No, that headline is not a political slogan--though I can't begin to tell you how many times I wish I'd picked up a "Free James Brown" T-shirt during that forgotten liberation movement. And it's not an appeal to fans of the titular St. Bernard from the well-regarded cinema quintuple feature, Beethoven, Beethoven's Second, Beethoven's Third, etc.

Rather, BBC Radio, in a typically beebish gesture, has made Beethoven's nine symphonies available for free download at this website. You already missed your crack at one through five, which is fine because who really needs more than four? If you don't want to be a jerkoff, you might consider waiting until my downloads are finished, as the files are dribbling in at 3kb a sec--a rate so slow that I could probably inner-tube across the North Atlantic and pick up a cassette, or have someone cable over a string of 1s and 0s by morse code.

The cheap man, as is so often the case in this world, is a frustrated man.

This post represents the first in what I imagine will become a series dedicated to the places where mp3s still roam free. I started with Beethoven mostly because I have a hunch his name hasn't appeared in City Pages this decade, and probably won't again. Unless Grodin is signed on for Beethoven's Sixth.

"Brilliant uprising of musical mischief" to take place downtown

Received a letter today from someone called the "The Innominate Composer." It seems said composer has written a piece entitled "The Hobbled Hobbit," which he/she only describes as a "new and refreshing" piece of music. Mr. Innominate has distributed parts of the composed piece around the Cities, as well as clues to where the spontaneous one-time performance will take place (today at 2:00 at 100 S. Washington Ave.) The composer says that a calling card will be left at the location regarding the subsequent event/musical performance. Did I just get punked? Or is this the new flash mob?

I finally started reading Norman Rush's early '90s novel Mating, and I'm loving it. Here's a little piece about it from Salon.

Will Smith, "Switch"

I'd be totally cool with Will Smith if he weren't so bland and smug and humorless and if I were 11. True, I sure enjoyed "Parents Just Don't Understand," which made some super points about generational conflict, and Six Degrees of Separation, which made some instructive points about the pronunciation of "bottle of beer," but for the past decade or more I've held that Smith's only artistically defensible career move would be retirement. And then I heard "Switch," which is...not bad! That giant kick drum and the handclaps and the ooh-la-la-las and the Prince synth--straight up jiggy.

Most of the credit should go to Kwame, the former polka-dot-shirt wearing rapper (check out his 1989 debut, The Boy Genius) who's enjoying a healthy second career as a producer (Lloyd Banks's bluesy "On Fire," for instance, was his). Credit the star for picking the right friends. And for a while Smith sounds nothing like one of the vocal talents featured in A Shark?s Tale. Then he uses a verse to complain about celebrity and remind us, lest we question his cred, that he was a bona fide close-the-bar-down club rat way back when he was "amateur spittin'"--you know, before he had his first hit, in his late teens. --Dylan Hicks

Brad Paisley, "Alcohol"

Alcoholic poets are a dime a dozen, but poets of alcoholism, those are worth at least four bucks per six-pack. Country singer Brad Paisley had a hit last year with "Whiskey Lullaby," a duet with Alison Krauss in which a couple of hard-luck romantics slowly commit suicide by overboozing. In certain parts of Wisconsin, sources say, the song has become already become a wedding and prom-night standard. It wasn?t quite as haunting as it intended to be, but it wasn?t forgettable either. If "Whiskey Lullaby" was a drinking song for morticians sung from the vantage of a sympathetic observer, Paisley?s latest single, "Alcohol," is a drinking song for barkeeps sung by the sauce itself. "You had some of the best times you?ll never remember, with me, alcohol," sings Paisley, who notes common best-of-times results of dipsomania such as getting fired, unplanned excursions into amateur pornography, and the transformation of lampshades into hats. Surely no one but uninspired ironists ever does the lampshade-hat thing anymore, but then, uninspired ironists are a nickel a dozen.

"Helping white people dance" is another of the narrator/song?s noble missions, and Paisley and band?s amiable performance stands a good chance of starting some wobbly waltzes. But allow me to offer some sober complaints: Bringing in the obligatory "barroom chorus," a la Garth Brooks?s "Friends in Low Places," Toby Keith?s "I Love This Bar," and Gretchen Wilson?s "Redneck Woman," is a follower?s misstep; and the band--very good, mind you, especially the lead guitarist--might have done well to loosen up a bit before rolling tape. They sound like a bunch of professionals in a fancy air-conditioned recording studio at 3:00 p.m. playing music while drinking diet soda in moderation. Just a guess. Fun song, though. It should come fully into its own when plowed through during some cover band?s third set. --Dylan Hicks

Jack Knife & the Sharps are headed back to Iraq

The redoubtable local rockabilly outfit will be entertaining military personnel in Kuwait and Iraq from August 1st to the 15th. Owing to safety concerns they won't know their exact agenda until arriving overseas. "They don't tell us where we're going until we get there," says frontman Rick Hollister. "It's always been that way."

Jack Knife & The Sharps logged two military road trips last year, to the Balkans and then Iraq. (Here's a Q & A I did with Hollister last summer about the performances.) But this will be the band's longest journey yet. Hollister notes that, unlike military personnel, they don't get any time to acclimate to the heat upon arriving in Kuwait. They immediately have to push on to the first gig. "It's really a brutal hard thing to do," he says. "They just figure band people are made of steel."

Seriously. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. Can we? Let's erase Tom Cruise's protruding jaw from our brain, and his big horse teeth and that little chunk of cheek that vibrates when he gets angry or confused or postures like he's not five-feet tall. Scientology? Never heard of it. I think my eigth-grade earth-science teacher was into it, though. It's how he explained kinetic energy and random velocities.

Now that that's done: Instead of spending the holiday weekend in a theater watching a movie that doesn't exist, check out Multiplex at the Soap Factory, a three-day festival of video, film, and sound projects from local and national artists. Monday night includes fireworks, a film by Cory McAbee, and the 10-Second Film Fest, featuring short films captured on cell phones, still digital cameras, and more.

Former fans of The Rosie O'Donnell Show may recall that Ro openly worshipped one Tom Cruise. In fact, she referred to him exclusively as "My Tommy" and kept a soundbite from the Who's "Tommy" on her desktop control panel. T.C. fell just below Streisand and Drake's Cakes on O'Donnell's list of favorite things But now, as reported by PerezHilton.com, Cruise has even managed to alienate his biggest fan. Recently, O'Donnell subtly lambasted Cruise on her oft-inscrubtable blog. The backlash is now official.

"Black hip-hop kids as the gatekeepers for what's hot has long been the state of affairs for mainstream and cutting-edge hip-hop?but that may be changing in some parts of the country like Minneapolis, for example, where white MCs and white audiences have it on lock." --from this week's Village Voice examination of why underground hip hop is so white. Refreshing to see them quoting Brother Ali and not bringing up his skin color. Read more at Complicated Fun.

So this Saturday I finaly got to see Herbie: Fully Loaded, which should be called "The Greatast, Funnest Movie in the World" because it is. Lindsey Lohan is so beutiful. When I do grow boobs I hope they look exactly like hers. I hope I marry Fez from That 70s Show and we make a baby with our private parts. The baby will be called Maddison with two Ds. I made up that name isnt it original? Dont steal it!

Now Ive heard some things about Lindsay that are mean. That she takes Cocaine maybe, which isn't so bad because Bo Bice loves cocaine and Bo Bice is perfect. I also heard that she's not nice to people when she's making her movies and acts like a brat. That's NOT TRUE!!! They are LYERS. I read Teen People and they said she is nice and "Down to Earth" and sort of like the girl you want to be freinds with. I would love to be her freind. She could buy us matching pink dimond rings that say "BFF" ingraved on them and we would wear them forever because thats what BFF means. It means you are freinds forever (except for my former BFF Meghan who betraid me. She said she got her period and she didnt. She used marker.)

Anyway this weekend Lindsey Lohan was going to a party for some people that make dimonds. And these people called Protesters were outside saying "You shouldnt wear dimonds because people in Africa have to hunt for them and its really hard!" And they were yelling at Lindsey. But do you know what my girl did? She ignored them just like I ignore my teacher! Because she doesnt need their drama. And who cares if people in Africa have to hunt for dimonds? Thats their job. Thats what they pay them to do. That sounds like a very easy job if you ask me. My dad works at a big desk for the State of Wisconsin--THAT is a hard job. Hunting for beutiful diamonds in a warm place like Africa is not hard. Stop complaining, Protesters. You are just jealous of Lindsey because she's rich and wears a bra.

...but holy cats! What a total piece of crap! Burn Hollywood burn!