by SHANE SINNOTT

Given that this is the hot and sweaty time of year, I say we all start getting excited about the King Khan and the Shrines show coming up on July 25. King Khan—previously of the Spaceshits under the moniker Blacksnake, and also of the King Khan & BBQ Show—assembled the Shrines in Germany as a backing band. On Vice’s greatest-hits release of last month, The Supreme Genius of…, each track is an infectious bit of psychedelic soul, and the Shrines these days are sporting some top-notch talent (Ron Streeter, who’s played on records by Bo Diddley, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder, is in there). I suspect la Sala Rossa will be packed. I’ve sussed out two representative tracks for you, “Torture,” which you can get at tinyurl.com/5sz7yl, and “I Wanna Be a Girl,” which is at tinyurl.com/638x5s. Have fun.

If you like hip hop, and you don’t like paying for music, I stumbled upon the blog for you this week: my-free-rap.blogspot.com/. The browser title is “I found it! The Hip Hop Blog everybody hates.” Instead of the normal blog pretence of putting up single songs for sampling purposes to illustrate an article about a band, this guy just goes for it—links for full albums for anything he can find. The writer even posts a “Free Music Philosophy,” which he explains this way: “I have a humungous appetite for music and I’m never satisfied. On top of that, I’m broke as hell so I can’t afford buying albums on an ongoing basis. The solution: free music. I believe music should be free and accessible to everyone, talented music artists have many other ways of making money aside from selling CDs, so in my opinion, downloading free music should be legal... But not every one thinks like me, so check the disclaimer on top of the page.” So there you have it, one of the most un-thought-through philosophies ever. But hey, there’s a lot of stuff on there, so check it out soon, before the upcoming “upgrade” to the site, when I bet money becomes involved.