for Amy Winehouse back then, when her beloved husband Blake wasn’t incarcerated and she just sang about not wanting to go to rehab instead of having her mom beg her to attend. And back then, Wino gave one of her last lucid performances at the Hove Festival in Norway. Listening to this crispy FM boot of that performance makes us want to fly to England to help save her from ruining one of the most promising careers in music today.

Amy’s voice is in fine form throughout her performance, and she actually seems excited to be on stage. This is a far cry from her recent European tour where she just whined to the crowd about missing her husband. Amy sings most of the tunes from her latest album, but she also works some stellar covers into the mix. She does a nice job with Sam Cooke’s Cupid before moving onto Hey Little Rich Girl by The Specials and Monkey Man by Toots and the Maytals. Wino ended the show with a more contemporary cover: Valerie by Liverpool’s The Zutons. Hopefully Amy will get her shit together, and give us some performances as vibrant as the one she gave in Norway.

Here are five other downloads making the rounds on the torrent sites:

What are you guys listening to this week? Let us know in the comments…